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Organized kindness: Churches and civic groups have always been
highly organized forms of holiday kindness, going back hundreds
of years. America is planted thick with such charities
pouring food into food banks, hosting toy
drives for destitute children, giving comfort to the poor. And
it's good that they are organized. I don't pass a
Salvation Army bell-ringer
without putting money in the red container, knowing that they
were there for us during Hurricane Ike, along with the Red Cross
and our local churches. This organized kindness is necessary
when overwhelming disasters require help far beyond any
individual act of kindness.
Recession-related kindness: Every Christmas is different. This
year, strategies of kindness should expand to include
psychological and moral support: expressing concern and
solidarity for co-workers who are suddenly given the pink slip;
giving optimism, hope and assurance to friends and strangers who
have lost their livelihoods; and helping with food, clothing,
shelter and leads on employment if we can.
When my son asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I suggested an
act of kindness. He told me about some of his colleagues being
laid off at the big bank in New York where he works. He praised
what good workers they were — how reliable, how intelligent, how
devoted. We agreed that it seemed so wasteful that those
brilliant young financiers on Wall Street and in banks should be
laid off precisely when their great educations and talents could
be put to such good use cleaning up the financial mess in
companies, in government, in financial institutions all over
America.
These young people had probably been
raised with the same set of values as my son: Get a good
education, work hard, have integrity — and you'll be OK. In
other times, it's precisely this type of worker that would be
steadily employed, kept on, promoted. But in this vicious
economic downturn, it seems as if everything I stood for — as a
descendant of immigrants, as a parent, as an American — just got
a snake-like jab to the heart. It was as if an ax had fallen on
the work ethic of our nation, as if a little piece of the
American dream had chipped off.
The solution to our national problem is
not only practical but also psychological. So, I told my son
that all I wanted for Christmas was a kind, hopeful word to
these co-workers. Someone has to tell them that they are worthy
despite what happened, that sometimes layoffs have no fairness,
no reason. Though they might wonder "why me?" and seek some
rationale for dismissal in their own actions, it is truly not
their fault. Recessions have come and gone in our history, each
terrible in its own way, each outrageous in its witless
brutality to the soul of workers.
In my experience, young, eager people of intelligence, education
and sound work ethic will ultimately triumph, if not today then
tomorrow. It has happened every time in the four major
recessions I've endured in my own life. If we can give our
laid-off workers the gift of kindness and hope this Christmas —
especially the young, intelligent, hardworking ones we have all
striven to encourage, nurture and educate — we will recover from
this recession a stronger and better America.
Like that helping hand given to Larry
Stewart so long ago, the gift of our kindness, optimism and hope
will be paid forward — a thousandfold.
© Copyright
2007 USA TODAY
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