I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which is a book I highly recommend. I also took a 20 hour bus journey last week that put me in a culture that I normally don't experience. I will try to post some about that later. So, I am thinking about how I can make changes in my life that is currently more self-centered than it should be.
My birthday is coming up and my Grandmother, whom I am living with, is trying to get me to decide where and when I want to go out for my birthday dinner, which is always the solution to celebrating birthdays in her sphere. For some reason, I'm not looking forward to this mostly me-centered birthday dinner. For my thirtieth birthday, I was in China, teaching. My friends and students remembered me and it was nice. Last year, I was traveling and got birthday wishes through e-mail, and I was mostly happy to be experiencing a new city and not have a me-centered day, because my traveling partner didn't know it was my birthday. After these birthdays, though, I've felt like something was lacking from the day and have felt selfish for thinking that.
This year, instead of looking for more, I'd like to do less. I'd like to do something that is less about me and more about others, especially people of a lower economic status. I remember my Mom telling me once, I think after I had finished looking at what I wanted to look at in a department store and was ready to go home, that I was not the only fish in the sea (I think I was bugging her while she was finishing her shopping).
Any bright ideas about how to spend a day loving the other fish in the sea?
2 comments:
I've been thinking about this a lot too. I'm thinking about volunteering at a women's shelter or crisis pregnancy center. Doing something for young girls. Is there something like that where you are? Even something as simple as giving "stuff" away. I have waaay too much stuff.
My sister and I just discovered a lovely little used bookstore in Waco. I agree that those books are even more tempting than brand new ones. Those books have history and have been held in so many hands and traveled to so many places.
Happy early birthday. Let your grandmother treat you. And then you treat somebody else.
I personally think a day to celebrate Lela is a wonderful thing and suggest receiving the gift of a dinner!! :)
But your desires to serve the lower among us is God-given, and wonderful -- and encouraging. I think the KUT web site lists nonprofits that rely heavily on volunteers. There's the homeless shelter downtown, a children's orphanage in town, and many other places like that.
-Suz
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