Advent 4: Greetings
Advent 4: Greetings
I have been trying something over the last month.
I have been unabashedly, over-the-top, excessively nice to everyone I have met in the service industry. Whether it is the feed store, hardware store, grocery store, pharmacy, or gas station, I have really gone overboard with encouragements and affirmations.
We live in a world where anger regularly gets hurled at anybody in the way, if our needs and demands are not met. Ultimatums are thrown down if we don’t get ours—right here, right now!
On the other hand, if our needs do get met in a way that we deem appropriate, we are so busy with the next errand, the next thought, the next text, that we don’t even see the person right in front of us serving us, trying to help us.
So, “great job,” “what great service,” “wow-you really made a difference for our farm today!” have been a regular part of my language for the past month or so.
The first thing I noticed is how shocked people are when I do this.
When I stopped to thank the gentleman for filling in the potholes on the beat up County Road in front of our farm house, he told me that I was the first person that has ever said thank you because all he hears is “what took you so long to get out here!”
When I asked to speak to the manager at Brookshire’s and then told him how competent and good one particular grocery store clerk was, you should have seen the all-at-once look of dismay/relief/pride expressed on that grocery store clerk’s face.
I have encountered many a surprised smile, a few stories about hard days, wonderful conversations about children, questions about our farm, and so many genuine thank-you’s.
The second thing I noticed should not have surprised me, but it has. All of the sudden those trips in-town for mundane tasks that I dreaded so much because they took me off the farm, have become much more tolerable, even joyful.
Leaving the feed store, I have had a skip in my step rather than a worry in my mind that they got our order wrong.
Standing in the line at the pharmacy has passed easily because I have been busy trying to figure out what words might put just a momentary ease into the pharmacists day.
Even filling up all those gas cans to replenish diesel in the tractor and gas in the RTV’s, the thing I dislike the most about in-town visits, has stopped bothering me as much. All I can figure is that I always pick up the diesel last and all of the smiles I have gotten at the other stops along the way have had an effect on me.
It’s just one of truest things I know, but often forget—the more joy and kindness I try to put into the life of others, the more joy and happiness I experience in my own life.
It has gotten me to thinking that maybe it doesn’t make as much difference whether we say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or Seasons Greetings, as long as we say “thank you,” “great job,” or “I appreciate your work here so much.”
In the Christmas story, when the Angel Gabriel encountered Mary, he said it this way: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
If we find as many ways possible to greet others with that spirit, maybe we can be someone’s angel too.
