Gift Thinking
Today as I was reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, The Serviceberry, I came across a page which conveyed an idea that I’ve known in my bones since I was a girl, though I couldn’t have articulated it with the same clarity. Much of this short book is centered on relationships of reciprocity within our world and it is beautifully written. The author has been in the wild picking serviceberries and receiving them as a gift from Mother Earth. They are not purchased as something to use but are received as something shared with her. Truly it changes things. So she refers to this new way of participating in the world as a “serviceberry economy”. Let me share an example she offers that explains in more detail.
She says, “To name the world as gift is to feel your membership in the web of reciprocity. It makes you happy—and it makes you accountable. Conceiving of something as a gift changes your relationship to it in a profound way, even though the physical makeup of the “thing” has not changed. A woolly knit hat that you purchase at a store will keep you warm regardless of its origin, but if it was hand-knit by your favorite auntie, then you are in relationship to that “thing” in a very different way: you are responsible for it, and your gratitude has motive force in the world. You’re likely to take much better care of the gift hat than of the commodity hat, because the gift hat is knit of relationships. This is the power of gift thinking.” She says, “I image if we acknowledged that everything we consume is the gift of Mother Earth, we would take better care of what we are given.”
As I was reading, immediately I was taken back to food prepared for me. Whenever I am invited to the table of another person or receive food made by their hands, somehow the food takes on an added layer of sacredness because I understand it is a gift of the relationship. The cook or preparer is giving me something of themselves. When I was in High School, my mama made sack lunches for me every morning. In the bag was a sandwich I loved. It was on fresh white bread with ham, cheese, mustard, and bread and butter pickles. There were at least a couple of times when, throughout the day, it would slip off the stack of books I was carrying to class and drop to the floor. At the time, I didn’t know why, but I felt panicked to get my hands on it and retrieve it from the floor before anyone could step on it or kick it for a dumb laugh. To be sure, it was a great sandwich. But it was more than a sandwich. It was a gift made with love by my mama, which changed how I received and carried it.
At another time in life, I remember being hurt in a situation that wasn’t even really about me. I listened as a friend told me with a sense of rightness, that they had received a meal from someone for whom they carried hard feelings. They were unhappy to receive it and immediately regifted it to someone else, which is better than just throwing it away. Yet, in my hearing about it, something in my heart hurt. It hurt because I knew the giver and circimstances. Cooking this meal cost time in her very demanding schedule and life, not to mention the food items that went into the preparation. It was a gift of care and relationship that couldn’t be received as such. While I knew the reaction resulted from a most difficult and painful time, my heart still felt the ache of the rejection of the gift, of the relational sacrifice and offering. Thankfully, the friend who cooked the meal never became aware.
Maybe it’s because I know food comes from the earth and that something, be it plant or animal, has given up life for us to have what we need. Maybe it’s because I treasure the process of giving—the time, creativity, and self put into the offering. And, maybe it’s not about food but any kind of creative gift made by the hands of a well-intentioned person that is offered to another. These are expressions of lovingkindess—ways that represent God’s kind of love in the world.
I’m part of this great big world and to the engines that make it function. I’m not innocent of participation in a system that doesn’t value “gift thinking”. But I can name it now and am reminded how important people and this earth are to me. The gifts they give are sacrificial, meaningful, and weighty. May I give with the sense of being part of a whole cycle of shared living, with joy. And may I receive with deep appreciation and acknowledgement of the gift. May the day arrive when we can live in the beautiful state of “gift thinking”.
