July 13

Proverbs 19:6-7
Many curry favor with a ruler and everyone is the friend of a man who gives gifts. A poor man is shunned by all his relatives -- how much more do his friends avoid him! Though he pursues them with pleading, they are nowhere to be found.

It is a fine line with gifts, isn't it? With our spouses, with our children, with our friends, business associates and politicians.
Just today, I was remembering all the toys that Matthew and Cole received as Christmas and birthday presents. So much stuff. And they really just loved those silly blocks and the matchbox cars. Some cardboard boxes and crayons and they were good to go. I was wishing that I had been more practical and put stuff away and cycled it through in bits and pieces but I guess I was just 'in the moment'. It was overwhelming to them then and can be now as well.
The fine line is when it ceases to be a gift and becomes an IOU.

At my farmer's markets, there are a couple of vendors who will not trade. They also don't buy other people's products. Most of them have few friends at the market. I have stood back and watched them isolate themselves and box themselves into a corner. And some of them don't care. But to be a good vendor, a successful one, I think, you really have to love who you stand next to week in and week out -- 100 degree heat and 30 degree wet rain.
Is that gift giving to trade? I think so. It says your product is as worthy as mine. And I am interested in what you do.

But rich man's gifts. Now that is a different story. I remember an episode of Lost (actually Cole and I are rewatching it this summer so it is rather recently watched for me...), where Hurley has found out he won the lottery but he hasn't told anyone yet. He and his buddy go on a wild spree have a big ole great time. They end up at the video/headphone store and Hurley asks the beautiful hip girl behind the counter out to a concert. His friend is standing there with his mouth open as Hurley asks her out. No, I can't go, she says, and fat Hurley says okay, and starts to walk away. But I can go on Saturday, she said. And he lights up! His friend is still in shock because apparently, Hurley has had a crush on this girl FOREVER but never did anything about it. Dude, Hurley says, I just wanted to ask her out before everything changes. The friend doesn't understand it but Hurley, you and I do. Rich men gifts.

And here is one that I witnessed just this evening. One parent against another parent gift.
Currying favor with the child by one upping or trying to outdo the other. The divorced daddy syndrome. Or maybe it is trying to get back at the other parent. I don't know. But more than once, I heard, well, at my daddy's house we get to do.... or Mama don't let me do that....
That whole gift thing. It takes skill, practice and wisdom and by the time we get all that, we are too old to know any better and we start gifting away, not following any sense.

And just a personal observation -- this part of Proverbs has really been speaking to me. Not that I didn't get anything out of the stay out of wickedness young man passages (and it is too bad I didn't read that section of Proverbs more often in my twenties...), but there is so much to think about in these little small snippets that I often find myself pondering them the next morning trying to see if they fit into my world view or if they are something I really need to work on. This one definitely is.

May the rain fall gently on you.