Life
December 8, 2010
Community Journal
B3
Why does Christmas cause us a certain uneasiness? There’s an aspect of the coming of Christmas that rattles us. We attribute it to our busyness, the expectations, and the expenses incurred. Partly true. But a reflective wisdom suggests something else lies unrecognized in us at this time of year. Psychologists and spiritual directors remind us that no human is all-good or all-bad. Each of us is a mixture of a bright side and a dark side. We have the potential of performing noble altruistic deeds. Or, we can direct our inner energies toward the darker elements of life. Any of us can go either way and be more the sinner or the saint. The Christmas atmosphere and its meaning nudges us toward our bright side. The songs, lights and efforts to help others all tug at our hearts. Higher aspirations come to mind. We look at our spouse and wonder why we don’t love her even more than we do; or how much more we could be involved in the lives
of our kids or our church. W e n o t i c e other people who really have to struggle Father Lou with life Guntzelman because of poverPerspectives ii m shment, unemployment or illness and think, “I ought to help them more.” Christmas is the time we more readily admit to spiritual realities, go to church and desire to live better. But here’s where a deeper dynamic comes into play. The same experts that point out the mixture of good and evil in every person also divulge a strange human trait. We are frightened of the potential for good in ourselves. It is much easier, they say, to get people to eventually admit to the skeletons in their closet than to admit to the bright side dormant within them. Strange
dynamic, isn’t it? Christmas time disrupts this dynamic. It not only reminds us of how much we’re really loved and treasured by God, but it also reminds us how much we can love and positively affect the lives of others. And that’s disturbing. It clashes with our ego, selfishness and darker side. “I wouldn’t want to try and do this good stuff all year long,” we quietly admit, “I’d be walked on, taken advantage of, and it’d be such a struggle. I feel I wouldn’t be myself.” The resolution of this call to altruism then becomes: “It’s better to say I’m really not much, just an average and struggling worldly person – so don’t expect a lot of good from me.” Perhaps this kind of thinking reveals why we’re so obsessed with the scandals and sins of others; why the dirt in the lives of the rich and famous fascinates us; why we look backwards in history and write expose books about statesmen and
Too good of a deal online might lead to counterfeit wares Although most holiday shoppers still like to go to the stores to pick out gifts, a good many are taking to the Internet. Sales are up dramatically but, if you’re not careful, you could end up spending your money on illegal counterfeit goods and copyrighted material. The government just closed 82 websites where sellers were attempting to sell illegal products. But more websites are still operating, so you need to beware. That’s what Joyce Shelton has learned firsthand. She and her daughter wanted to buy some Coach handbags and decided to see what they could find online. “I started online searching outlets just to see if we could find something. From one website to another website this link had popped up,” Shelton said. It was from a website called “CoachBagShow.Com.” “We surfed the site probably 15 to 20 times before we picked out two bags. They were an excellent price. I thought I had come across a genuine Coach outlet,” said Shelton. In order to make certain, she called the woman at the website and says she was assured these are genuine
C o a c h items. Then s h e ordered the purses, paying $59 dolfor Howard Ain lars each of Hey Howard! t h e m . Shelton said she thought she was getting a great deal, adding, “A bag like this you would probably find for $198 and up on the average.” Soon after the handbags arrived Shelton started to notice the stitching on her bag was falling apart. In addition, the snap inside the bag was now just dangling. So, despite the Coach emblem on the bag and the name on the buttons, zippers and rings, Shelton is convinced it’s just a knockoff. Shelton sent an e-mail to the website asking for a refund, but didn’t get it. The company said she could return the bags but warns if she did the bags would probably be confiscated by customs officials. In that case, she wouldn’t get a refund. So, how did the purses get past customs when shipped to Shelton? A close look at the shipping label from China shows it says the
contents are just T-shirts, not purses. “I always make sure I buy good quality bags and that they are genuine. That’s why I was so offended when I found out they were not original,” Shelton said. She’s not the only one. Robin Stith of Delhi Township wrote to me that she had ordered from a different website and said her “Coach” handbag packing slip claimed it was shoes, not purses, inside. She said she thought the handbags were so cheap because they were discontinued, not because they were counterfeit. So, play it safe when shopping online. Check out the websites selling items, and beware if the price seems too good – because they could be selling counterfeits. Don’t use search engines looking for special deals. Instead, go directly to reputable sites with which you’re familiar. Finally, always pay with a credit card, not a debit card. That way, you can dispute the charge should anything go wrong. Howard Ain answers consumer complaints weekdays on WKRC-TV Local 12. Write to him at 12 WKRC-TV, 1906 Highland Ave., Cincinnati 45219.
people who are admired. We’re eager to find blemishes and secret sins. It’s not just to make us look good, but to cynically make us all look bad and hopelessly weak. Then we can excuse ourselves from rising higher. “Look at them! So, do you expect differently from people like us?” we rationalize. When Jesus Christ, the one whose birth we celebrate on Christmas, walked among us, there was an occasion when he looked us in the eye and said in so many words, “You are the salt of the earth, … if you don’t flavor it with good, who will?” Similarly, in his inauguration address in 1994, Nelson Mandela referred to our ten-
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dency to hide our potential for good. He said: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. “We ask ourselves, who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be? “We are a child of God. Our playing small doesn’t
serve the world… We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is in everyone! “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” Father Lou Guntzelman is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Contact him at columns@ communitypress.com or P.O. Box 428541, Cincinnati, OH 45242.
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