The Gift

Several year ago my dear wife and I took (for us) a once in a lifetime cruise. The ship was a 13 deck floating luxury hotel. As is the custom we were provided with a daily 24 hour feast. To put it in simple terms the time was marked by extreme excess.

As an illustration I remember going into the gift shop just to see what they were selling. On the central showcase was a very large item completely enclosed in a lush purple, heavy velvet gift bag. As I looked a staff person, in uniform and wearing white gloves, opened the gift bag to expose a gleaming white turreted castle trimmed in gold. It was about 18" high and, I would guess about 10" wide. Indeed it was spectacular. Then the staff person pressed a button and opened the castle to expose its content. It was a very large "Faberge egg". It gleamed and I was stunned by the ornate crafting of this the real gift.

The gift was then closed and placed in a locked heavy glass showcase well out of reach of the public. I asked the clerk about the cost of "the gift". The answer I got was $35,000! I left the shop without the gift!

After I left the shop I thought of those things that I value, would I value that "egg" enough to spend that amount of money, even if I could afford it? The answer was an easy one, a very definite no! The next question that came to me is "What do I really value?" Again the answer was easy, people. To be specific I value my friends but even more, my wife and family.

It is an interesting thought to understand a person as a gift. Surely it is true even if we do not think of people in those terms. Then it struck me that much that I saw about that amazing egg is also true about a person. Think about the following:

• 1)     The first thing we often see is the clothes the person is wearing. It is sometimes said that "clothes make the person". But the clothes can be seen as the wrapping covering the gift.
  
  

• 2)     If we remove the wrapping (the clothes) we see the body and we may be impressed or possibly not. Sometimes that is as far as we go and the relationship may well end there. If we understand the body as the packaging we may take time for the next step.
  
  

• 3)     The next step is getting to know the person, another way of seeing. We may then come to see the real gift. If the person we come to know represents the values we truly value. Then this gift has a value for us that is greater than any amount of money.