Putting People in Boxes

I was thinking about the shopping everyone will be doing today,
and it made me think of Pete Seeger’s song, “little boxes, little boxes all the same.”

Little boxes on a hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky,
little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same.
—Pete Seeger

Little Boxes with Names

A picture came to me of people who are holiday shopping
Crowds of people vying for gifts, gadgets, and games
They are questing and requesting decorations and prizes
to celebrate by making big and little boxes with names.

How our eyes glaze as we move through the herding hallways
How we don’t see each other as we move through the holidays.

Do we start to think generosity is inside the boxes?
Do we put people inside boxes that have their names?

There’s the people we buy for
and the people who buy for us
There’s the people help us
and the people who get in our way.

It can happen . . .
little boxes, little boxes mentality
It can happen to the kindest soul
in less than a day.

Our feet become transportation
Our eyes become navigation
Our heads and hands are productivity
Lonely hearts overpay.

Yet, smiles don’t come in pretty boxes
Caring touches aren’t delivered second day.
Respect isn’t offered on paper then forgotten
We don’t put corrugated around loving words we say.

Generosity of spirit doesn’t live in little boxes,
little boxes tied with ribbon, little boxes so beautiful,
but in some ways all the same
Generosity of spirit lives in our hearts,
when we see every name tag as a person of wishes and dreams
. . . every person as a person with a name.

How will you be generous today?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!