Acclamation

Personally, I feel like aversion to diversity stems from a fear of the unknown. I remember very distinctly going to babysit at the Sharma's house for the first time, and how Sophia, the little girl I take care of, was SO EASY to bond with. And I was thinking "WOW, I am awesome! Usually it takes my at least half an hour to get these kids to trust me, but this took all of 5 seconds!" Sophia was so cute, too. She was all hyper and darling and she fell asleep with my hair curled in her fingers, looking exactly like one of those fat baby angel paintings of ages past.

http://rlv.zcache.com/sweet_dreams_baby_angel_card-p137119425740088482q53o_400.jpg

Anyhow, I was SO proud of myself for being the most likeable babysitter in the world. However, it was brought to my attention by Mrs. Sharma that Sophia's immediate fondness of me might have stemmed not from a love for my undisputibly winning personality, but instead from the comfort she took in my appearance. I mentioned to Mrs. Sharma that Sophia, instead of sucking her thumb, had twisted my hair to help me fall asleep, and her mother responded that she always did that, and it was a good thing I had long hair because it would have taken FOREVER to get Sophia to sleep without my long tresses readily available to be curled in her little pudgy hands.

Sophia probably would have liked Penelope Cruz because of her hair as well.

http://slideshow.ivillage.com/howtohair_penelope.gif

I took the news in stride. Obviously, I was a little bit disappointed that I wasn't the dog whisperer: child edition, or whatever. But the whole experience sort of brought to light the fact that human beings find comfort and safety in things that they are used to. My long dark hair appealed to Sophia because it reminded her of her temporarily absent mother. Now, the little blonde girl I babysat the day before cried for about 20 minutes after her mother left, and if I'm going with this whole "diversity is out of my comfort zone" theory, I'm thinking that my somewhat exotic (I know, I'm flattering myself, but you get the picture) looks might have freaked her out a bit. It's not that she didn't like me, exactly. It was more that she didn't feel safe with something so unfamiliar.

http://images.tvrage.com/shows/5/4626.jpg

I know that as we get older, we learn to take things more in stride. We don't experience leakage from our orfices when our mothers drop us off at school anymore. Babysitters are a cinch- we know our parents are coming back. The chinese crested from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is just a dog, not an alien sent to rob us of our hair for its own selfish gain. Part of this increased acceptance of diversity, of the unknown, is maturity: we understand that not everything in this world is a threat. But another part is acclamation. We get used to seeing differences.

One happy family from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days... you know you love the dog :)

http://www.filmmonthly.com/images/reviews/HowToLose/HowToLose3.jpg

SO, lets apply this theory to Alice. It really is hard for me to tell what state Alice is at in the books. I think she's past the "chinese crested is an alien" stage. I kind of see her, through both Alice books, moving through increased acceptance, and with this increased acceptance, I see her finding similarities between herself and those who are diverse, or different, from her. When Alice first encounters the mouse, though she feels sympathy for the fact that it has "always hated cats" (Carroll, 27), she seems to not wuite understand how the mouse could not like ALL cats, particularly, her cat Dinah, which is such a "dear, quiet thing" (Carroll, 26). However, she seems willing to move past it, calling the mouse back after it runs off with the promise that she "won't talk of cats, or dogs either if [he] doesn't like them" (Carroll, 27). She slowly accepts and maybe even respects the mouses fears. This struggle seems to continue on in the rest of two books, with Alice encountering again and again creatures diverse from herself and having to learn not only to be comfortable with them but also to respect and accept their strange customs and diverse appearances. And I think we can all attest to the diversity and strange customs that exist in Wonderland!

The mouse: movie edition :)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2487/4192516965_cc7d81b5e0_o.jpg

However, I must ask myself: at the end of the looking glass, how much has Alice really grown? Is she REALLY that much more accepting of diversity? I think that she has grown, but not as much as I'd like her to. Lets say Wonderland is 100% imaginary, and therefore each diverse part of Wonderland is in essence a diverse part of Alice herself, forcing her to see how within diversity can be common themes and similarities, in this case the common theme being herself Alice. Well. Alice does "cut a slice.... and [hand] it to the Red Queen" (Carroll, 262), but if her imagination controls the pudding, then she basically reprimands herself when it says talkes about how "[she'd] like it if [it] was to cut a slice out of [her]", calling her a creature (Carroll, 263). The use of the word creature here, in conjunction with the idea that the pudding is actually part of Alice, emphasizes the diversity that exists within herself, a diversity that can be related to the real world though Wonderland is imaginary. I think that this recognition of the common elements behind the diversity of living things is a huge breakthrough for Alice. She highlights the similarities that unite all things again when she sees two plates and excaims that they look "very like birds" (Carroll, 265).

OK. So Alice, by creating Wonderland as a diverse place reflective of herself and representative of the world, learned to deal and recognize the unity of all living things and the similarities that exist between herself and the other diverse beings of the world. But how have I learned to deal with diversity? To be honest, I think I've gone about it much in the same way I described before: I've acclamated, over time. I don't think it's a bad thing to be uncomfortable with diversity when you first see it, as long as you learn to accept it and, beyond that... To say that I "accept diversity" sounds very cold and isn't really accurate, because for me, and probably most people, our feelings towards diversity go past accepting. I think that I... that I welcome it. It makes the world interesting. Yes, Wonderland, with all its diversity, was chaos. But it was a wonderful chaos, wonderful enough that the book has survived years and years and continues to enchant audiences.

Siddhartha 3

I've been sitting here for an hour. Not that me sitting in the Andrews Lobby at one in the morning is out of the ordinary. On the contrary, I'm pretty sure at this point I've become part of the decour. The tours of Andrews probably go something like this:

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/33600/33654/nclock-01-00_33654_lg.gif

"Here's the couch, and there's the piano, and the window with the view of the tower, and oh look, there goes Lauren!"

Really, I don't know what this lobby will do without me next year. It might actually be *GASP* empty at 4 in the morning.

Oh, the horror!

ANYHOW, I've been sitting here for an hour, staring at my computer screen with my itunes on shuffle not because I didn't see the connections Siddhartha has with our course goals and P4 but because I was having a hard time figuring out where to start.

Some random persons Itunes on shuffle.

http://images.macworld.com/images/legacy/2007/02/images/content/partytime.jpg

I've decided though. Really, this should have been a no-brainer. When in doubt, what does Lauren Acosta do? BE RANDOM! So random order it is! I think the professionals call it stream of consciousness, but I'm just gonna go with random so none of the literarilly savvy people of the word who may run across this entry eat me alive for my lack of AP English Exam term knowledge.

Let's start with my favorite quote from the P4 instructions: "If you can make thorough and meaningful connections with ACADEMICS and your leadership vision you will then have more motivation and a greater sense of purpose for your college experience. If you can not make such connections you need to seriously consider dropping out at least temporarily until you can make them (P4 Instructions)."

I've written about this before, multiple times, but what it boils down to is I COMPLETELY AGREE. Well. Maybe not completely. I don't necessarily think you should drop out, but I do think you should branch out in the classes your taking, try to find your passion and transform that into a leadership vision. Kind of like Siddhartha did. He left his father, became a Samana, listened to the Buddha, became a rich merchant, then a ferryman and a father, and it was only at the end of this long road that he found his peace and leadership role. Siddhartha says that "when someone is searching... then it can easily happen that the only thing his eyes see is that for which he is searching. He is then unable to... let any thought enter his mind because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search" (Hesse, 130). This also connects to our P4, where we're supposed to evaluate our required classes and talk about which ones seem like they would be more of an obstacle then an asset in attaining our leadership vision. I think it's important to look at each class and try to see how it relates to your vision, but some classes will relate more than others, and if you're only looking at that one "object of [your] search" (Hesse, 13), then if the class doesn't relate perfectly you might get stuck only seeing it's negative aspects. I think you should also look at a class for it's own individual merit, so you don't get disillusioned if it doesn't match up completely with your leadership vision.

Moving on to the goals for this class. The first thing I thought of was listening, since part of our immediate practical goals is learning "how to listen" (Course Goals). Siddhartha seems to put a lot of emphasis on this too, as he has to learn how to "the polyphonic song of the river" (Hesse, 125) before truly finding peace. Obviously digital literacy wasn't big in Siddhartha, but there was still that idea of finding better ways to communicate a lesson, which in this class we do by practicing "active, experiential and discovery learning" (Course Goals). I think leadership was also a big part of Siddhartha, but more in the sense of knowing when to lead and when to follow. Siddhartha was a leader to Govinda in the first part of the novel, and after Govinda left Siddhartha kept trying to lead, but eventually he had to realize that it was sort of his time to follow, and though he wasn't a follower in the sense that he did listened to everything the ferryman said without question, he did sort of adopt his lifestyle. They worked together as equals, but there had to be a point where Siddhartha was in a sense the student of Vasudeva's way of life.

https://www.instrumentalworship.com/store/images/listen_CD.jpg

What I took from Siddhartha was the value of floating. It's good to be driven, but that doesn't mean that you can't stop every once in a while and smell the begonias, because you might meet someone in that little patch of flowers you paused at that drastically and positively changes your life.

begonia field

http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/begonia-field.jpg

The Girls I've Been

In Siddartha, two kinds of unity are presented. One is the unity that exists between all living things, the unity that allowed Siddartha to "[become] one with her suffering" (Hesse, 106). The other is the unity that exists within the life of one person, the unity between the "rich and elegant Siddartha [that became] an oarman's servant, and the learned Brahmin Siddartha [that became] a ferryman" (Hesse, 99).

I kind of talked about the first one in my last DB, the unity that connected Leo and Cinnamon and Stargirl, as well as Siddartha and the heron and dead jackal he was able to practice sympathetic imagination with while he was traveling as a Samana. Today, however, I'd like to explore the second kind of unity, the unity that exists within the life of every person, in much the same manner: by referring to a children's book.

If you know me at all, your probably aware of my (slightly unhealthy) Canadian obsession. Chris calls me a traiter, but honestly, it's more like I'm a citizen of the world who's found her true love in the beauty of the maple leaf. Anyhow, much of this obsession is thanks to L.M. Montgomery and her prolific, insanely detailed descriptions of Prince Edward Island in her series on Anne Shirley. In case you were wondering, yes, I made my parents take me there, and yes, it is as basically the most beautiful place in the world.

http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/clipart/Patriotic/images/maple-leaf.gif

All of the houses on PEI look like that. ALL OF THEM! And look at those beautiful lupins. And that green... and the dirt is seriously this gorgeous red color and the beaches squeak when you shuffle your feet because of some kind of an amazing natural phenomenon and the water is this icy, deep blue AND I WANT TO MOVE THERE IMMEDIATELY!

http://www.hickerphoto.com/data/media/202/prince_edward_island_sc117.jpg

I would love to go into detail about how Anne is my hero and hilarious and yaddayadda, but I won't bore you with the details of my Anne-addiction. I'm just going to go ahead and say EVERYONE SHOULD READ THAT SERIES and move on to how the Anne series relates to Siddartha.

http://a0.vox.com/6a00c22521fa5e8fdb00fae8bb4b80000b-500pi

In Anne of the Island, the third book in the series, Anne is in college and living with some of her friends in a sort of boarding house called Patty's Place. It's owned by a bunch of adorable little old ladies. One of the women, called Aunt Jimsie, is expressing how puzzling she finds the behavior of one of the girls living in the house, and she says "I can't understand her... She isn't like any of the girl I ever knew, or any of the girls I was myself" (Montgomery, 168). Anne asks Aunt Jimsie how many girls she has been, and the elderly lady answers off handedly that she has been "About half a dozen" (Montgomery, 168).

As we grow, we can change into different people.

http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVstudies/GrowingUpInTheLord/Girls/MotherMeasuring.gif

I brought this up because I'm trying to make a point that this idea of unified change throughout life, of one person really transforming into many different people, is not a completely unfamiliar one. Are you buying it? You should be. I highly doubt you see yourself as the same person you were in kindergarden. I know I don't. In kindergarden, I used to refuse to wear anything but dresses because I thought pants made me look like a boy.

"Lauren, honey, why don't you wear these nice pink shorts to school today?"
"NO MOM. I LOOK LIKE A BOYYYYYYYY!!!!!"

None of these for me...

http://www.evisu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/heritage-jeans.jpg

You get the picture. But it goes beyond that. I'm not the same person as I was in middle school, either. In fact, I bet I'm not the same person as I was in high school, not after a semester of college. Why do you think people are always writing letters to their former and future selves? Haven't you ever heard that song by Brad Paisley, Letter to Me? Yeah, it's sappy, but it's also a recognition that 17 year old Brad is a lot different from present, older, hopefully more mature Brad.


But these future and past selves are not strangers. Rich Siddartha and ferryman Siddartha, though different people, still share a bond. And the bond isn't the body. I think that the bond is the soul. I mean, would Brad realy be writing such a detailed, affectionate letter to a stranger. NO. Of course not. He has a vested interest in this teenage version of himself because they share the same soul.

I'm fully aware that this notion of sharing the same soul as your past selves is a little bit sentimental. But it's also a beautiful thing, this unity of persons. And it's not just the unity that is beautiful. I think that the human ability to transform ourselves, to mature, to become (hopefully) better, more caring people as we grow older, to gain wisdom through living life, though "it can't be expressed or taught in words" (Hesse, 132), is special. It's miraculous. I would HATE if I was static, unable to move past the first girl I was, back in kindergarden.

I mean, really. Only wearing dresses? Kill me now.

Erase Yourself!

Ever since we started meditating, my mind keeps going back to this one line from Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. I know that the reading level is... you know... not college level. But, as I've probabaly said before, I believe that every book, regardless of its "literary merit" or "reading level," has something to teach us, contains something that we can apply to our own lives. SO, I'm going back to 6th grade book club and describing a scene to you.

http://www.youthwired.sat.lib.tx.us/BookLinks2.0/BLimages/cover--stargirl.jpg

Leo, the main character, goes into the desert with a girl who calls herself Stargirl and her pet rat, who says they are headed for an enchanted place. Stargirl says that the enchantment starts when you "do nothing" (Spinelli, 90), which she says is hard because "even just sitting... our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering," which is bad if you "want to know what's going on outside [yourself]" (Spinelli, 91). Leo asks her how become nothing, and she says that it's different for everyone, but that she "[tries] to erase herself...[imagining] a big pink soft soap eraser... going back and forth" (Spinelli,91). Both Leo and Stargirl attempt to erase themselves. Though Leo doesnt succeed, he does admit to being "aware of stepping over a line...[into] a territory of peace... and... while [he] never did totally lose awareness of [himself], [he] did... lose Cinnamon," who he was holding, in the sense that "[he] no longer felt his pulse, his presence, in [his] hands. It seemed [that they]... were one" (Spinelli, 94).

Cinnamon the rat.

http://www.becomingdomestic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/rat2.jpg

Long quote/ description, so I apologize for that. But I really felt like that passage bore an eerie resemblance to
1) what we do at the beginning of class every day, and
2) a few of the things that Siddartha says.

The first time I noticed the resemblance was when Siddhartha was with the Samanas studying and he "was a heron... was a dead jackal... [and] deadened his senses and dulled his memory" (Hesse, 17). The first part of the quote reminded me vaguely of how Leo and Cinnamon became one during his meditation. But the second part of the quote paralleled very closely what Stargirl says about erasing herself, because she admits that "the hard part is erasing [her] senses... and the hardest is erasing [her] thoughts (Spinelli, 91).

The heron Siddhartha became one with.

http://jaqoup.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/ubuntu_heron.jpg

So, I read on. And the parallels continued. Siddartha talks about how he "abandoned his being" and "lingered in the Not-Self hours and days" (Hesse, 18). Similar to being nothing, as Stargirl advised? I think so. And again, when Siddartha talks about how there was a river outside and a river within him and in both "the divine principle lay hidden" (Hesse, 40), I was reminded of Leo becoming one with Cinnamon through meditation, recognizing his ties to nature.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/cpl/projects/graphcuttextures/data/interaction/LittleRiver.jpg

OK. So I've established that this whole "unity" motif is existent in both Stargirl and Siddartha. But do I actually buy into this? Have I ever actually experienced this, in our many meditative practices?

I don't think I've ever actually come to that level, where I truly become one with nature, where the heartbeat of the Earth and my heartbeat are one, like those of Cinnamon and Leo. But actually, today at the garden, barefoot and slightly freezing, I did have this moment where I felt very... I don't know. Not alone, not at all, but I did feel supremely aware of myself. And through this awareness of myself, I also felt little bits of myself sort of stretching out to touch the world around me, and I saw the similarities between my life spirit, the essence of me, and that of the trees, and the ants, and that one dragonfly that flew lazily by my ear.

http://wordsprout.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/8_dragonfly_summer.jpg

I had forgotten about the Stargirl's erasing advice though. I'll have to try that on Tuesday! :)

http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/files/2008/04/eraser.jpg

Slow Down

Dictionary.com gives this definition of compassion, based on the 2010 Random House Dictionary: "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering." The neo-confucian manifesto in our anthology seems to define compassion differently, from both a Western perspective and an Eastern perspective. It says the "the West can learn from the East a feeling of mildness and compassion" and goes on to say that the wests definition of compassion emphasizes a man's "social services.. and warmth and love for others" but cautions that this definition, so focused on "zeal or love... if often mingled [with] the will to power" (anthology, 253). In contrast, it says that in the East "man is without qualifications considered as an end in himself," promoting "genuine respect" and a love that expresses itself through "etiquitte [which] thereby [becomes] courteous and mild... [transforming love] into compassion" (anthology, 253). The excerpt says that as compassion is "the sympathetic cosonance between he life-spirit of one's own and another's sympathetic being," (anthology 253) the Eastern ideals of compassion are nearer to this definition.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/love/Swanee88/Love/love2.jpg

The anthology further defines Eastern compassion ideals, namely through it's exploration of ahimsa, as defined both in Hindu religion, by Gahndi, in Jainism, and in a more general sense. It hints, much like the afore mentioned manifesto, that ahimsa, and by default many Eastern religions and the Eastern ideals themselves, goes farther then Western ideals and Christianity's ten commandments in its view of compassion and its stipulations for fulfilling it's requirements. For example, it begins by saying that while the commandment of though shalt not kill "is interpreted to mean only don't kill other humans," ahimsa extends this to mean "entire abstinence from causing any pain or harm whatsoever to any living creature" (anthology, 235). It also stresses the impossibility of fully reaching ahmisa, and the amazing, non-celestially oriented occurances that would transpire as a result of this. The bible stipulates the sinful nature of man as well, saying that "man is born spiritually dead" (Ephesians 2:3) and acknowledging the impossibility of living a sinless life, stressing that heaven and eternal life can only be reached through Jesus. However, the goal of ahimsa, which is just as impossible to reach as a sinless life is in christianity because "you have to destroy life in order to live" (anthology, 238) is not really eternal life. It has more to do with life on Earth. The anthology talks, for example, about how in the presence of one who has reached ahimsa, "all enmity ceases" and that "the practice of ahimsa will eventually culminate in the highest peace, bliss and immortality" (anthology, 238). Though ahimsa's practice will lead to immortality, this immortality seems focused more on living here, on Earth, then on making it to some sort of after-life in a different place.

Symbol of ahimsa.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Ahimsa.svg/320px-Ahimsa.svg.png

This focus on the here and now, on the Earth and all of its living beings, is also furthered by Jainism and its concentration on ecology. The anthology mentions the "thousands of pinjrapoles (animals refuges) organized and financed by Jains" in India, as well as "the Bombay Humanitarian League [which] has worked tirelessly to stop animals slaughter at religious functions" (anthology, 244). Even Gandhi, "the most famous proponent of nonviolence in the twentieth century" was "deeply influenced by Jainism," and connected it with ahimsa, "[combining] love and nonviolence" (anthology, 244).

But apart from this, and more important to me, is what I can learn from both the west, the east, their cultures, and, more specifically, their views on compassion. One thing that really stuck out to me was when the anthology said that "motive is the chief factor that underlies everything" (anthology, 238). This is EXACTLY what I was talking about in my last DB when I mentioned the Christmas spirit being the spirit of Jesus, not the dutiful giving of alms, and how compassion is to be driven by PASSION.

Gandhi.

http://sujeetkumaar.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/mahatma-gandhi1.jpg

But perhaps what spoke to me the most, maybe because I've often considered this myself, is the West's "chief concern with speed and efficiency" (anthology, 254). I feel like this focus on progress makes it very difficult to be both "succesful" in the Western sense of being highly efficient, and find your passion, something that you will be motivated to do by love. In High School Musical, Sharpay sings a song called "I Want It All". Well, yeah. We all do. We want to make everyone else happy and yet be happy ourselves as well. But with the Western culture of efficiency, I feel like that's made extremely difficult. I think that, after awhile, after slaving away at school or work, after conforming to every social standard every invented, you have to step back, and disappoint a few people, and do what you really care about. That's when I think great things happen.

And yes, these great things might not all be about compassion. For example, I'm pretty sure I heard something about Bill Gates dropping out of college and pursuing his passion and becoming super-rich. But if Ram Dass is right, and we really are highly compassion creatures, many of us will have passions focused on and motivated by compassion, on helping other living things.

I know that meditation is about alot of different things. Finding oneness, connection, and unity, for one. But for me, meditation is also about slowing down, something in this day and age we never seem to do. And yes, you are supposed to sort of empty your mind. But when you empty your mind of all the material, and the problems that plague you, what are you left with? Yourself. Scary, I guess, being trapped in your mind with only yourself for company. I think that through meditation, through slowing down, you can get to know yourself, and if you find yourself to be compassionate, as I hope you will, you can act on this knowledge to better the world.

Con Passion

I was eight, I remember. We were late, as usual. It's the Puerto Rican way, to be late. Our concept of time is a bit fluid.My uncle married a woman from Colorado who is very, very American. My mom says that when their son was baptized, they had a party at their house, and my grandmother was supposed to cook for them. So my American aunt asks her to get to the house at 2:30, so she could cook for the party which started at 3:00. My grandmother showed up on time - Puerto Rican style. By the time she got there, at around 3:30, all of the people my aunt had invited had already arrived. You know in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when Ian Miller's family shows up at the Porticullis house with a bundt cake? The culture shock for my aunt, when she married into the Acosta family, was probably about the same.

So my family was late, even though it was

midnight mass on

Christmas Eve and we'd had hours of nothingness and relaxation before arriving to slip on our Christmas best. And everybody was sort of pissed off at each other, too, because we'd lived in Texas long enough to understand that being late to church is just a little bit unacceptable. It was smashing the Puerto Rican right out of us, this place was.

My dad was driving. It's his job to drive when we're late, because he isn't afraid to speed and honk at

people who get in his way. It's my mom's job to sit next to him and backseat drive and nag about how he's being dangerous. My little sister and I help her out, nowadays, now that we both know how to drive and actually understand how ridiculous his stressed out chauffeuring really is. But back then, we just sat in the back and occasionally yelped when a sharp turn was made or we had a near miss with another car, accents to the shrill exclamations my mother would make, often followed by an angry "CAN YOU GUYS JUST LET ME DRIVE" from the only male in the family. Poor guy. As if making him watch Legally Blonde 15 times wasn't enough, we had to further insult him by criticizing his driving. Sometimes I wonder how he survived...

We walked into the church frazzled, cold, and, courtesy of some almost-accidents in the parking lot, full of adrenaline. There were no seats left, so we stood in the back, alternately warm and cold with the opening and closing door behind us as the few people later than us straggled in. But I remember, for some reason, SO CLEARLY what it felt like to walk into church that Christmas. The woosh of sucked in air as we stepped into the warm doorway, and the soft, glowing light, that seemd to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and the beauty of the altar, wreathed in light, and the way that at first, all I could hear was a soft humming, and the way that humming turned into strong, passionate voices of ordinary people, together a little after midnight on Christmas Eve, celebrating the birth of Mary's "firstborn son... wrapped... in swaddling clothes... [lying]... in a manger" (anthology, 27).

I think that I remember this Christmas most clearly of all because it was the first Christmas that I listened, REALLY listened, to the story. I knew the story, of course. Years of Sunday School had seen to that. Whenever we would go see the nativity scene acted out, I vaguely recall looking at whatever baby was playing Jesus and being

1. scared that "Mary", usually a 12 year old, quivery voiced girl, was going to drop him, and

2. surprised at the amount of responsibility they were putting on such a little boy at such a young age. I mean, this kid probably didn't even know it, but he was being asked to act as Jesus. Not just any baby boy. JESUS! The guy who, in Luke, touched a dead man who promptly "sat up and began to speak" (anthology, 130). The guy who himself proclaimed he "is the light of the world" (John 8:12), who God gave to us so that "everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16). Kind of alot of pressure, right?

So the story was familiar. But this Christmas, huddled next to my sister. squashed between her and the cold, stone wall of the church, peering through my curtain of hair at the altar and the crucifix above it, the story seemed different. It was beautiful. It was a miracle! When the petite, snowy-haired woman reading that night said "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (anthology, 128), I swear my heart hurt, and my little eight year old hands tingled, and I wanted...

I wanted to fix the world.

~*~~*~~*~~*~

I feel like nowadays, especially the US, everything is very fast paced. Think about my family's drive up to the church. Today, we're so concerned about the proper, about the on-time, about the social norms. No one has to time to think. And at Christmas, when the Christmas spirit is supposed to fill you so that compassion pours out of you, I see people giving more out of duty than out of compassion, absentmindedly dumping coins into collection buckets so that they can get on their way already.

But Christmas comes from Christianity, right? It's Jesus' birthday. So the Christmas spirit really refers to the spirit of Jesus, which the bible hints is the spirit of love, the spirit of compassion, the spirit of charity. NOT the spirit of duty.

The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Jesus.

The bible defines charity very strictly. In recent times, we've obviously widened the definition of charity. If I go to dictionary.com and look it up, it's defined as "generous actions to aid the poor, ill, or helpless." That's not what Christianity says it is. It actually says that "though I bestow all my good to feed the poor... and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing" (anthology, 133). The bible, with this line, basically rebukes outright the modern concept of charity. It goes on to define charity, mostly by what is ISN'T.

So once I take all of this into account, what am I left with?

I think that charity is compassion. It's a bit confusing, to define one by the other, but here's how I see it:

Lets take a do a fake analysis for the word compassion. In spanish, con can mean with. So compassion, in spanish, would mean something like "with passion." Therefore, in my book, and hopefully I'm hoping in Christianity's book too, charity means something like "COMPASSIONATE, generous actions to aid the poor, ill, or helpless."

I'm a little bit obsessed with being passionate about what you're involved with, almost to an unhealthy point. It was the subject of all of my college essays, is the reason I still volunteer with the kids at El Buen Samaritano, and is probably one of the main reasons I got a C in geometry, as studying for something I didn't care about when I could be reading my history book instead. which I LOVED, seemed almost unbearable. You'll hear me say it sometimes, blundtly.

"I really just don't care that much."

This doesn't mean I'm not thankful that society has moved forward to the point that charity, if not compassion, is something that's expected rather than simply encouraged. I know that this has been a huge help to many. But it feels fake. It's not christian charity. It's not compassion. It's just societal norms. It's not me, eight years old, late for Jesus' birthday party and wanting to save the world. It's more my family, driving like maniacs to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, afraid we'll offend someone with our Puerto Rican concept of time.

Images (in order)

http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/uclocks8.jpg

http://www.sspx.org/Chapels_Pages/chapel_pages_images/kansas_city_xmas_midnight_mass_550x372.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/dpa0269l.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/B/Backseat_drivers.asp&usg=__iOoFtOrbuS3SDmRpUixhhNj0F78=&h=400&w=303&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&sig2=TjH3YVicMQJOoL1dTwofTg&itbs=1&tbnid=mwhiOHXZ32FSiM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=94&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbackseat%2Bdriving%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=CW-AS8qqMYaVtgfhpLH4BA

http://www.healthtalktoday.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/christmas-nativity-scene.jpg

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=3&q=donation+buckets+at+christmas&btnG=Search+images

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SQojUtSqQyvGY5QHNV_u1-6orZ6LzXqsnwlfoPHFcE3mU4_qsSUlQm3F1gzibGcI1HQq6mg3FhPp9sU47Tt61MgScSl-71zIx5DYd5UqircnLj7rddUQNwSq0sVPfdxC9ffLFhsG0_E/s400/jesus.jpg

Give the Guy some Credit

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/do_history/decisions/images/johnson.jpg

I remember the unit we did on Johnson in US history. The final words on him were something like "yeah, he did some great stuff but Vietnam was the worst thing ever the end". I feel like people overlook him all of the time because his compassionate successes as a President were overshadowed by his failure in Vietnam.

Look at this guy. His presidency stared off with an assassination. An ASSASSINATION, ok? The country was sitting there, heartbroken and probably ridiculously uncertain about their future, and Johnson knows that everybody is expecting him to fix it. Meanwhile, he himself is shaken not only by Kennedy's death but also by the fact that he was definitely one of the targets in Dallas. One of the exhibits at LBJ showed this beautifully written letter from Jackie Kennedy to Johnson, where she talks about how he walked behind the casket even though his advisors told him it was dangerous, and how much this sign of respect meant to her family. THAT is compassion.

And what did he do with this tradgedy that had befallen the Presidency? He reassured. He comforted. And he UTILIZED. When I was studying US history, that for me was the most impressive thing about him: the way he channelled the grief that followed Kennedy's assassination to better society.

And what EXACTLY did he accomplish? What did he do?

A lot. His War on Poverty forced people to look past the facade of decadence and organization that America was emitting and realize that 1/5 of US citizens were in want. Not only that, but he helped them not just with money but with job training, health care, and expanded educational opportunities, giving them the tools they needed to get out of poverty and STAY OUT. Staying out of poverty was a stretch goal, but by giving people the tools necessary to do so, he made it a reality. For me, however, the most impressive of this legislation was the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, because it was these two pieces of legislation that he seriously PUSHED through congress after Kennedy's assassination, saying that it was, in essence, Kennedy's dying wish. Considering the racism and smoldering tempers that existed in America on this subject, I think this was definitely a stretch goal, and he treated this goal bravely, compassionately, and made it a reality in a genius way. An obvious comparison for these two acts is with Nelson Mandela, who helped bring SOuth Africa back together after the Apartheid.

But more important then what he did, in my book, is what he was TRYING to do. Look at his goals. Look at the name he gave them. GREAT SOCIETY.

In US history, the always start of the books talking about WHY this country was founded. As John Winthrop so eloquently put it, this place we're living was meant to be a "City upon a hill," a place of the utmost grace and goodness, of the strictest moral integrity. I feel like Johnson, with his efforts to put America back on track, to make us a Great Society, compassionate towards all of our citizens, really embodies this idea.

As for Vietnam... I feel like LBJ was pressured from all angles concerning this. He had good intentions; In fact, this whole country had good intentions. We wanted to spread democracy, to be that "city upon a hill" for the Vietnamese people. But this was one stretch goal that Johnson just did not have the tools to accomplish. I remember my history teacher saying that this was the first televised war, the first war where the Amercacn people really saw the Hell that war is and were constantly aware of our progress at the front. There were so many protests... I feel like maybe Johnson, in this arena, was partially beat out by the compassion of the American people towards those in Vietnam as they realized what a terrible thing war really is.

People wanted peace during Vietnam.

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/603B10/images/classLBJpeacecloseup.jpg

All in all, I really feel like Johnson, despite his failed foreign exploits, was a successful, compassionate, amazing president.