A couple days before the holiday is probably the worst time to ask what you can do to help. The best charitable efforts to assist and serve the least fortunate among us are usually conceived, funded, orchestrated and staffed months prior. You wouldn’t decide to throw a birthday party for your kid a couple days before the big day, would you? Nonetheless, everyone wants a piece of that good giving feeling this time of year. Still, nonprofits and soup kitchens, struggling ten months straight for consistent help and support, often have many last minute offers to place and fill during the holidays to help families and kids learn something more about how other families and kids live. Every parent strives to find a teaching moment this time of year but sometimes walk away disappointed when there’s no room for them at the inn because everyone else also wants to use this time as a teaching tool.
You know what would help?
Choosing another month during the year for your family. How about March? Or September? Maybe sign up to serve in the heat of mid-July when the kids are out of school and can see first hand what it’s like to be homeless and hungry in the desert heat or cold of winter? Bring money you and the kids have saved for this experience all year long. Every other month longs to be a November or December for those who need a roof, a meal, good cheer and some hope.
Just an idea from someone on the inside. And not a bad one, methinks. But hey, anytime you’re willing to spread the love is a good time, sooner or later.

One more revolution ‘til I’m fresh out of fifties,

And enter the decade of Medicare sixties.

A little less hair, a little more fat

But by now I’m totally okay with all that.

No one to impress me, no one to undress me

I’m a solitary man with myself.

Not lonely, not desperate, nor ready for respite

Not ready to be put on a shelf.

Fifty nine? Who’d have thought?

The farm I’ve not bought

By now I should be six feet under.

So bring on this year

If God still wills me here

Or snatch me up into glory and wonder!

Ain’t seen nor spoke in many years and here we meet again,

Reunion weekend’s at our door, it’s good to see you, friend.

So many things on which to chat and follow up with you,

Like kids and family, where you’ve been and how life’s treated you.

Let’s talk of old and reminisce and laugh out loud at stuff,

Swapping stories, jokes and pics we’ll never get enough.

The hundred bucks we paid for this is worth it all for sure

No talk of pains and politics for which we have no cure.

We’ve a history that unites us and memories to upend,

Our weekend here together so glad we all can spend.

And when we part, say our goodbyes and vow to keep in touch,

Our takeaways of high school days again will mean so much.

Visit places you can’t live, in hotels you can’t afford, eat foods you never would, do things you never should, with money you don’t have, on time you had to borrow, for pictures you won’t forget, of times you’ll always remember, with those you’ll always love.

I returned bottles for coins, did yards for dollars and cleaned windows and sat young children to save for the better things in life. I’ve since realized that doing things for others were the better things in life and money is now a much weaker incentive. A little hard work in my youth taught me the most about what it means to be a decent adult.

When you die what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought but what you have built. Not what you got but what you have given. What will matter is not what you learned but what but what you taught others. What will matter is your every act of integrity and compassion, your courage to sacrifice, to enrich and empower others by your example. What will matter most is not your confidence but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel the insatiable loss of your departure. What will matter is not your memories but those that live on in the ones who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom, and for what.
A life lived significantly is not by circumstance but by the everlasting gift of choices you made while you were still here.

My sister and brother in law rushed to evacuate their home in the 1,000 acre Tenaja Fire path last night not knowing what remains they may find when it’s over. While I know they’ll be safe, limited time surely forced a quick assessment of that they deemed they couldn’t afford to lose to the flames, would constitute the entirety of contents of their two cars, and would undoubtedly be their choice remains with which to begin a new life elsewhere. Between news updates, I laid awake in bed arguing scenarios with myself about what I might pack in the same predicament and why. My dog, some clothes, meds and a few toiletries made the short list of course, but what with which to fill the remaining few square feet of space before I drove away in a Kia and a panic? Ultimately what I got was an unsettling question of my values, priorities and reasoning abilities in a crisis, a shameful preoccupation with my accumulated possessions, and a very long, sleepless night.
I should be better at a task like this.
While deliberating, the fire arrived long before I filled the rest of my car, and I drove off with extra space and only the essentials. I realized that all the cherished objects I’d originally considered necessary for preserving memories were already etched in my mind and preserved in my heart. Stuff is stuff and as we know, millions of disaster victims don’t go unscathed, but have restarted just fine more humbly and with much less.
Choices may be painful, but given too much thought, maybe too often unnecessarily so.

[If there’s one thing addicts do well, it’s telling stories. But after 8 years clean, they’re usually not lies anymore. Tonight at my meeting, I’ll share the most important part of how I did it once again as I share each year on this day.]

Someone asked me recently how I did it. How I got off drugs, meth of all things. Undoubtedly tonight at my meeting I’ll be asked once again as is the tradition for anyone getting another annual chip. My eighth.

I’ve given a lot of thought to the question. Less to the mechanics of my leap into sobriety, but more about which of my words might just trigger another addict in attendance to turn on that light upstairs, illuminating them to the possibility that they, too, despite their past, deserve a future.

Though I try my best to remember

the months and years I can never forget,

every time it’s the month of September,

I most often remember regret.

Regret for the times I was never…

Regret for the times I was lost…

Regret for my lack of endeavor…

Regret for all that it cost.

But regrets now take no lead,

because from them I’ve been freed.

Regrets may bring strife,

but remembering brings life;

An incredible distinction, indeed.

September the fourth it was over,

Now it’s September the fourth of nineteen,

eight wonderful years I’ve been sober,

eight sobering years I’ve been clean.

But I’ll always remember September

and thank God I survived to regret

the lost years I’m alive to remember

And the best still ahead of me yet.