Choose to Give

Each day of our recent vacation we made time to sit in the resort’s lounge chairs.  It was rough, I tell you.  Dozens of these chairs decorated the pool and lined the beach, welcoming rest, retreat and relaxation to both the sun and soul seekers of Mexico.  It was just like the postcards.

But yet, I never could quite get comfortable in those chairs.

They were cushy and immaculate, each garnished with it’s own fluffy beach towel, yet in their partially reclining state I felt myself slowly scrunching down as I tried to read a book.  So I’d fiddle with them, adjusting them further upright, but I was never completely successful in my efforts to prop myself.  I was straining my neck or my abs to maintain a comfy position.  We all know that’s not supposed to happen on vacation.

 

Mid-stay we opted to spend the day in Cabo San Lucas, a 30 minute jaunt from our resort.  $40 by cab, $2 by bus, we took the bus and left the cozy nook of Mexico’s tourism ring behind.  In bench seats pitched facing one another, we sat toe to toe, eye to eye, with the locals.  Locals who worked at the resorts we were lounging in, locals who survived on tourist dollars, hawking straw bags and straw hats for the vacationers’ pesos.

I stared at the floor, uncomfortable in the stagnant and sticky heat, acutely aware of the lack of air conditioning on the bus, but even more aware of my Birkenstock sandals nearly touching the woman whose knock off Chuck Taylor’s were falling apart.  The rubber sole was unwrapping itself, completely worn.

I silently wished I hadn’t noticed.  Because seeing feels uncomfortable.

I can tell myself all kinds of things.  Maybe she chose those shoes.  Maybe they are her favorite pair and she was just wearing them out because she loves them like I love my favorite pair of jeans.  But I prefer not to lie to myself that easily.

It’s apparent, abundant, in our exploration, just a block from the insanely gorgeous resorts are the broken and battered windows of the real world in Mexico.  And I have hard a time reconciling the two.

That waiter who pulled my chair out for me at dinner, who placed my napkin on my lap, where does he live?  After serving and smiling, hustling to make ends meet, is this the bus that he takes home at night?  Is that crumbling domain off the dirt road his?  The shirts these bus patrons wear, resort logos embroidered below the collar, tell the truth.

I try to make it all make sense like I try to get comfy in that lounge chair, but I’m not sure it is possible…or profitable.

Maybe the discomfort is appropriate, necessary?

 

My immediate reflex wants to explain things, to justify them.  I want to tell that woman that I didn’t buy these shoes – they were a gift – an explanation that does nothing for her, a fruitless attempt to appease my own heart.  But I know the extent of my own extravagance, my own waste and indulgence.  Not this pair of shoes, but it may as well be.  This discomfort is not fixed by a band-aid.  It’s just more struggling, propping myself up in that chair.

How do you adjust yourself enough to feel comfortable knowing the minimum daily wage here is embarrassingly close to what I spend on a coffee?  Daily wage. One coffee.

My heart strains in the same manner that my neck and abs did.

Prosperity guilt fixes nothing though.  I can sit and wonder, why me and not her.  I can shrink under the weight of where I was born, disdain the gift, but my guilt resolves nothing.  Those attempts to slap some salve on my own heart do nothing for her reality.  It’s just more adjusting in that chair.

I look her in the eye and try to smile like a neighbor.  No shame, just neighbors.  I fear my face doesn’t read so well (I’d be better at writing her a note), but smiles cross language barriers, so I try.  We are not as different as we might look.

Honestly, I don’t know how to remedy or reconcile it all.  This isn’t the blog post with all the answers.  But our hearts beat the same.  Our worth is entirely the same.  And I don’t ever want to stop seeing that.  Can we please not forget to see that?

In the hustle of shopping hard, the time to find that perfect gift expiring quickly, I don’t want to lose sight of her.

The needs are so great and maybe we can’t cure them all or fix them all, but we can all do something.  We can refuse to look away, refuse to lose sight and when we have opportunity to give, we can give bravely.

Choosing to give

I love what Liso-Jo Baker is doing over here.

I love what Preemptive Love is doing in Syria here.

I love what Ann Voskamp did to celebrate her 40th birthday – Giving It Forward Today, setting her family loose to bless her whole town, paying for groceries, gifting the police officers, filling the candy machines with quarters as a gift for some unsuspecting child.  (Her newest book, by the way, is solid gold.)

For us in Mexico, it looked like choosing to forego some meals out.  We planned and saved and budgeted for our meals on that vacation, but once we saw, we decided to skip them and tip them instead.  Forgoing some meals out, we ate in our little kitchenette, gave the money saved as an extra tip to the waiter at our next meal.

It’s nothing huge – just a simple seeing – giving what we can, where we are, because we know that God can do so much with simple faithfulness.

My appetite for buying coffee has weakened since returning home from Mexico.  I feel the weight, the power of that money, something new.  And that is something I don’t soon want to forget.

It’s easy to look away, friends.  It’s easy to forget Mexico or what’s going on in Syria or the hurting neighbor across our very street.  This Christmas may we all bravely choose to see; may we all choose a heart that gives.