Sweet Christmas Honey

I remember the day. Every year I take out my silver nativity scene from Mexico somewhere around black Friday. All I can think of is this mans face all soft and full of the sort of joy and wisdom one holds when they can’t be beaten by life but life tries it’s hardest. I try in the midst of this image to make my shopping list but fail to because his face just keeps flooding my visual memory. He becomes even more real to me then he was on that day.

So here’s the story. I was on my first ever trip to Mexico. I was excited to walk across the bridge and bust out my newly learned bartering skills. We went through the usual motions of finding a buddy and not straying too far from the group and off we went. We took pictures at the boarder plaque. We ate authentic Mexican food. We danced salsa. We shopped. We were tourist who had fun.

I was a young adult leader on this particular trip and not a student. I didn’t care about bootleg DVD’s and instead wandered off to find scarves, indigenous crafts, and silver. What I found was a nativity scene that I still cherish and some honey sold on the street by a local farmer. I did exactly what I thought I was supposed to do. I bartered for the best deal I could on this jar of honey. He stated the price and I showed him what I had in coins and offered them. He restated the price and I turned to walk away. He accepted my coins and I went home with some wonderful honey. To be fair I was showing him all of the pesos that I had. I wasn’t being dishonest about that. But I of course had a wad of US dollars in my pocket as well that I wasn’t offering.

There was nothing more to this exchange to tell about really. We ended our day in the line of elderly folks walking back across the bridge from having acquired cheap health care and prescriptions. We were shocked at how many people need to do this and genuinely surprised at how much more scrutiny there is to walking out of Mexico as there is to walking in. My honey and I along with 90 or so students piled into our caravan for home. We drove North to the land of milk and honey with my jar full of cheaply acquired honey. Somewhere around Oklahoma I was awakened from my Dramamine induced slumber to the sound of shattering glass and “oops, what was that” being shouted by the person trying to pull their bag from the open back doors of the van. So that was it. We spent the next 20 minutes cleaning honey as best we could from everyone’s bags at a gas pump and we finished our trip.

I never thought much more about my honey. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to live into my anticipation of sharing something authentically Mexican purchased at such an amazing price with my cup of tea and my friends. But, like the good American I am I drove to the nearest Wal-Mart and bought some more.

It’s been five years since that all but forgotten trip. The funny thing is that even though it was nothing more than a brief exchange it has played itself out in my heart deeply each and every year at Christmas. I pull out my tubs labeled “Christmas/Breakable” from the basement never remembering what I have in them. I open each and every piece and try to decide where I will put it even though we have a small house and the same things get placed nearly the same as the year before and the same cast offs get put back in the tub for another year. Each piece a gift, a hand-me-down, a special memory to be kept. I always pull the silver nativity piece from its wrap, give it a little polishing rub with my shirt sleeve, and smile as I think of my students. I place it on the same side table in almost exactly the same position as the year before and I move on with life. I don’t have any more thoughts.

But then sometimes a few hours or sometimes days after, the man’s sweet face comes to my mind again and I can’t shake my feelings of regret and sorrow. While I thought I was doing some “hot shot” albeit naïve thing at the time I now realize that all I did was keep a man who was trying to provide for his family from receiving a fair price for his goods. I walked away with all he had to offer and actually felt good about myself rather than shameful. I didn’t realize just how sick we really are.

So now as I flip through the stacks of Black Friday fliers I think of this man. I think of my trip and the honey that was never meant to be. I still shop. I still get a thrill out of getting the “best deal ever”. But I no longer make a mad dash on Thursday night instead thinking of the employee who needs the overtime pay to provide for the family they can’t spend time with because they already receive an unlivable wage. I honor them with my silence. I think of what it takes and who it really costs to make a TV so cheap that it will astound us. I pray for this man that I don’t know and I pray for us all. May we experience this Christmas how sweet the taste of honey is and truly appreciate it’s rendering.