Two very important things defined my Christmas preparations when I was growing up. First, my mom and I would watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Second, there was The Muppet Christmas Carol. Even today, my mom and I live for the Tuesday night before the week of Christmas when that little round-headed kid who wants so dearly to kick that football will learn the true meaning of Christmas (and of life).

Tonight, however, I saw this new special Muppet Christmas movie and I started thinking back to when I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, an adaptation of the classic written by Charles Dickens. It is fantastic.

Kermit the Frog is my hero. He seems to have the most gentle soul. He is just a big green ball of wisdom, teaching us all the things we need to know to navigate this life with grace, and he makes us laugh while he’s at it. He even wrote a book in 2006, Before You Leap: A Frog’s-Eye View of Life’s Greatest Lessons. I have not read the book myself, but I plan to make it a point to do so. Meanwhile, I found this clip from the movie that just completely warms my heart and gets me in the Christmas spirit.

I often catch myself asking “Really?” whenever anyone tells me something of certain importance. It’s not that I don’t believe them, it’s just that maybe I don’t.

When I was little, I assumed everyone was telling the truth. I wasn’t jaded by experiences gone awry. In third grade, one of my classmates told me that her dad was the coach of the Chicago Bulls and I said “Wow!” not “Really?”. What has changed?

I am not a person that people set out to deceive. I haven’t suffered from people being untrue to me. I don’t have any reason to believe that people are not going to tell me the truth, because I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who do (tell me the truth). So what has made me this way?

I guess now that I’m growing older, I am supposed escape the trappings of being gullible. But if there wasn’t deception, the concept of being gullible wouldn’t even exist – so really it’s not my problem if I am gullible because the concept itself depends on something else that is anyone elses’ fault. So there.

Seriously, though, it is interesting. I think it is really about understanding. If we left deception (big and small) behind, then where would we be? I think we would arrive at a feeling of greater self-worth. For instance, I saw this TV show where wealthy people went out and found people in need and wrote them a large check. Every time, the people receiving the gift of money asked, “Really? For me?” And I think, why not you?! You’re worth it!

So maybe it would be a positive move to start believing everything we hear. Or at least to loosen up the filter a bit so as to let a little bit more through (we of course should still try to sidestep being completely ignorant).

Hmm…really?

The show is NBC’s Lipstick Jungle. The show follows the lives of three women each in different circumstances. Currently, there is Brooke Shields as a woman in a difficult marriage with a musician, Kim Raver as a widow trying to find her way, and Lindsay Price as a never-married but hopeful designer.

The last episode contained an interaction between Wendy (Brooke Shields) and her husband Shane. Shane was offered to go on a concert tour as a keyboardist. This opportunity would take him away from their family for four months. When Shane told his wife about the offer, she immediately shot it down. She looked at the negative of him being away immediately and didn’t give an ounce of energy to congratulating his accomplishment. His young daughter, however, didn’t think twice and told him he MUST go.

This is a classic case of optimism. It is also a classic case of someone reigning in an optimistic view by immediately jumping to practicality. That is something I have never had much tolerance for. I detest when people limit my dreams and happiness. The character of Shane said it best when he said that his wife had “poisoned” the idea from the beginning.

His daughter, a child, had the wisdom to see the opportunity as it was. That is another thing I wish us all to be able to hold on to. The optimism of childhood allows us to be excited. And why shouldn’t we be? There are a lot of good things to happen and a lot of good experiences to be had.

Too often I think we are trained or fall into the habit of quenching fires before they can illuminate.

I liked the language used in the show – that seeing the negative side of the opportunity was poisoning the experience. So true.

Check negativity at the door, I say.

When I was little, I had this puzzle of two puppies sitting in a mailbox that I would put together over and over again. I found it a couple of days ago when my family and I were digging through boxes and putting up our Christmas decorations. I’ve always tended to be the slow-mover in my family, I often take a lot of pitstops along the way (for things I deem more important). I can’t help it that those times happen to be when heavy lifting of a Christmas tree from the attic is the course I veer from.

Anyway, I decided to take a break and put together that puzzle. I started thinking about why anyone does this. It’s really simple, but fantastic.

I like to think about life as if it were a great puzzle. I am a puzzle, the world is a puzzle, the universe is a puzzle. The whole point of this journey is to keep finding the pieces and putting them in their place. Believe me, all pieces have their place. Especially those total pain, jig-jagged edged, one color pieces that go somewhere in the endless middle. What is interesting is the different ways we approach solving puzzles. When I was little, I took to that puppy dog puzzle as if it were something I had to put together. The pieces would make it whole, and I was in charge of bringing them together. I notice in my own thoughts, as I start to grow older, that I see many challenging situations as something massive that I have to take apart.

I think that is what a lot of us do when we grow older. No longer are we at ease with incompleteness. We see it as a negative and something we must break down even further to try to understand so that we can build it up again. I guess to put it simply, as children we spend our times building the puzzles and as we grow older we change direction and spend time breaking them down.

It’s not always true, but I do think it tends to happen (and in a lot of important situations – love, career, planning for the future). We make things more complicated than they are.

I will mention that age takes an obvious affect on some people. My older sister completely destroyed my puzzle once I had finished. Maybe we haven’t grown up at all.

Last night was different because the movie itself was just as good as the commercials. It followed a teacher, Brad Cohen, who has Tourette’s syndrome but once finally accepted to teach at a school, made an incredible impact on his students. It was particularly inspiring  to me because my sister is a teacher and I see the incredible effect she has on students and it really is a job with a lot of power to change the world.

The reason that Cohen became a teacher was because when he was a young boy in school, the principal taught him to embrace his disease. This principal explained that the other kids in school thought he was weird only because they were ignorant. So he educated the children, and they accepted him. Cohen took that same approach and applied it to his teaching philosophy. He educated his students about everything, encouraged them to ask questions,and would not allow them to be ignorant.

One line from the movie struck me in particular. It was something to the effect that the difference between children and adults is that children say “I will” when adults say “I can’t”. I thought that was so interesting and true, unfortunately. When we are children, we think we can take on the world. If someone challenges our ability to do something, we respond with a “Why not?”. We feel like we have all the time in the world to accomplish whatever we want. When we grow up, though, reality sets in and we realize how short life is and how limited we are. But what if we didn’t think that way? What if we proceeded as if we could achieve anything? Just proceeding in that way, it would not matter a whole heck of a lot if we actually did achieve everything. The fact that we believe we could some time in the future gives us hope, and that hope can carry us to do even better (though different) things.

I lived about a ten minute walk from where I went to school, so every morning I made my way through the bustling, cigarette smoke-filled, Italian-lined, gorgeous streets of Milan. One morning I remember in particular. I was walking along behind a mother and her two children, a brother and sister. They were both about the same age and they ran down the street hand in hand. Their mother trailed behind them wheeling her vintage bicycle, complete with designer purse in its basket. The two children would run ahead from their mother, giggling all the way. The mother yelled,
“Alberto! Vieni qua!” (Alberto! You come here!). And like every breath of the Italian language it rang in my ears and my heart, delighting the part of me that longs for it to inhabit my own mind and tongue.

She kept yelling down the street, “Alberto! Alberto!” and he would continue to run ahead with his sister and come back to his mother again. What struck me most about her was that she was not getting upset, but rather with each chastisement she also expelled an exuberant laugh. It was as if she were recognizing herself in her children.

Is there really some point where we become completely unrecognizable from the self of our youngest years? I would say yes, but only in the most unfortunate cases. That is not to say that change is a bad thing, I actually have more to say on that later. But there is something that is essentially “us” and should never be lost. This something is that which has been with us since we’ve been on this earth. And that is why I think it is so important to remember that we should always be able to recognize ourselves.

That Italian woman taught me quite a lot in my short walk that morning.

It is interesting to think about, how we were so young and trying to be so grownup by falling in love. What is this inherent need that we have? We could enter a huge discussion about the nature of love and all its intricacies, but then again, maybe it is as simple as a recess. It is something that takes us from the ordinary, a recess from other comparatively ho-hum moments.

As a girl of 21, I am keenly aware of the searching and hoping for love that people my age (and all ages, really) engage in. It is interesting because at my time, love seems so complicated to me and to my friends. Romances have come and gone, been good and flubbed, and then just plainly disappeared. It becomes this thing we have to analyze because we just cannot understand. But maybe if we remember how simple it is, think back to how easily our playground romances flowed, we could be better equipped to see love as it hits us square between the eyes (whenever that may be) and to wait patiently until then.

I stumbled upon this feature from NBC’s Today Show where a young boy publicize’s the book he wrote to help boys of all ages to do the right things in order to get the right girls. Besides being exceptionally well-spoken for a boy of 9, his advice is exceptionally insightful yet simple.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/28050331#28050331

The readings for the day spoke of who would and who would not be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven, depending on how each lives his or her life. For purposes of the manner in which it is best to live your life, this can be applied to any faith, I think. The priest took this theme and applied it to the idea of identity. The discussion was very fruitful for me.

He remarked how important it is to understand identity. Most often and most evident are cultural identities, those which set apart and also bring together different people from different parts of the world. The most obvious differnce between people from different cultures is language. Language has always fascinated me, I wonder what it really is saying. To some degree it is very complicated, but at its foundations it is so natural that it cannot be that complicated. We learn language as children just from being around people employing it. There isn’t a real study involved (besides further grammatical clarifications in grade school). But essentially, language is something we all come to know intimately just by participating. 

What I got from the homily was that the best way to live on this earth is to learn the language of love. And not just learn its grammatical intricacies, but instead to completely inhabit the words. As children we usually just say what we think, and it is without any walls. We are not worried about saying the wrong thing, because we really only see one way to say things best. I imagine what it’s like when you truly fall in love. When you love someone, the best way to tell them is just to say “I love you.” People often remark about the power of three little words, and it is so true.

Sometimes as we grow older, however, I think we start to believe we need more words. We have this desire to be heard and to explain ourselves. But if we are able to completely inhabit a few words that mean a lot, then there will be no need to hide behind all the others. By engaging in this language of love, then we can all create an identity that can place us amongst everyone. It breaks down the barriers between people that speak English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, or what have you.

But once those kids grow up, they are supposed to know better than to break such societal conventions by overstepping conversational norms. It is no longer okay to ask “How old are you?” or “Why are you doing that?” Instead, there are certain subjects that we cannot breach without receiving nothing more than a cold stare.

I started thinking about this last night after a truly wonderful experience I had at work. I work as a server in an Italian restaurant and I speak to a lot of different people. I always know within the first moments of arriving at a table how well the hour or so I will spend with these people is going to go. Last night, in the very first moment I approached this specific table I knew these people had been sent to me to teach me something. They called me by my name, showing me respect that many people don’t pay a waitress. Then, after I had taken their order and collected their menus, the man told me that they would be praying before their meal and wanted to know if I had any intentions. They were going to be including me in their prayer and wanted to know if there was something I was particularly in need of.

To say that I was touched is an understatement. I was overwhelmed with their grace and courage. And I say courage because it is not the most acceptable thing to breach the subject of religion with a stranger, much less to include that stranger in your practice. But their courage had the power to show me the face of God.

I can no longer accept that such a powerful thing should be restrained by convention. I think it is our duty to say the darndest things. How many times has a child said something so wise in so few words? We chalk that up not to courage for saying something honestly, but instead to their ignorance and identity as little people who haven’t been around long enough to pick up on social norms. I think that is a mistake. It is courageous to be honest and genuine in expressing yourself, and the existence of the risk makes the reward immeasurable.

I realize that in this unstable world (politically, socially, economically), I am in a bit more ideal position than if I were working at a large corporation or a small business yielding the blows of the financial crisis. As a student, I am lucky to have little financial responsibility. But I cannot help but wonder that the things that are happening in this world are getting out of hand.

The problem is, however, that we cannot identify what the real problem is. Sitting here today, there are a couple of women behind me discussing their financial problems. One is complaining that she cannot sleep, she is relaying the dramatic confrontations she has had with friends, family, and coworkers, and she is basically falling apart. They are speaking in particular about difficulties with the stock market and having to dip into their reserves. One woman has just asked if maybe the “euphoria” of the election will carry us through this mess. I don’t really know the answer to these questions, and I have not been engaged in figuring it out, probably because it doesn’t directly affect me.

That being said, I hope not to offend anyone by making judgments on something that I have not experienced first hand. I will offer my opinion no matter. Everyone wants to know “how did we get here?!”. And we are blaming everyone – past leaders; big, bad, crooked corporations; and the structure of the government. These things and the pressures of changing landscapes have not stolen something from us. We have lost it.

Lost what? Well, the big picture, that’s what. Even now, I am young and not far removed from the carefree days of childhood where my experience of this world was not broken down by the crushing weight of finances, politics, and social pressures. Talk of portfolios, retirement funds, and bankruptcy never entered my vocabulary. Instead, my word bank consisted (and still does consist of) dreams, goodness, an exciting future, the little things in life. All of these things being part of the bigger picture.

How could we lose track of something so big and so lovely? It’s like losing a large elephant in a small room. Where is it hiding? Under the rug? I don’t think so. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe it is exactly the elephant in the room – that thing which no one wants to talk about because if we do, then we just might have to start taking responsibility for our own lot in life.

Many people say that you cannot just live inside this dream world where everything is ok. And I’m not necessarily suggesting that, but there does have to be a point where we realize that it has been completely left behind. Some will suggest that this sort of attitude is reductionist, but I still have to argue that that is only what people say when it seems too hard to look at the big picture instead of the smaller ones that seem to have more concrete solutions. And while things like finances seem to have concrete solutions, we still cannot find them. I am more inclined to think that solving the big picture puzzle is a much more worthwhile, rewarding, and possible go at this life.

I would love to turn around to these women and ask them to chill out and think about the good things in their life instead of bashing their coworkers and this political atmosphere, and adopting a offensive strategy towards the rest of the world just so they can survive. I think that attitude is want makes this need to fight just to survive continue. If I did this though, I would probably be punched in the face. I am afraid we are starting to fight fire with fire, and that just will not work. We are on our way to burning the big picture down and then it won’t even matter to anyone anymore that we have lost it.