Peace, Love, and the Gift
by James Magnus-Johnston
“You can’t have community as an add-on to a commodified life” — Charles Eisenstein
For many Westerners, Christmas Day is one of the most sacred days of the year. Perversely, perhaps, the holidays are also marked by excessive materialism, consumerism, and the creation of false needs. Today happens to be “Boxing Day” in Canada, Black Friday’s Christmas equivalent, marked by mad and even obscene rushes for the best post-holiday deals. How have we reached such a disconnect between the meaning of our traditions and the way we practice them?
It might be hard to see with our consumer lens, but there is a deeply important connection between the sacredness of December 25th and the practice of gifting. As Charles Eisenstein has eloquently and passionately argued, gifts are an expression of love that begins with the gift of life itself:
We didn’t earn being born, being fed as babies, having an earth to live on, air to breathe, water to drink. All came as a gift. Ancient cultures often recognized this explicitly; theirs was a gift cosmology that was echoed in their economic systems.
Therefore our natural state, he says, is gratitude. And therefore, we have a built-in desire to give and be generous.
An obsession with money, on the other hand, has contributed to “alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth.” Today, money acts as a profane separator when seen as an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Rather than understanding money as a tool that helps facilitate the exchange of goods or truly improve our quality of life, we tend to see money–its accumulation and growth–as the ultimate end. Undoubtedly, money is required to move us towards a level of material sufficiency, but beyond sufficiency, more money won’t make you happier. Are you dissatisfied with your life regardless of how much money you’re making? Will the growth imperative behind the accumulation of money improve the planet’s life support system?
Millennia of ancient thought–including that of the Christian tradition–reminds us that traditional gift practices are expressions of love. Expressions of love aren’t luxury items any more than the planet’s life support system is. Expressions of love keep human beings connected, because they remind us that we actually need one another! Eisenstein writes,
One thing that gifts do is that they create ties among people–which is different from a financial transaction. If I buy something from you, I give you the money and you give me the thing, and we have no more relationship after that. . . But if you give me something, that’s different because now I kind of feel like I owe you one. It could be a feeling of obligation, or you could say it’s a feeling of gratitude. What’s gratitude? Gratitude is the recognition that you’ve received, and the desire to give in turn. And that’s why we are driven to give. Because everything we’ve received is a gift.
Let’s take a step back from the excessive materialism of the holiday season to think about why we really give gifts. Photo Credit: Andy Noren
Peace, love, and community are fostered through the gifts we provide for one another not only on December 25th, but throughout every day of the year. In the grand cosmic scheme of things, gift practices can make us more aware of the miracle of life itself, and the gift of existence we received–and continue to receive–from planet earth and the universe, or God, depending on your inclination.
The purpose of our existence can’t be quantified in monetary terms. Perhaps as this year comes to a close, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the gifts you received at birth or the gifts you have honed and developed throughout your life. Why are you here? Are you able to express your innate gifts? Do you need to unplug from the formal economy to explore and give of yourself more meaningfully?
If you can’t make more money exploring your gifts and skills, embrace the challenge. If we are to degrow the economy towards a steady state, we’re going to need to be a whole lot more generous, a whole lot happier, and more grateful for what we have already. Gift practices might shrink the formal economy a little, but they will engender precisely the love and community that we often feel is missing in modern life.
Charles Eisenstein’s full book “Sacred Economics” is available on his website at http://sacred-economics.com.
Thank you for offering a positive slant — I’ve been trying to promote George Monbiot’s ‘gift of death’ — http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/ — which is excellent but for the fact that people are reluctant to identify with the ‘bad guy’, in the same way that they tend to believe that road accidents never happen to them, always to someone else.
The love of money is indeed the root of all evil
http://pendantry.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/the-root-of-all-evil/
Mr. Magnus-Johnson:
I agree with the spirit of your post but you need to do a bit of research.
“Boxing Day” in Canada and most of the Commonwealth nation-states is NOT another Black Friday or a Cyber Monday.
It is the day after Christmas when those who have more than they need box it up and give it to the less fortunate.
We spent Christmas on a small Caribbean island each year for two decades. Boxing Day was a joyful day in the spirit you advocate.
EMR
Thanks Colin, for the thoughtful connections.
EM Risse — I live in Canada, where Boxing Day is ritualized each year with bigger and bigger sales. See the article provided below. I’m glad to hear it has been ritualized more beautifully in other parts of the world.
Here’s an article about (what has become) “Boxing Week” in the Vancouver Sun:
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/annual+Boxing+retail+blowout+begins+earlier+earlier/9323340/story.html