Friday November 27, 2020
For the last week or so, if not more, I have been receiving newspaper advertising supplements for Black Friday sales, not to mention emails – how did those retailers get my email address, anyway? I have been doing my Christmas gift shopping since October and am pretty much done. All those organizations I support have been sending me catalogs and the orders have mostly arrived.
For those of you who are still looking for something unusual and which will not just support slave labor in Uighur concentration camps, let me make a few suggestions. The Southwest Indian Foundation, established in 1968, offers everything from socks to a food basket for an Indian family. The proceeds go to the people who make the items as well as for scholarships for Indian students.
If your intended gift recipients have more than they need (don’t we all?) look at the Church World Service website. You can spend as little as $15 for chickens in Tanzania or as much as $85 for goat in Haiti, our hemisphere’s poorest country. Rather than spending money on more stuff, give a gift that really means something.
Prayer for the Day
Soon, O Lord, we will welcome your Advent with joy,
Soon, O Lord, we will hear the traditional hymns of Christmas;
But also, now, we continue to pray for respite from the virus,
Even as we begin to consider what the coming year promises.
Be with us as we care for others through the Advent season,
And hold us in your heart as we hold others.
In the name of him who shows us how to care,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
For it is in giving that we receive.
Francis of Assisi, saint (1181/1182-1226)
I love the Christmas-tide, and yet, I notice this each year I live; I always like the gifts I get, but how I love the gifts I give.
Carolyn Wells, American writer (1869-1942)
May we be sated with your house’s bounty, the holiness of your temple.
With awesome acts you answer us, our rescoring God,
Rescuer of all the earth’s ends and the far-flung sea.
Who sets the mountains firm in the power of God; you are girded in might.
Who quiets the roar of the seas, the roar of their waves and the tumult of nations.
Psalm 65: 5-8