Prosperity for the New Year

As we ate our traditional New Year's dinner - collard green and black eye pea stew, cornbread muffins and homemade macaroni and cheese - I tried to explain to my son why we eat those foods on this day. (For the record, he ate none of them himself, other than ham, which is on his "approved" list.)

I told him that you eat them to have a prosperous new year, that supposedly, they bring you good luck, good fortune, and money.

But then I began to think about what prosperity would mean to our family, and what it might mean to another family we encountered this holiday season.

Our Sunday School class decided to adopt a Christmas Cheer family. In adopting them, we provided toys, clothing and other needs and wants for the children of the family, as well as a few things for the adults, and gift cards to a local grocery store so they could have a wonderful holiday meal.

Several families participated, and a few of us spent one Sunday morning wrapping the gifts. We joked that these kids were getting more presents under the tree than ours would.

But when I look back on it, I see that statement wasn't true, not really.

The members of my Sunday School class are blessed enough to do things like limit the amount of presents from Santa (three, since that is how many baby Jesus received from the Wise Men). That doesn't include the gifts from Mom and Dad, or grandparents, or aunts and uncles, and family friends. My child received a ton more from "others" than from Santa.  Really, he gets too much, so much that some things aren't even played with.

We are fortunate enough that if Santa didn't bring my son a new pair of shoes for Christmas (which he desperately needed), we could have gone out the next day and bought him a pair without worrying that we wouldn't be able to pay our rent the next month or miss a payment on the power bill.

My son didn't get any clothes under the tree, but that is because his drawers are already overflowing. He didn't get a coat, but that is because he already has several. He didn't ask for an iPad Mini, but that is because he uses mine all the time (and one of our resolutions for the New Year might be to limit that a bit...).

My point is, we are already prosperous. We already have wealth. We not only could provide for our own family this Christmas, but we could also help provide for another family.

We are lucky, and blessed, and we thank God every day for it. But what about that other family? What did they do wrong to not "earn" prosperity? It is a difficult question.

I won't pretend to understand how God works, how some people can be born with so much going for them, and others with nothing. I know that while some people do succeed in this world despite being born poor, the majority never do escape the cycle of poverty.

My son hasn't asked many questions yet about us providing gifts for another family. I was waiting for the, "but won't Santa bring them those toys?" but he didn't ask. I have an answer ready, that Santa can only bring a few toys to each child, and the family provides the rest. But that doesn't answer the underlying question: why isn't every family like my own?

How do you explain privilege to a child? I always explain to him why we are donating something, that there are people who are less fortunate than us who can use it and cannot afford it. But I really don't think he understands yet. He has seen that some of his classmates have just one parent, or divorced parents, but he doesn't understand the impact that makes in their lives. He has been told that some do not have enough food at home, but he doesn't understand why they don't just go to the grocery store like we do.

I am not sure I understand, either.

It is hard to take away the lens of prosperity. I have never wanted for anything in my life. I never doubted I would go to college. I never doubted that I could get a good job and support myself. If I was late in paying a bill, it wasn't because there wasn't enough money, but rather that I forgot to pay it, or lost it in the mess that was my apartment. I had credit card debt for a time, and some of it was medical bills, but some of it was because I bought things that were wants, not needs, that cost more than I should have spent that month.

I have never lived in poverty. I never worried that I wouldn't have enough food to eat, or a place to sleep, or whether my parents would care for me that day or throw me away like a piece of trash. There is no way for me to wrap my mind around the fact that children are going hungry, being abused, and being moved around because they don't have a home.

The closest experience I have (and this is laughable) is when I backpacked with my (future) husband around Great Britain after we finished college. We carried all we had on our backs. We arrived places without knowing where we would sleep that night. We stayed in hostel bunk rooms with strangers. We conserved our money and tried to find interesting places to eat that didn't cost too much or require us to dress up. We spent time in some museums simply because it was a chance to put down the pack for awhile and warm up or get out of the rain.

But the difference was, we chose to do this. At any time, we could whip out a credit card and fly home. We chose some nights to spend a little more and get a private room at a hostel or even splurge on a B&B. We had extra money to go see a Shakespeare play outdoors and Phantom of the Opera in London.

And in the end, I joked that I would never travel like that again. The uncertainty drove me crazy. I like knowing where I am going to sleep, and where I am going each day. The thought that people actually live like this every day never even crossed my mind.

So what will prosperity mean to our family this year? It will mean doing more for others so they can share in our abundance, even if we feel like we are only helping a little. It is continuing to educate ourselves on what we can do to give people a hand up so they can stand on their own two feet. It is raising our child to be aware of his privilege and encouraging him to give back as well.

I will make my typical New Year's resolutions (eat healthier, exercise more, worry less), but I also will resolve to organize some sort of service project for our Sunday School class and our families each quarter (I would say monthly, but quarterly seems more doable, so we'll start there). I resolve to notice people who are living on the fringes, to smile at the homeless people who gather at the library each day, instead of bustling by them, focusing on what I need to do that day. I resolve to continue to volunteer frequently as a part of our county's Service League - this is my last year, and I could just coast through, but I won't.

And I challenge you to make a difference in your community as well. What can we accomplish if we all work together???