And let her loves, when she is dead,
Write this above her bones:
"No more she lives to give us bread
Who asked her only stones."
- Dorothy Parker, "For a Sad Lady"
Have you ever felt like the lady in the poem? I have.
I'm often bad — occasionally, spectacularly bad — at giving gifts (I once gave a long and beautifully written biography of Nijinsky to a dancer friend — someone I didn't know was severely dyslexic, someone who often had trouble deciphering a paragraph). My problem is not in the giving: I think I've always been "a giving soul" with a generous heart; but I fail in the selecting. I give bread where a stone would do, I used to tell myself. "It's the thought that counts" was small comfort against the too-frequent disappointment of feeling that my gifts weren't appreciated. (It took me a very long time to learn that this attitude was not exactly helpful.)
Maybe that's why I stopped believing in the idea of gifts as understood in our materialist culture, though I still believe in giving itself. I've just had to try and let go of the ego-driven need to be acknowledged.
And on that subject I can't help but think, on this Palm Sunday, of the man who rode through the streets of Jerusalem to the acclaim of the multitude — knowing, according to Christian tradition, that he was embarking on a week that, as triumphantly as it began, would end for him in abandonment, agony and cruel death. Yet he left this world and everyone in it with what is, again in Christian tradition, the greatest gift possible, however unappreciated: the Resurrection. Life itself, everlasting life. Even as metaphor that ought to top the list of things that make you go "hmmm."
So I hereby declare my intention to try, in my own small way — even in what I write for this community — to give appropriately, but with a humble awareness that my resources are limited. I can only offer what is mine to give. What I cannot control is how (or even if) my offerings are accepted. All I can do is to try to give with grace, remembering that the thought does count, even when it's not the thought I thought I thought. I am trying to acheive more giving — and yes, with more sensitivity to need — but with less hunger for validation, less ego involved. I don't believe it's a zero-sum game.
And while I'm on the subject of giving, let me say a word about receiving: thanks. Thanks to all of you for friendship, understanding, intellectual stimulation and spiritual nourishment, all of which are in abundant supply here in this community. These are imperishable gifts for which I am deeply grateful.