Expecting: Gifts

Presents! It's the first thought children have when they hear "Christmas." They almost burst as they wait for the time when they can open their gifts. Presents teach us more about expecting at Christmas than anything else. Gift-givers spend time, money, and mental/emotional capacity searching for what will be the recipient's idea of a perfect gift. Then the gift is wrapped, addressed, and placed under the tree where it waits until the preordained time of revealing. The recipient unwraps the gift and expresses appreciation and delight. Relationships between giver and recipient are strengthened because of the not-so-simple act of giving. Joy is multiplied.

There is a level of cynicism regarding gifts. Maybe the giver is looking for a gift simply to placate the recipient and check off as done on the Christmas to do list. Maybe the recipient only expresses appreciation to placate the giver or does not express any gratitude. Maybe there is a burden on the whole process of giving and receiving--doing it out of compulsion and not out of free will. It all leads back to what we are expecting out of the gift-giving process and Christmas overall. Are we expecting to risk a part of ourselves in an act of love toward another? Or are we expecting to save ourselves the best we can and do the bare minimum? Are we expecting others to put themselves out for us or to refrain? Traditionally, we give gifts at Christmas because the three wise men brought gifts to Jesus and because Jesus is God's gift to the world. But for many, these traditions rarely enter the mind when thinking on gifts. What were the wise men expecting so long ago? What was God expecting? I am challenged. What am I truly expecting from Christmas and gifts?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memorial of Genocide

Background: In 1975 Pol Pot and the communist party Khmer Rouge came to power. The face they put on for the world was one of an ideal communist society, but the truth behind the mask was one of terror, mistrust, and murder. For four years, Cambodia endured and struggled for survival. Help came in the form of an invasion by the Vietnamese army, and the world was made aware of the millions of deaths that had been ignored, denied, or unheard. It is estimated that approximately 2 million people died directly from the genocide and another million died from the forced famine. The world had seen genocide before but not one committed against a group's own people group. This is thirty years later.... On Tuesday, my second day here, we visited Tuol Sleng or S-21. This was a high school that the Khmer Rouge used as a torture center where people accused of committing crimes against the party would be taken before they were executed. Only 7 out of 17,000-20,000 people survived. The compound is ...
Read more

Week One

We have been in the country a little over a week, returned to normal sleep patterns after jet lag, and already experienced some different ministries. It was a very hard first week. I experienced some culture stress as Cambodia is nothing like I imagined or expected. I will record more of my cultural observations and struggles on this blog in the next few days as I journal about them. I also had a hard week physically. Not with stomach problems as many might suppose, although my stomach is adjusting as well, but with a really bad heat rash that was all over my back, arms, and thighs. It has taken a few days but is now starting to clear up. Two main things I learned from this week are 1.) God is the only Sustainer and 2.) this trip is not going to be anything like my trip to Japan. Week 2 has begun and everything looks brighter. Monday we started teaching summer school at Logos International School. I thought I was going to be teaching art for two weeks, but after a visit to the school l...
Read more

Language of Remembering

Image
In my post "Ebensee" I mentioned that I have been reading for my PhD while travelling to different places in Austria. As I was on the train to Ebensee, I was reading Dirk Lange's Trauma Recalled: Liturgy, Disruption, and Theology . The focus of this book is how. How do you put a traumatic event into words? How do you describe it? How do you recall it? How do you remember it and bring it about in repetition? He writes, "What does it mean to witness or remember an event when the truth of the event cannot be represented?" (69). This reading set me up for what I was about to experience in at the former concentration camp location in Ebensee. Not much remains of the camp. There is the main entrance, the now cemetery which was and is the location of mass graves, and the tunnels in the mountains about a 5 minute walk away. The town has built up and on the camp. As I was walking around I thought back on Lange. How does one remember, continue to remember, when living amo...
Read more