Gifts

People stand on righteous pedestals and proclaim truth.

about morality.
about God.
about choices.
about musts.

It is so!
Believe or be damned!
This is the truth!
Accept this or you're....

Wrong.
Hellbound.
Stupid.
Daft.
Horrible.
Immoral.

This is done from many a platform.
It's done from the pulpit, the news reel, the theater, the literary masterpiece,
the cave in a desert.

Thing is.

When we shout our particular understanding of "truth", we forget that it is a a joyful and divine privilege to be able to come up with and create a theory of our own.
To look within, put the pieces together and come to an understanding that makes sense to us.
We forget that to share these understandings with the world is a gift.

These things are gifts. for everyone.

There truly is no way to know for sure if what we proclaim is true for anyone, let alone everyone. absolutely.
We can feel it overwhelmingly. Know it in our spirits. Our hearts.
Strongly.
We can claim our understanding, and our experience.

Then we give it.
Give.
Give.

Gift.

Take this. See if it works for you.
Feel this and guage whether it feels right.
Take it if you like it. If not,
don't.

When you give a toaster to a bride at her bridal shower, do you tell her that she had better use this toaster for all time or she will burn in hell?
Do you tell the new mother that if she fails to embrace this bouncy seat that she will have to accept the inevitable consequence of having her home destroyed by rockets?
On your best friend's birthday, do you demand that she love your gift or you will reject her?

Probably not.

As people, all we have to give are gifts.
Anything else is an illusion created to make us feel safer in our own minds.
To assure to ourselves that we, indeed, are right.

Certainly I have given my "gifts" with a heavy demanding hand.
Certainly so have you.

If Life is showing me anything right now, it's that all of us could stand to look at how we give.
Of ourselves. Of what we "know". What we believe. What we long to share with the world.

With a fist and a scowl?
With a voice of condemnation?
With a demand?

Or with an open hand.
And no expectation.

I've always thought gifts were nice.

I offer these thoughts to you.
Take them.
Or not.