The school lost everything. An after hours fire melted crayons, turned paper to ash and pencils to tinder. The supplies had just been donated as part of a foreign aid trip to this Nigerian classroom and now needed to be replaced
When our daughter brought the note home from her teacher requesting any used supplies, it included an unnecessary apology for adding one more request on top of the flood that come in for donated coats, toys and food to mark the holiday season.
Soon after, we were sitting in the playroom looking at our stockpile of Crayola, mountains of markers and various bins filled with paper, glue, pens etc.
Feeling more than a little guilty for our excess, I asked our girls if we could give half of all of it away. Keep a yellow marker, give one away. Find a purple crayon, give the next one away. In less than an hour we had filled a large box with supplies that she would bring into school, add to the efforts of other students and then be shipped to Nigeria.
Yet what still remained in our playroom was more than we could possible use in a year.
A separate request for men’s clothes sent me into my own closet, gathering pants, sweaters and coats, that I hadn’t worn in a year but was presumably reserving the right to wear in the future.
Neighbors organized a drive for a local food bank. In our pantry were jars of jam, canned goods and other non-perishables that had been sitting there like the island of misfit toys looking for a home.
This is, as they say, the season for giving. We buy presents for our loved ones, provide bonuses to our employees, give gifts to our teachers, tip more generously to those who provide services, and donate to causes we care about.
This is of course, what this time of year should be all about. But it also raises the question: How much do I have to give?
In our cabinets, closets, cupboards, garages, dressers and maybe even bank accounts are vast resources that go underutilized for most of the year. The amount of what we give depends not on how we answer that question but in how we read it.
How much do I have to give?
As in what is required of me.
or
How much do I have, to give?
As in, what do I have that others could use.