You can picture this. It's a Peanuts cartoon. Lucy is leaning on the back of Schroeder's grand piano. He is explaining that Beethoven's Birthday (which is today) should be a holiday. No gift exchange. We should all just get together and listen to the music. Lucy explodes. "What's a holiday without gifts!!??"

Well, it's easy to laugh at Lucy's blatant focus - "What's in it for me?!" How self-centered! How little recognition that someone else might be celebrated! She's hopeless! But somehow, I didn't just laugh and go on with my day, forgetting all about it. That cartoon strip got me thinking.

What constitutes a "gift," anyway? Is it always something wrapped up, decorated and presented on a birthday, Christmas or other occasion? What about Beethoven's gifts? Whether or not we're fans of classical music, we can recognize his talent, marvel at his ability to compose despite increasing deafness and acknowledge the innovations he brought to Western music. He was immensely gifted - and the music he produced is a gift offered to each of us. I imagine Schroeder would make the argument that we've already received our gifts - from Beethoven himself! What we need is time dedicated to enjoying them.

Many others have particular talents that are well beyond anything the average person demonstrates. We speak of gifted artists, dancers, athletes. We say this person has "a gift for math" or "a gift for languages." Watching them, we know we're in the presence of something special, even awe-inspiring. In the exercise of their gifts, these people pass them on to others - including us. Maybe that's in the nature of all this. Maybe a gift isn't really a gift until it's shared, spread around. Maybe that's the part that Lucy just doesn't get.

Occasionally, I come across a piece that puts the words "gift" and "present" together, and muses about whether they are actually synonyms. The "Thought for the Day" in your program is one of those - "Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present". We smile in recognition - it offers something more than just a play on words. Each day does offer us something unique, its own combination of beauty and challenge. That's easy to forget - and we often do.

Here's a piece by David Blanchard that sees the two terms as having rather different meanings. He starts by describing a potholder he was given - you know, one of the multicolored kind that kids often make by weaving loops of stretchy fabric. He had accepted it as a present (and put it to use) but later decided he had missed its real significance. He writes:

Presents are the sort of things that fit on lists, complete with size and color preference. (And these days, I'd add, with website links!) Presents are the sorts of things we are smart enough to ask for. Gifts are altogether different. We don't usually think to ask for them, perhaps because we think we don't deserve them, or don't want to risk expressing the need. Maybe we don't even recognize the need ourselves. Gifts differ from presents because no matter what form they take, they always represent something greater, something deeper. Something more enduring; they are about things like love, respect, and affirmation.

Gifts given are often woven into some simple token. And sometimes, protecting our own comfort, we give them in disguise. They can be easy to miss.

Now I try to give more gifts than presents, and without too much camouflage. Be gift-bearers yourselves. Give them along with presents, and look carefully for the gifts others are trying to give you.

That's probably good advice - but not very specific. But I remember another story that connects these ideas - gifts and presents and the sometimes mysterious ways they are shared, and even come back to us. It was told by a man whose well-loved, elderly aunt had died. She had not had children herself and had lived alone for many years. He was helping to gather her things and clean out her home. On one of her shelves, he found a painting he himself had done as an elementary school art project. He even remembered giving it to her long ago. With a rush of emotion, he realized that his gift was so important to her that she had kept and displayed it through several decades. Recognizing that this was certainly not great art, he found new assurance of the love she had offered him - symbolized in a now fragile painting that she had valued and protected for so long. As I think about the story, I wonder, "Who was really the giver? Who received the gift? Which time are we talking about?" And I realize that I am confident that the real gift, the one behind and entwined with the present, will be, maybe has been, passed on again - perhaps many times. Maybe that's also part of the nature of real gifts.

And let's go back to Lucy for a moment. For somewhere down inside me, and maybe inside you, there's also some recognition for her outraged cry. Who doesn't understand Lucy's need for attention, her desire for someone to give her gifts? We do want to be noticed - well, more than noticed. We want to be affirmed and to be loved. In Blanchard's terms, we hope for presents that really turn out to be gifts.

I was in a shopping mall this week and I passed by a store specializing in jeans. It wasn't the kind of place I usually look for, or even notice much. But emblazoned across its windows was the message, "Give Love!" At the time, it brought out the Scrooge in me. "Bah, humbug!" I grumped to myself about examples of commercialism and profit motives making impossible claims. Jeans do not equate with love to me, though I wear mine a lot. Most marketing messages promote meanings for products that just aren't possible. And they encourage us to think our lives will be rich and full if we just get the right stuff. It's ridiculous!

But when I think about Blanchard's piece and the story of finding the childhood painting - well, I have to admit this gift/present thing gets complicated. For the moment, let's push aside the commercial messages, the gifts we give out of a sense of obligation, the frustrations that come with all the recent recalls and the fact that many of us have more stuff than we actually need or want. Let's look at the gifts we want to give and the people we want to present with those gifts. When we focus on these, we see that what we really want is to find and give presents that are, or can become, gifts. We want something that will somehow convey our connection, our affirmation and our love. We want to share the gifts of our lives with others. The challenge is figuring out how to do that. In most cases, it's probably not as simple as buying someone a pair of jeans.

And that's the vexing part of gift-giving. We aren't satisfied with getting something. We want to find just the right thing. And to find it quickly. Sometimes we "luck out." We find a present that fits the person perfectly. More often, I think, we end up getting something that we hope will be OK. And sometimes, the best gift comes from our own gifts - something we do, something we make, some shared time, some heartfelt word. In other words, it's a piece of ourselves, offered to someone we care for. These things are possible, but they're unlikely when we're in a hurry.

In another essay, David Blanchard retells the story of an African boy who wanted to give his teacher, who was returning home to England, a gift. He had no money and few options. The day before she was to leave, the boy brought her a very large seashell. "The teacher asked the boy where he could have found such a shell. He told her there was only one spot where such extraordinary shells could be found, and when he named the place, a certain bay many miles away, the teacher was speechless. 'Why ... why, it's gorgeous ... wonderful, but you shouldn't have gone all that way to get a gift for me.' His eyes brightening, the boy answered, 'Long walk part of gift.'"

Blanchard muses that the most meaningful gifts require some form of a "long walk." He speaks of the relationship and commitment we give our life partners, of parenting, of creating reconciliation after some estrangement, or of maintaining a sense of unity with those who aren't prospering. They're all gifts of time, of ongoing-ness. I know that when I look for a gift for David or for my children and grandchildren, I want something that carries a particular message: "I know you awfully well, I love you very much, I'm with you for the long walk." I hope they find that message, which is my real gift, intertwined with whatever present I finally choose - maybe even jeans.

This year, as usual, David and I struggled to put together a "list" - our kids always ask for ideas about what to get us. It's something of a challenge, since we don't really need more stuff. As it is, we fuss over our already-full closets and cupboards. After we had made and sent the list off, David turned to me and said, "And what would you like from me?" We sighed, and laughed at our continuing predicament.

Then inspiration hit. "Let's get a water buffalo!" And that's what we're doing. I like the idea of a water buffalo - they're so big, so exotic looking, and reportedly, so gentle! David recently learned that real mozzarella is made from water buffalo milk. He likes that. All of it sounds good to us. Now I'm not sure that it's legal to keep a water buffalo within Modesto's city limits, and besides, taking care of a water buffalo is not on my to-do list. This one's going to some village in Asia, and I hope it lives a long, happy life. We'll probably never know about that. But this gift has the sense of something lasting, something with implications for better lives and a better world that embodies the love and the commitment to the long walk that we want with and for each other. And we don't even have to find a place to keep it.

The winter holidays bring gift giving to a prominent place in our consciousness. But in truth, we have opportunities to give gifts all year long. Sometimes we don't recognize or act on the possibilities that present themselves. Maybe it's a misfortune that Beethoven's birthday comes so close to Christmas. Maybe his example of the impact of sharing our unique personal gifts would get more attention if it came at some other time of year. We sometimes forget that the best gifts can't be put in pretty packages. But at any season, a present becomes a gift when it somehow carries our love and affirmation to a particular person or when it reaches out, affirming the kinship involved in the interdependent web.

A few weeks ago, we read a litany that used Rebecca Parker's words, originally written for a Starr King catalog. I've read them a hundred times and they continue to echo. "Your gifts, whatever you discover them to be, can be used to bless or curse the world. What will you do with your gifts? Choose to bless the world." At this season, or any other, the questions remain. What are our gifts? How will we offer them, and to whom? At this season or any other, may we offer our gifts to those we love and to others beyond our immediate circle. May we choose to bless the world.

December 16, 2007

(Copyright by Rev. Grace Simons. Contact the author for permission to use.)

This is one in a collection of Minister's Sermons. We also have a collection of Guest Sermons, a brief Welcome and Biography from Rev. Simons, and the latest edition of Grace Notes, a column Rev. Grace writes for our newsletter.