We would like to think that at every patch of the human experience, where history has a running tally sheet between good and evil, that it is not evenly split down the middle but rather lopsidedly in favor of goodness. Or, are we to believe in the pessimism that the ubiquity of goodness is always matched by the inevitability of what is bad?
We bring back Claire to share the letter she wrote to her dad before coming home for this Christmas. We met her in, "Leap of Faith Into The Less Traveled Road", (August 23, 2023). I introduced her story from when she started asking her dad questions when she was nine years old. In her own quest at finding answers, and after a time thereafter, she changed her mind about what to major in college. She at first considered majoring in history but before the summer ended after her senior year of high school, she opted to double-major in biology and chemistry instead. After which, her plan was to go on to pre med to pursue a medical degree.
Her natural intelligence, coupled with a tirelessly inquisitive mind, gave her the strong paddle that made her academic pursuit more like going downstream rather than negotiating the opposing rapids of the onrushing river that is the first year of college. Outside of the confines of the classrooms, the study halls and the dorm room desk, she did not abandon the pleadings of her probing mind to sometimes go beyond the textbooks and lectures. She kept up with what was going on in the world but she stayed away from social media while she kept up with the news feed through her own personal filter. When she needed inspiration her go-to reference was the Bible her mom gave her before she left for college.
This Christmas is her first time to be back home months away from her family. Last Thanksgiving she and two of her classmates decided to stay on campus to do volunteer work at the local shelter for the homeless. The university acquiesced to the request of the Dean to allow the three students free meals at the faculty cafeteria throughout the week.
Days before the Christmas holiday break, Claire wrote to her dad.
Dearest Dad,
First, please hug Mom for me. Second, thank you for the plane ticket. I had actually saved money for it from my part time job on campus; so, I guess I have money now for Christmas gifts. But don't tell Sandra and Jim I got them something special. And I got you and Mom something too but don't expect much, okay? I know Mom will always say that the love of an obedient daughter is plenty enough, right?
Why can't this letter wait till I get there? Remember I used to ask you lots of questions when I was nine. Well, I have more. Back then I knew you were particularly surprised by the questions I asked. Now you have more time to prepare. These are questions coming from your studious daughter who is well on her way to a 4.0 average this semester but don't be intimidated by that (😊). First of all, that is just my way of saying that your money is well spent. You know me. That's one of the ways of saying thank you (so much) and especially to Mom who worries a lot about how her loving daughter will handle life away from home. I hope 4.0 is reassurance enough for her not to worry.
The volunteer work my two classmates and I did at the homeless shelter on Thanksgiving week opened our eyes in very profound ways. It is not easy to actually explain what the three of us felt, collectively. I will share mine. It is not just that it touched me deeply but also that it evoked certain emotions which, naturally, prompted me to ask some questions.
I ask - all three of us actually asked in the same way - why I, my sister and brother, have the good fortune to have parents like you who have paved the way for us a better future while two young kids and their mother at the shelter had so little to hope for.
The two children, ages 4 and 5, and their mom had been homeless the last two months, we found out. The mother told me that those two months - nightmarish and incredibly painful - were a relief from the last five years or so of her eight years of marriage. How sad is that? Being homeless the last two months is a relief?
The children. They seemed to manage better than the adults. One afternoon, it was right after Thanksgiving lunch, I helped the two kids with the puzzle they were working on. They were happy, showing little care because, after all, there was a roomful of donated toys. I glanced at their mother who was watching nearby and I saw the furrowed brows, a face filled with despair and worry. As she watched us, she smiled rarely. The seemingly forced smile would dissipate so quickly as if she did not want anyone to notice it.
Dad, why does something like this happen? Let me say this first. I saw so much good from everyone at the shelter - from those who run the place, the volunteers and from those who come by to donate clothes, baby and children supplies and non-perishable food items (meaning canned goods, mostly). But notably, it was the young children and how transparently innocent they were. There were not that many actually - there were just seven of them. We were told that on average, there are not that many children at any one time except during holidays like Thanksgiving.
The shelter showed me what was good in people. Remember Dad, you said more than once that I always saw a lot of goodness everywhere, but was it because that was all I ever looked for? Was I really a Pollyanna the way my high school classmates described me? The volunteer work made me look closer to the outer peripheral edges of my view of the world to ask why society has made it necessary to have shelters like this. What could be so bad that makes people seek refuge at places like these. Then I wonder too how many are out there who are not able to find such a place; or worse, that there are those who know where to go but they simply can't leave the predicament they're in.
First, my quantitative mind asks, "What is the ratio of good over bad in the world?" I presume that goodness must lopsidedly predominate what is bad. I have good reasons to say that Dad, because if that were not true, would we still have a civilization, such as what we have now? My biology professor, though, once casually made a comment during one of her lectures, that luck and not a whole lot more is responsible for civilization. I hope to someday discuss that with her if I get the chance.
The weekend after Thanksgiving as we were wrapping up our volunteer work, I did manage to talk with the mother of the two children while the two kids were taking a nap. She said that she didn't want to stay at the shelter forever but she didn't know where to go. Her husband doesn't yet know where they are. The shelter is very good at keeping all information about the residents confidential, even allowing them to use aliases. She can't contact her parents who are out of state because she knows that's where her husband was going to look first. Besides, her dad was not in good health and she wanted to avoid putting her mom through more stress. She confided to me, though not with much detail, that she suffered both from physical and emotional abuse and she is scared for the kids who are already suffering collateral damage. She had no more tears to shed, she said, as she saw my eyes well up. Then she stopped talking about the abuse, sparing me the details. But she did bring up something that keeps bothering me to this day.
You know Dad, she must have been like me today when she was young. She too believed in the goodness in people. She said that was what attracted her to her then boyfriend. They met at work and she thought he was perfect. They got married after a year of dating. He became a monster, she said, after the birth of their second child. I was struck by what she later said.
She came from a devoutly religious family. Her husband was too. She abandoned her faith when her prayers were not answered, she said, after her husband became abusive and cruel to her the last five years of a once wonderful marriage. It was as if the devil just took over their marriage - her words.
I was disheartened that I could not convince her to renew her faith in the Bible and the church. She questioned everything in the Bible, such as why as early as the third chapter in Genesis, the devil was already present to wreak havoc on the very first man and woman relationship by tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.
She then said, "I don't believe anymore in a God who allowed that to happen in the first place? Didn't God not have the choice to not allow the devil to do such a thing, knowing how vulnerable the first man and woman were? Am I and my children still paying for the so-called original sin to this day? So, please spare me any more encouragement to seek spiritual help. But thank you for helping, especially with the kids. Do you see as I do that for everyone like you, the devil has a thousand?" All I could do, Dad, was to hug her. Then she cried profusely.
I would like to talk about this when I get home. Now you know ahead of time what I was going to ask you. Don't worry. I will not spoil Christmas for you and Mom. But I think I would like this to be part of our conversation these coming holidays. And I know too that you will tell me the allegorical purpose of some of the messages in the Bible. I know that. I get that.
Now, please don't finish decorating the tree until I get there. But I must warn you I have questions about that too. The mother, for the sake of the two children, dreads this coming holiday. She's conflicted, shaking her head, about the way Christmas is celebrated by quoting to me, Jeremiah, 10: 3-4 (KJV)
3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
What can I say? If that was a description in the Old Testament, then she is right about that practice predating the birth of Jesus by many centuries. She, and she's not alone with this because like many who subscribe to the idea about the unlikely origin of the Christmas tree with not a single reference of it in the New Testament, believes that this is another way people are deceived to believe in something that has no basis in what really happened a long time ago.
School stuff after Thanksgiving kept me busy but I promised to check on her and the children after the holidays. I would like to have some answers for her, if they are still there when I get back.
I can't wait to come home to cry on mom's shoulders and listen to your wise counsel.
Kisses and hugs to you and Mom,
Claire
Let's hope Claire will get her answers and every reader gets his or her wish for a Wonderful Christmas and a New Year better than all the previous ones.
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