What is in a Gift?
Who doesn’t like a gift? At a time when we are surrounded by adverts, shop offers online and in-store as well as the social pressure of gifting, have you ever stopped to wonder what makes a gift? What turns an object into a gift? Is it the thinking about the recipient? The significance of the choice in selecting the object or experience? The wrapping, presentation, and the giving? Perhaps it is the transfer from giver to receiver? Is it the anticipation of those involved and then the eventual opening of the gift? Or is it the reaction and hopefully gratitude shown? A gift can be all these things. Simple or complex, costly or inexpensive, and don’t forget the allure of the free gift!
So, at a time of year when old films show up again and again, I was thinking of the Wizard of Oz. His gifts were clever even if he as a wizard was not! He recognised the gifts that everyone longed for and was within each of them. So even though on the surface his gifts symbolised Wisdom for the Scarecrow, Courage for the Lion, and Love for the Tin Man, he recognised how in their journey to help Dorothy, that all of them had shown the very gifts and qualities that he awarded them. The heroine herself with her red slippers also carried within her the gift she longed for. Her ability to achieve her heart’s desire symbolised by her red slippers was her own realisation of that gift to herself!
As Christmas approaches what would be your ideal gift for yourself? What do you long for? What has your journey shown you? We all travel our own “Yellow Brick Road” and we also carry our own answers within ourselves. So why not spend a moment just thinking now of what qualities you have been gifted or aspire to? How have you used them? Have you tapped into your gifts? This Christmas time why not take time to appreciate how wonderful you are and not only open your mind to your gifts in wisdom but show yourself the courage and loving-kindness in recognising your gifts so that you like the characters of the film can use them to the full?
