Stories of the Season (#1)

Since human civilization first began, people have been telling stories. Sometimes these stories were based on fact, sometimes not. But what many of these stories had in common is that they were a vehicle to pass along knowledge or understanding to those who were listening, a way of teaching some of the great truths of existence. In the words of Marcus Borg (Convictions:How I Learned What matters Most) “… believing something to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true.” And so for this Advent Season, I thought I would take a look a a few of these stories…

Mr. Rogers once said “The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile.”

I recently read about a experiment. Someone took 3 glass jars, placed them about a foot apart, placed an inch of plain rice in each one and then an inch of water. Every day, this person looked into the first jar and said kind and loving things to the rice and water like ‘I love you.’ and ‘You are beautiful.’ Next they spoke to the second jar saying horrible things like ‘I hate you.’ and ‘You are useless.’ They then stood up and walked by the third jar without even looking at it.

A month later the first jar was gently and happily bubbling with clean fermentation, white and edible. The second jar was riddled with black mold and frightening growths. But the third jar, the one that had been ignored every day, was entirely jet back and had rotted to the extent of being poisonous and putrid.

This season is hard on some people. While some might have a house full of friends and family, others see only the empty chairs at the table. Some might ‘shop til they drop’ while others worry about putting food on the table. While some make this a time of giving to others, there are those who will be focused on taking from other.

I don’t know if this experiment is true’ or not as I haven’t tried it myself nor do I know anyone who has. But that really doesn’t matter because it serves to illustrate the point made in what is known as the Golden Rule and is found in all the major world religions. How you treat people DOES matter, and perhaps it matters more at this time of the year, when everyone is feeling the pressure to meet the expectations that are out there. We can reduce the stress of the season for others and ourselves, if we make sure we pass on a sense of worth to everyone we meet not only this Advent season, but year round.

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