It’s a giving thing…

In a world long ago dissolved into mostly give and take, here we are again at the cusp of what most observe as the ‘giving season’.

So many charities come into focus, most of which are good and sincere, and outstretched hands are all around us.

Added to the usual stuff this year are the many still in need in hurricane-ravaged, flooded or scorched areas still struggling to rebuild their lives.

God only knows what tomorrow may bring for them, but given the track record of the past year we’re sadly almost guaranteed that something awful is likely around the corner.

Millions will do everything they can to help offset the grief. Those who can will give money, those who can’t will lend their physical efforts or collect clothing or water or canned goods and we’ll all appreciate the fact that their caring knows no boundaries.

Still, there will be those who fall through the cracks. Some by choice, some by chance.

Yes, we know you can’t help somebody who doesn’t want to be helped. More often than not, they’re the ones who end up in the criminal justice system or his or her body is discovered in the woods or under a culvert.

You do what you can. You counsel, you give, you think, you pray, but sometimes it’s not enough and oh, so very many people this year feel like they’re ‘prayed out’.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to gather around a table Thursday will say grace, dig in, maybe draw names or start gift lists for a family Christmas. It’s hard not to feel a little guilty about that, but what can you do?

I’m proud of the fact that I’ve spent most of my adult live involved in one charity or another and that I’ve been able to help a good many far less fortunate than me or my non-profit cohorts.

But in retrospect, you realize that now, so many years later, the rank and file of the unfortunate hasn’t shrunk much at all.

The important thing to remember is not to give up. Maybe the day will come when there’ll be no more hunger, no more poverty, no more tragedy. It isn’t likely, but we can hope.

So if you haven’t yet picked your charity of choice as the holidays bear down on us, I urge you to find one and give it all you’ve got.

Let’s keep at it, do what we can and who knows, that light at the end of the giving tunnel might be within reach.

We owe it to the ones we call “the less fortunate” to share whatever we can, and if we knock a dent in those numbers we’ve certainly accomplished something.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them,” President John F. Kennedy, who we lost 59 years ago this week, once said.

And another president – actually, the one who made the modern Thanksgiving holiday ‘official’ – perhaps said it best: “To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own,” Abraham Lincoln observed.

Can I hear an ‘amen’?