The Meaning of Gifts

When we give something to someone we enter into a many-sided relationship, for in return we hope for the gift of love. (Paul Tournier)

We are in the month of December, the time of gift-giving. Recently, while shopping for Christmas gifts, I went to a craft sale where I saw the most amazing thing. A young Aboriginal woman was making dream catchers. I glanced at them, then stopped and looked again. There was something strangely familiar about these dream catchers. Inside the top circle were hand crocheted doilies that looked identical to the ones my Mennonite mother and grandmother used to make, as did most of their friends. 
I was astonished. I asked the artist if she had crocheted these doilies herself, and she smiled and told me she had obtained them at a thrift store. It just so happened that I had recently given all the doilies I had kept over the years to our local MCC thrift store. What a gift it was to me to realize that these doilies were being used and appreciated, and that some of mine might even be among them! I wondered what my mother and grandmother would think about that, and it made me smile. 

Following my haircut yesterday, the hairdresser gave me a gift. It was a pocket calendar for the new year and a pen to go with it, something they give to their clients every year at this time. Although I thanked her and told her it was my first Christmas present this year, subconsciously I thought, "I don't really need this calendar and we have so many pens already." I paid for my haircut and was about to leave when the hairdresser called out and said, "You forgot your gift," and handed me the calendar. 

When I got home I looked at the gift from my hairdresser again. I saw it from a different perspective. The black and white pen and the marbled black cover of the calendar were actually quite classy. How amazed and intrigued I would have been had I  received this calendar and pen as a school child in Paraguay. I realize how jaded I have become in this North American culture where everything is readily available.

Recently, as I was going through some of my mother's correspondence, I came across an interesting card. It was a Christmas card from Ukraine, sent to my grandmother by her oldest son from whom she was separated for many years. I can imagine how joyfully she accepted this gift from someone she had longed to communicate with for so many years.

The other day I received an e-mail from a friend; it is a gift I treasure because it validates something I love to do. She wrote:

Just a quick note to tell you how much your blog posts mean to me. I continually go back to them when looking for a life lesson or a pick-me-up . . . or things that simply bring me joy to read. The stories of your life are so fascinating. Please don’t ever stop writing. In fact I think you should write a book about your life. It would surely be a bestseller! 

I have given her the gift of my thoughts and experiences and she has given me the gift of appreciation and acknowledgement.

One of my favorite writers, Paul Tournier, wrote a booklet entitled The Meaning of Gifts (John Knox Press, 1964;  translated from the French, Des Cadeaux, Pourquoi ?).

He writes: Let us not underrate the joy of giving or the joy of receiving, for these are indissolubly related, and both symbolize the joy of loving and the joy of being loved. 

Christmas is a time to give each other the gift of unconditional love, modeled by a little child whose birth we still celebrate after more than two thousand years.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)