Natalie Jacobson shares her thoughts about the stories and issues of the day.

Dec. 13, 2006

I looked up the word offensive. According to Merriam Webster, offensive is synonymous with obnoxious, insulting. "Offend" is synonymous with affront, insult, outrage.

During this Christmas season, the words are used as reasons to remove a creche, to deny children the singing a carols about the birth of Christ, to instruct retail people to substitute Happy Holiday for Merry Christmas.

I don't get it.

You take Christ out of Christmas and there is no Christmas. There is only a commercial holiday whose only significance is to buy and sell things.

I like to think Christians give gifts to celebrate the birth of Christ. We give to those we love, to those we want to thank for kindnesses given, to those who need comfort, shelter, and warmth.

The wise men brought gold frankincense and myrrh to the manger. Gold, a fitting gift for a king, frankincense resin from a balsam tree used as medicine, and myrrh, an herb used in burials, perhaps a portent of what was to come.

Legend has it that a Christmas Tree was born in the 7th century when a monk traveling to Germany used the triangular shape of a fir tree as a symbol of the trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost.

In the early 16th Century in Latvia Martin Luther is said to have decorated a fir tree with candles to show the children how stars twinkled at night.

The Star of Bethlehem led the wise men to Jesus. We often top a Christmas tree with that light of the famous journey.

Various cultures add other symbols to celebrate the birth of Christ.

I was brought up in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Serbian Eastern Orthodox followers celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, which follows the old Julian calendar.

Among our traditions, on Christmas Eve, friends come to the house just before midnight bringing an apple stuffed with a coin, the apple symbolizing good health, and the coin, good wealth. The family reciprocates by tossing rice on the "poloznik," returning the greeting.

We kiss three times. Mir Bozji, Hristos se rodi, Vaistinu se rodi. Translation: God's peace, Christ is born, Indeed he is born.

Mother roasted a pig, and baked a Christmas bread, a cesnica, in which she hid a coin. This simple meal at midnight broke a three day fast. Our priest would bless our bread, breaking it in three, pouring wine, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The person who found the coin, was blessed with good luck.

We ended the night with music, Christmas carols and finally bed, to dream of St. Nicholas who might leave a gift under the tree come morning.

I treasure the traditions of my childhood. I am comforted by my beliefs in God and his teachings. And I am filled with joy when I can join others in celebration of the birth of the person who to me represents life ever lasting.

I don't ask you to believe what I believe. I respect your beliefs and traditions and in our country, I believe you and I have the right to celebrate our faith publicly and privately.

I am not "offended" by your beliefs or the way you choose to acknowledge them. Quite the contrary, I hope your faith brings you as much comfort as mine does to me. Moreover, I am happy to bear witness to your traditions so I can better appreciate what they mean to you.

And if you are one who has no faith, no traditions and choose no celebration of anything religious, that’s ok too. But don’t ask me to abrogate my beliefs to validate the absence of yours.

If you are Jew, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or a person of any other faith, and I wish you a Merry Christmas, please know, I am wishing you health, joy and peace.

Merry Christmas. Natalie Salatich Jacobson

Oct. 9, 2006

The recent arguments about CORI in the current gubernatorial campaign, bring to my mind a larger philosophical question.

CORI is the Criminal Offender Records Information law.

The issue raised is whether criminal records should be made available to everybody or only to some people in whole or in part.

Deval Patrick thinks criminal records can deny a person a second chance because an employer might not want to hire someone with a record. Therefore, he argues some information should be withheld. He has not said exactly what information he thinks should be public or to whom.

Kerry Healey believes criminal history record should not be edited and be available to potential employers.

Currently, some 11,000 employers have access to criminal records under CORI. Almost all of those employers, as I understand it, deal with vulnerable people, such as school children and people in nursing homes.

According to the Boston Globe, legislation pending on Beacon Hill, the Public Safety Act of 2006, "contained measures that would make it easier for offenders to have their records sealed or expunged, and allow drug dealers to lop time off their sentences."

Does this not amount to legalizing denial? If a person committed a crime, he or she committed a crime. To hide the fact does not erase the crime.

The problem as some see it, is giving criminals a second chance. Rather than hide the past or pretend a crime was not committed, doesn't it make more sense to a. help the criminal prove he or she is worthy of a second chance and b. help employers be more receptive to people with a record?

If you hide the facts, employers can't make smart decisions. They might hire someone who might be dangerous. They also might not hire someone because they can't be sure they haven’t committed a crime, which would be a liability in a certain business. They might resort to profiling or stereotyping.

I am not an expert on the CORI legislation, and I take no position here on the considerable controversy over its details. I simply question the premise of denying the truth. If the law says its ok to lie to get a job, why should a person think the lying stops there?

I confess I am old school on honesty. To my mind, lying, cheating, denying truths never solve anything. But in our society these days, people argue it's OK to cheat sometimes, OK to lie sometimes, OK to pretend sometimes.

We're not talking social niceties here. Sure you are more likely to respond to an unwanted invitation with "Thank you, but I'm busy that day," rather than, "No thanks. I couldn't take having dinner with you."

What is, is. Let's deal with truth and its intended or unintended consequences.

Aug. 3, 2006

Moving On: Our Newest Season

"Swap a lifestyle for a life." Marc Freedman, Prime Time.

It seems those of us 50 and over are all searching for the right phrase, the right name for this unprecedented extra time in life. I’ve tended to think of life in terms of seasons, so for lack of a better idea, I’ll refer to this time in life, as our newest season.

Each season brought its challenges, childhood, the teen years. Then, young adults and finally the comfort of our 30’s and 40’s and 50’s when we actually thought we had a handle of our jobs, life. So after building skyscrapers, et al, what’s next?

If you believe the statisticians, barring disease or an accident, people in good health at 60 have forty more years to live. So there is a lot of time to LIVE. What do we do with that time?

I, for one, find myself increasingly anxious as I contemplate this newest season. I churn with desire to grow and learn. My mind never rests. Everything I read inspires an idea, a possibility, a new way of doing something. My mind moves so quickly, traveling eons of thoughts, I can’t get the words down fast enough.

Time. Contemplation takes time. Life is limited time. Yet, taking time is sometimes the only way to give a moment meaning.

And maybe this newest season has something to do with taking time. Time to nurture relationships. Time to explore new endeavors, learn a new language, meet new people, read the books we never had time for.

And then there is the desire to hug every crying child, feed every starving person.

Save the world. Isn’t that where we started way back in those turbulent sixties?

We talk about retirement from the job you never liked, or the job you used to like, or the one you still like, but feel, well, it’s just time to move on.

When you think of it, the job often defines us. We use titles to identify ourselves. We spent more time on the job than at home, or with friends, or doing anything else. And we do it running, faster, faster. Faxes, cell phones, PC’s, iPods. We do l0 things at once.

How proud we are at the end of the day. I got so much done today. I accomplished everything on my list. Doing, running, producing. Faster. More.

So is it any wonder, after 30 some years of being identified by title or accomplishment, that we struggle to figure out what to do next.

Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? I hear people talk about “giving back”. Giving what to whom?

Perhaps it has something to do with nurturing, wanting the world to be a better place, at least a piece of it, because of “me”.

And, too, I agree with those who say we need to see this newest season of our lives, as equal to all previous seasons, and therefore a part of the whole of our lives.

We can learn from each other. How are you living your newest season? E-mail me at njacobson@hearst.com.

July 13, 2006

Calling all Boomers. We've all heard it. Fifty is the new 30, 60 the new 40, etc. True for many of us.

I've been tracking boomers for a number of years. The most significant difference between boomers and previous generations is our expanded life expectancy. We have more time to live. So, what do we do with that time?

For starters, most of us have to continue to earn a living. Who among us saved for 40 more years?

Most boomers don't need as much money as before and don't want to work 40 plus hours a week. So what are the alternatives?

Perhaps this is this is the time to redefine our passions and priorities, the time to try something new.

Help me out here with my research. Are you, or someone you know, changing careers or jobs, finding new ways of living, adding ways of giving back, or doing for others?

Click here to share your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you. Natalie

June 28, 2006

I can't stop thinking about Abdirauf Abdullahi. Yesterday, as his grieving parents and friends were burying their promising son, Peter's Park, where Abdirauf was shot on Sunday, was ablaze in sunshine

Tree branches danced in a gentle wind, dogs chased each other in the big pen, children challenged their parents to push them higher, higher on the park swings.

A man and a boy lay in the grass laughing, a homeless man slept beneath a tree. Grounds keepers swept up debris.

I'm sure we have all felt it. You lose someone and life goes on as though nothing happened. There are moments you want to scream, stop the sunshine, the joy, because there is none for you. Your loved one is in a box, beneath the earth.

I never met Abdirauf, but it is hard not to feel I know him: an immigrant who comes to the land of the free, in his case, not only searching for a better life, but running from the guns of Somalia. Then, reportedly, running from Memphis again, fearing violence and settling someplace safe, Boston, with his family.

Clearly, like most immigrants, his parents wanted to give him what they could not have. They sent him to Concord-Carlisle High School and had already bought the plane ticket to West Virginia where Abdirauf would attend the University of Charleston in the fall.

I am a second-generation American. My grandparents had loving parents, too, who put their young children on a boat at the turn of the last century to make their way in a world they were sure would offer more than their native Serbia. They survived the rat-infested steerage trip to Ellis Island and made their way to the coalmines of Ohio and the farmland of Michigan.

Their children, my parents, survived the Depression, World War II and Korea, and worked, as the Abdullahis did, for a better life for their children.

I was luckier than Abdirauf. I was the first in my family to go to college. No one shot at me as I traversed the city of Chicago at the age of 8, changing streetcars to get to the city hospital for weekly allergy shots. No one stole our only ball as we played 7-up on the walls of our apartment building. No one wanted to send my grandparents back to Serbia.

I'm sad for Abdirauf and Mr. and Mrs. Abdullahi and their family. I'm sad something so awful happened in my neighborhood, my city, my country.

May you rest in peace, Abdirauf.

Natalie Salatich Jacobson