Pre-submitted for the rest of the month...

…and I can keep submitting each week in turn, if that helps, but here's the whole "set" from next week 13-24, & 20-24, as well as the year-ending 27-24 coda.

Let me know what helps or reduces confusion the most as we head into holiday season!

Pax, Jeff

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Faith Works 12-13-24
Jeff Gill

Getting off of the naughty list, part 2
___


"I'm in the regret reduction business."

That's what the lady in the long coat told Rodney, the clerk at the ZipMart, as she stirred her midnight cup of hot chocolate. She'd come in after a long quiet stretch, and as he pointed out where the parts of a hot chocolate were on the coffee stand, they ended up talking.

He asked, thinking it wouldn't seem too creepy at this point in their conversation, what had her out so late. Her explanation about "regret reduction" made Rodney look something more than puzzled.

She laughed at her own joke, then added "I'm a hospice chaplain. But that doesn't mean much to most people."

Actually, Rodney had been two places in the hospital, the emergency department and the hospice floor. He told the chaplain about his grandmother, and how much he thought the hospice program had helped her in those last few days up there. "But regret reduction?"

"Oh, it's a stupid joke, I admit," she replied, "but the sixth floor used to have a big sign as you got off the elevator showing how to get to the risk reduction department. When hospice expanded up there, they moved, but the idea stuck with me."

"How is hospice a . . . regret reduction thing?"

She tried to explain: most of what made hospice different from regular medical care, when a person was dying, was that you didn't want to do things with the precious time you had left that later you would, well, regret. Hospice, she reminded Rodney, wasn't about stopping treatment, it was a different kind of treatment. You might risk taking meds or chemo that made you sick for weeks if it would give you months or years in return, but if you only had weeks in any case, those sorts of interventions . . .

"You might regret later," Rodney completed.

"Exactly," the chaplain said. "Plus, we sometimes can encourage people to say things, or do things, that they might regret not doing later, even if it's hard now. We see the timetable a little more clearly, sometimes."

"Except we all can run out of time," Rodney said.

She looked back at him quizzically over the edge of her cup of hot chocolate. But didn't say anything.

After a long pause, Rodney added "I feel that way, sometimes, waiting here."

"Waiting here for what?"

"For when I can figure out what I'm supposed to do."

She sipped a bit more of her drink, then asked "What is it you're supposed to do?"

Rodney thought a while. The lady seemed patient, like his grandmother, but healthier. He looked at her, and looked away as she continued to gaze at him calmly. Looking out the big windows of the front of the store, he said "I'd just like to get off the naughty list. It's Christmas time, you know? I just feel like I'm stuck on the wrong side of Santa's book."

The chaplain sat her drink down next to the register, and leaned against it, looking out the same direction Rodney was, at mostly their reflections against the darkness outside.

"Well, that's a dilemma. You don't want to regret missing a chance to get off the naughty list. But here you are, doing a good job, keeping this place open, and clean, and helping customers like me. Are you sure you're on that list?"

"Oh yeah," said Rodney. "I've done enough stupid stuff to fill up a dumpster."

"So are we talking about Santa, God, or your family and friends here?"

"Pretty much all three know I'm on the naughty list."

"Well, I can't speak for Santa, or your family, but maybe we should talk about God."

(end of part two of three)


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's telling another multi-part story this December. You can tell him where the story should end at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.


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Faith Works 12-20-24
Jeff Gill

Getting off of the naughty list, part 3
___


"Why are you so sure you're on the naughty list?" asked the hospice chaplain at the ZipMart.

Rodney had been helping her get hot chocolate as midnight passed, and other customers were few and far between during these single digit hours of the night. They got to talking about her work with the dying and those who loved them, and about his work here in the convenience store.

He explained how he'd made a fair number of mistakes in his life (she interrupted him gently to point out that he wasn't all that old, not to her, anyhow), and it was hard to see how he would ever make things right.

"So one night, there's this lady with a couple of kids, who comes in for just basics sometimes when she can't get to the store where it's cheaper, milk or cereal and stuff. And you can tell she's counting her change and times are tough for her."

The chaplain nodded.

"I had been thinking I'd help out some time, and the next time she walked in about 9 pm, went to the cooler, I pulled out some of my cash and figured I'd offer to cover it for her, you know, Merry Christmas and all that. Then she comes back to the register about when another guy rolls in, comes up right ahead of her, buys a pack of smokes and a bunch of scratch-offs, then says 'and put her groceries on my tab for good luck, okay?' He laughs and she laughs and I put my money away."

"So you didn't get your chance."

"Right. But then a few nights later, another older guy comes in, all flustered, because his battery died. He needed a jump. My heap is right over by the side of the building, so I shut down the register, run out, move my car, go to get his car started, and it won't turn over at all. Then another guy comes up, looks in, doesn't say a word but reverses how I'd connected the clamps, and it started right up. He snorts at me and walks off."

"Okay, that stung. But you helped the man?"

"Maybe, but he didn't act like it, and when I went back in? Two punks had snuck in and were running out with two bottles of pop and and armful of bags of chips. I was so ticked I didn't even try running after them, with my leg and all. I just added it up and paid for it to make the totals work."

"What you're saying," the chaplain said, "is your efforts to get off the naughty list never seem to work."

"Not even close."

"Well, has it occurred to you that you're going about it all wrong?"

"I must be. So what's a better way?"

"First, can I tell you something about God? God isn't Santa. Not even close. You're worried about a naughty list, and maybe Santa has one, maybe he doesn't, but I've got a book here in my purse that says God doesn't make lists that way."

"Yeah, yeah, you're gonna tell me God is love. I know."

"Do you?"

She looked evenly at him, standing behind the register. He had the higher position by a step, but it was as if she was looking at him eye to eye. "If God is love, and God so loved the world that we get to celebrate Christmas as a gift from God, then maybe you don't have to earn that love. Maybe you can't earn it. It's just something that's given us. You're trying to work off your regrets with good deeds, and God says every Christmas and most days in between you don't have to do it that way."

They talked for a long time after that, and agreed that they'd talk again. Probably after Christmas, right there at the ZipMart.

(end of part three of three)


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he appreciates your having read this year's December tale. Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.


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Faith Works 12-27-24
Jeff Gill

Getting off the naughty list, coda
___


"Take down all the Christmas stuff."

That was on the manager's whiteboard on the cooler door at the ZipMart; Rodney knew to check it every shift. Corporate might send emails and texts, there may be memos under glass on the counter, but the whiteboard was the law. Do that first, and all will be well.

Rodney had the overnight shift, the one he preferred. It had a rhythm and pace he was used to, busy at first, then slowly tapering off through midnight, then the long night hours but the interesting people and questions you got at 3 am.

Plus, the manager knew to ask him to take care of stuff the day shifts couldn't get to as well, and he'd take care of it. Like taking all the Christmas decorations and seasonal displays down. They had gas and hot dogs and bottles of pop every few minutes, but the night shift was full of long stretches where he could step out and work around the store, or pause with a customer and answer their questions.

Or sometimes, to ask them. A few weeks back, Rodney had helped a customer, just after midnight, dressed a little better than he was used to seeing, and looking for hot chocolate. She was a hospice chaplain coming back from a home where someone had died, and after a long night, she wanted something hot more than just going home and staying awake anyhow. Or so she said.

They got to talking about regret, and dying, and hope, and the future, and Rodney found himself talking about his regret, his worry, his fear even, that he was on the naughty list for good and all, and there was no way of getting off of it. He'd tried to do some good things, and they never seemed to work out the way he'd hoped, and in the end, he never felt better.

The chaplain suggested he was confused not about himself, but about God. He might have made some mistakes (or many, as Rodney corrected her), but she argued God's love wasn't limited to those who had a winning scratch-off ticket for it that you bought with your good deeds.

They talked a long time that night about churches, and her faith, and his history with a couple of different congregations. She didn't tell him he had to go to church, or where, just that she thought he might be ready to be around some other people wondering about the same things, and wrote down a few places she thought he might find a welcome ear.

Reaching high to unloop the lights, he began to reel the strand onto the spool. It was funny, but there were so many things he'd been doing all along that now seemed like they were, well, little blessings he'd missed because he was trying so hard to check them off as good works. Blessings for himself, and blessings for others. Just doing your work well, with intention; simple acts of kindness, done for themselves and not for what you might receive for doing them.

The world and the year ahead looked different now. He hoped the chaplain would stop by again so he could tell her about it. He was off the naughty list.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he hopes your year ahead is already filled with anticipated blessings. Tell him how you've been blessed at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.