I remember
my mother, or mother-in-law, or someone saying caustically, “I’d like to give
him a piece of my mind!” I knew what she
meant by the way she said it, as you probably did when you heard it. I have often thought, since, that I too would
like to give another person “. . .a piece of my mind,” –but in an entirely different
sense. I have tried to do that over the
past few years by giving to my readers my thoughts—a piece of my mind—in these
postings.
For that
reason, as far as I can tell, I have had for years a difficult time during the
Christmas season because of the cultural norm of giving material gifts which
clashes with my desire to give decidedly immaterial gifts. A gift should reflect something that pleases
both the giver and the receiver—and it doesn’t have to come in a box.
I suppose it
started when I read one of my intellectual icons, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote
an essay titled “Gifts.” He said,
“Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift. . . is
that we might convey to some person that which properly belonged to his
character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for
the most part barbarous. Rings and other
jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts.
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
Thou must bleed for me. Therefore
the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn, . . . the
painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing . . . . But it is
a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which
does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.”
The incident
at the gate of the temple with the apostles Peter and John interacting with the
beggar illustrates this well. The lame
man asked an alms of the apostles. Their
response was exactly what was most appropriate to the situation. Find out what that was by reading from the
Bible, Acts 3:1-8. And he, the receiver of the gift, was
likewise appropriate in his response.
John
Steinbeck, a famous author who left a legacy in where I live, wrote of a friend
of his (and a friend of many others) who, despite this man’s many eccentricities
and moral failings knew how to give the gift of himself. Steinbeck wrote:
“Ed’s gift for receiving
made him a great teacher [and friend].
In conversation you found yourself telling him things—thoughts,
conjectures, hypotheses—and you found a pleased surprise at yourself for having
arrived at something you were not aware that you could think or know. It gave you such a good sense of
participation with him that you could present him with this wonder. Then Ed would say, “Yes, that’s so. That’s the way it might be and besides—” and
he would illuminate it but not so that he took it away from you. He simply accepted it.” Then, “When you had something from him it was
not something that was his that he tore away from himself. When you had a thought from him or a piece of
music. . . or a steak dinner, it was not his—it was yours already, and his was
only the head and hand that steadied it in position toward you. For this reason no one was ever cut off from
him. Association with him was deep
participation. . . .”
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