December 15, 2006
Friday

Last year about this time a brouhaha erupted when Wal-Mart directed its staff people to say “Happy Holidays” to shoppers rather than “Merry Christmas.” The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (a private, not a church-sponsored, organization) stepped in and called for a boycott of the chain. Father Chester Snyder, the pastor of a parish not far from where I live, commented on this in The Catholic Witness, the official newspaper of the Harrisburg Catholic diocese.

He expressed the wish that the Catholic League had investigated Wal-Mart’s business and labor practices instead, since social justice is a more urgent issue than what people say to each other. “I have yet to read an encyclical on proper holiday greetings,” he said.

Father Snyder then suggested greetings and conversations that might be more useful for promoting the peace and promise of Christmas. They involved expressing appreciation to harried store clerks, offering to help people carry packages, seeking lonely or forgotten neighbors to whom we might offer hospitality.

The piece resonated with me so much that I cut it out and added it to my collection of holiday-themed essays and articles. It joined “Thoughts for Christmas,” a similar column by Father Snyder published in the same newspaper in 1998. That piece urged the recapturing of the attitudes of wonder, awe, joy, and abandon that find such free expression in children but which adults often replace with what they think is a chic sophistication.

This season I have spent my morning meditation time reminding myself to put into practice all these bits of wisdom I’ve collected over the years. And I’ve been going around congratulating myself for following through on renewing neglected relationships and extending myself to new ones. These efforts, I believe, have helped in avoiding the stumble into depression I thought I was headed for in October.

This afternoon I was at Barnes and Noble in Camp Hill, not far from Father Snyder’s church. I had ideas for Christmas gifts for some family members, and though I’d found the things online, I was concerned that they might not arrive in time for Christmas. I found exactly what I wanted at Barnes and Noble, which meant that not only did I have the items without paying for shipping, I could wrap them and put them under the tree in time for the party, hiding the ugly stem (it’s a metal rod, really) of our artificial tree as well as the forlorn blue bedsheet that serves as our tree skirt (absent the cross-stitched beauty I’ve been neglecting to complete for about fifteen years).

I approached the checkout line with one large bag that was easy to carry (an item paid for in the audio department) and several books folded into the crook of my arm like a schoolgirl. As I turned in at the “Line Starts Here” rope I was aware that a man was about one-and-a-half steps behind me, and I’d probably stepped in front of him. Two people were being served at the desk and two people were in line ahead of me.

The man behind me was clearly impatient. He sighed, craned his neck to see if there were more clerks about, looked at his watch, drummed on the books stacked on the table next to us, sighed some more. I stood silent, focusing on breathing, maintaining good posture, and thinking about the joy these presents were going to provide.

Finally I became the next person in line, and as the clerk beckoned to me I turned to the man and said, “You seem to be pressed for time. I’m not. Take my place in line, please.”

The man seemed startled. “No, that’s okay,” he said.

“No, really,” I said, smiling.

“I said it’s okay,” he said gruffly, and looked away.

I smiled again and proceeded to the checkout.

I think people don’t know what to do with unexpected kindness such as I tried to extend. I think maybe accepting good will is as strange for some people as offering it is for me. I thought briefly that perhaps my acknowledgement of the man’s impatience and my efforts to be gracious to him had the unintended effect of making him feel worse.

I hope not.

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