Giving to the Future

My daughter saw this shadow play on the Princeton Shopping Center sign. The present, like the lettering, is not alone, but has the shadow of past and future play upon it. In this giving season, I am learning to appreciate the gifts the past has bestowed upon us, and to give to the future I wish for. A simple way is to shop in the local stores one wishes to have around for a long time to come. The 3/50 Project promotes the concept of spending $50 every month in three of the locally  owned businesses you'd miss if they disappeared. The holiday season deepens the meaning and satisfaction of doing this.

Last night, feeling an early fatigue, I lay down and turned on the radio, upon which Dickens' A Christmas Carol happened to be getting a reading. Confronted with the sight of his own grave, by the Spirit of Christmas Future, Scrooge cries out, "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."

Over this past year, when portents of the future have spoken so loudly to the way we live in the present, it can be satisfying to find more ways, usually involving no money at all, to give to the future we wish for.

At my house, in this present era awash in deceptively cheap energy, we keep our home lights soft and low, enough to do what we need to do, with some lamps that have some beauty to them.

I used to think I was being stingy when I turned off a light in a room no one was using. Light is associated with life and good cheer. But now I see that pause to flick a switch, that selective powering down, as an act of generosity, a gift to those who will follow us on this planet. "Here," my gesture says, "You can have this light, this energy. I don't need it." There's pleasure in being able to give something as beautiful as light and energy, and connecting in some imagined way with generations future.

Leaving the electric clothes dryer idle in the basement is an even greater gift to energy users future. When it's on, it consumes even more than a central air conditioner. We busy an idle
guest room instead, letting air and time do what they do so well, using mostly racks found free for the taking at the local curbside kmart. It requires a few more minutes and manipulations than simply tossing them all in the dryer, but that's the giving part--a peaceful, meditative activity--and the fabric is said to last longer, too.

"Assure me," Scrooge says, hands shaking,"that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!'' The giving season speaks to all days to come.

Quotes taken from the literature.org website.