“Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.”

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A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
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As I write this, Christmas is approaching.

For this one brief season we count our money not to measure our own security, but to see how much we can give.

For this one season we look to make others happy and to find our joy in the happiness they receive.

How simple a lesson, and how quickly forgotten.

Almost as quickly as the day ends, we once again become takers, measuring our happiness by what we can gain for ourselves.

Just days before, we were valuing our lives by the joy we could bring other people.

Suddenly, we are back to the practical business of assessing all our actions by how they will benefit us.

What a sad transformation.

How can we forget so quickly?

Giving is one of our most wonderful and beneficial acts.

It is a miracle that can transform the heaviest of hearts into a place of warmth and joy.

True giving, whether it is of money, time, concern, or anything else, opens us.

It fills the giver and warms the receiver.

Something new is made where before there was nothing.

This is what we have such a hard time remembering.

We instinctively build our lives around getting.

We see accumulation – of status, of money, of recognition – as a way of protecting ourselves and our families, or as our due for being hard working members of society.

Little by little, we build walls of security around ourselves, and we begin to understand the good things in our lives as the things we can lose.

Giving becomes an economic transaction – what I give away must be subtracted from who I am – so even the smallest gifts are weighed on the scales of self-interest.

Even when we reach out and give, we need the return of being noticed and praised, so our hearts are really motivated by the praise we will be getting, not by the pure joy of opening to the needs of another.

We are locked in a prison of our own self-interest, and we are blind to the fact that our real growth and happiness would be better served by the very actions we resist performing.

The only way to break out of this prison is to reach out and give.

People who are focused on getting can never understand this.

Giving is a generative act.

It is bringing good into the world where before there was nothing.

When you give of yourself, something new comes into being.

Two people, who moments before were trapped in separate worlds of private cares, suddenly meet each other over a simple act of sharing; warmth, even joy, is created.

The world expands, a bit of goodness is brought forth, and a small miracle occurs.

You must never underestimate this miracle.

Too many good people think they have to become Mother Teresa or even Santa Claus, and perform great acts if they are to be givers.

They don’t see the simple openings of the heart that can be practiced anywhere with almost anyone.

Try it for yourself.

Do it simply if you like.

Say hello to somebody everybody ignores.

Go to a neighbour’s house and offer to cut the lawn.

Stop and help someone with a flat tire.

Or stretch yourself a bit.

Buy a bouquet of flowers and take it to a nursing home or hospital.

Take ten dollars out of your pocket and give it to someone on the street.

Do it with a smile and a lilt in your step.

No pity, no hushed tones of holy generosity.

Just give it, smile, and walk away.

Little by little, you will start to understand the miracle.

You will start to see into the unprotected human heart, to see the honest smiles of human happiness, and you will be able to see humanity in places you never noticed it before.

Slowly, instinctively, you will start to feel what is common among us, not what separates and differentiates us.

Before long you will discover that we have the power to create joy and happiness by our simplest acts of caring and compassion.

You will see that we have the power to unlock the goodness in other people’s hearts by sharing the goodness in ours.

And, most important, you will find the other givers.

No matter where you live or travel, whether you speak their language or know their names, you will know them and become one with them, because you will recognize each other.

You will see them in their small acts, because you will recognize those acts, and they will see you in yours.

You will know each other and embrace each other.

You will become part of the community of humanity that trusts and shares and dares to reveal the softness of its heart.

Once you become a giver, you will never be alone.

Merry Christmas.