Whenever I see a Mason jar, it always makes me think of my mom. Mom never was much of a cook, but she certainly had a knack for putting food into Mason jars ... she called it "canning," which was always weird to me, you'd think it would be called "jarring," right? I remember rows and rows of jarred tomatoes, okra, pickles and beets perched on the shelves in the laundry room, and I remember how fascinated I was with the colorful contents of the jars. It took Mom a lot of time to put all that food into those jars ... she would spend hours and hours preparing the food and sterilizing the lids and jars, and then she would carefully place the various items into the jars. One thing I learned early on as I watched Mom as she worked was that canning (or jarring) was a process, a process that required dedication and determination ... those old Mason jars didn't fill themselves.
Yesterday, I read something that has made me think a lot about Mason jars, and more specifically about the contents of those jars. The story talked about a woman who decided to conduct an experiment ... an experiment that involved two jars. She decided to put two Mason jars on her desk at her job, and for an entire year she would place items in one of the jars while she removed items from the other. She would write the "I'm worthless" or "I hate my life" or "I'm a horrible person" thoughts that often entered her mind on slips of paper and place them in one of the jars. Into the other jar she would place 365 slips of paper upon which she had previously written a good deed to do ... an act of kindness toward another person. She made a commitment to reach into the "deed" jar each morning as soon as she arrived at her job and perform the act of kindness that was written on the paper.
When she began the experiment, the woman found that she struggled to do the good deeds, and she admitted that in the beginning, she often just tossed the slip of paper into the wastebasket under her desk. The woman also found that she needed a much bigger jar to hold all the pieces of paper that contained her self-loathing thoughts. After a few weeks, however, she reached into the good deeds jar and actually performed the act of kindness ... she invited a co-worker to lunch and paid for her friend's meal. And that day, she only put 15 notes into the other jar. It wasn't long until the woman couldn't wait to get to work, reach into the deeds jar and carry out the act of kindness. And it also wasn't long until something else happened ... she noticed that the more good deeds she performed, the fewer notes she wrote and placed into the "hate" jar. At the end of the year, the woman made another commitment ... a promise to enlist others to join her on her good deeds quest.
As I read the story, I realized there was a huge lesson in it for me. I've spent a lot of time over my 52 plus years of life filling my self-loathing jar ... actually, I've probably filled a million or more of those jars. When I should have been dipping into the good deeds jar, I was busy shoveling notes into the other one. Here's the thing ... it's so much easier to crawl into my big bad Terrie cave than it is to peer outside the rock walls and look for ways to do some good in the world. I think it was no accident I read the article yesterday ... I don't think much of anything in life happens by accident or coincidence. And here's what else I think ... it's almost the end of another year, and I think I need to put a couple of jars on my desk ... yep, I think I do, indeed.
"I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live." Ecclesiastes 3:12
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