Even a Modest Gift

Valentine's Day in the city was full of red hearts, flowers, chocolate overflowing from gilt packages, a day to remember the people I love. It was also a day of terrible news: another school shooting, almost certainly perpetrated by someone who felt hollow and alone and untouched by the same emotion others were celebrating. Perhaps his choice of the day was not coincidental.

This evening, musing on what can possibly make a difference, this quote spoke to me. It's from a book I liked very much that I think may now be out-of-print.

Even a modest gift of oneself, tentatively, shyly offered, can be qualitatively different from listening with half the soul, withholding some parts or recesses from exposure to the light of day. Some people never give themselves completely, sometimes because they fear there will be nothing left if they do. From Marcel’s perspective, the full experience of presence requires reciprocity, “the exchange which is the mark of all spiritual life.” (Marcel, Homo Viator) …we might consider that we are given a subliminal knowledge of Being not so we may spend the rest of our lives meditating on Being, but so that we may be grounded in an experience of presence that will sustain us in our relations with other human beings with whom we spend most of our lives and with whom we can journey more openly, not just subliminally, into the heart of Being.

On Presence: Variations and Reflections. Ralph Harper, Trinity Press.

 

Comments

[Szerelem]

What lovely red boots!

And what a poignant and lovely post.

[Dave]

"the full experience of presence requires reciprocity"
That's a very good way of putting it. (I think Buber wrote a whole book on the subject!)

[Zuleme]

Yes to the thought and wow to the photo.
Really really great photo.

[Fred Garber]

The key may be to give and to give more often. The culture we live in seems to be one of aquisition. I believe a gift softens the hearts of the giver and of the recipient.

[Lucy]

I love the sense of luxury and enlargement generosity brings, but then it so often gets complicated by expectations. I think I've yet to learn to really do it freely. But I'm working on it...

Some lovely, lovely writing here of late Beth. 'Paths' was splendid, and the description of your early morning, reminding me how important that time is, and to make sure I take it sometimes.

[Steve]

Thank you for this quote. I'm going to see whether I can find the book. The spirit of Valentine's Day, as it ought to be, plus what could also be used as a Lenten meditation.