Thought for the Week: Gifts
Angela Arnold reflects on living life as a gift
Some years ago I read that the thing to do with pain was to give it as a gift to God. Dear heavens, I thought, what kind of a ‘gift’ is that?
The author clearly didn’t mean that you could rid yourself of your pain by giving it away. So, what could it mean? The idea, the puzzle of it, stayed with me and, maybe because I have been in some physical pain recently, it popped up for me at Meeting for Worship the other day. And my mind ran with it.
Normally, and in a manner of speaking, we see God as the giver, the giver of life – to us. Then again, as Quakers, and again, in a manner of speaking, we say we are doing ‘God’s work’, that we are ‘God’s hands’… and feet, and eyes and ears – so aren’t we the givers of life – to God (or, if you prefer, to the All out of which we the living, doing, uniquely individuated beings emerge into space/time/matter… or call it life)?
But if the lives we lead are our gifts to the All, and seeing that life isn’t ever perfect… then aren’t our suffering and distress and loss and all the rest of it also automatically part and parcel of what we give? The good bits of life can’t be given without the bad bits. So, now I have inverted the whole thing in my head. No Creator visiting suffering on his creation; instead, the created giving life in all its piecemeal complexity and imperfection to the All, the Oneness that underlies. Maybe, being the giver rather than the receiver in this scenario, it is just a little easier to accept that the two go together? No moaning at God about how he could, in his almightiness, have jolly well have spared me this pain and made life perfect. Well, no, he couldn’t. A perfect life would just sit there, like a perfect balance, never moving, and zilch would happen – not life. My empty tummy rumbles, therefore I move.
But there is another line of thought that opens up here. So, some pain of sorts, in the course of life, is unavoidable; but what about all the avoidably bad bits? The fighting and hating, the jealousy and spitefulness we could, with a bit of trying, not do, not live out, not present to God with a careless flourish: there you go, I just lived that for you.
Maybe – narrative and imagery being such helpful tools – we could develop a new discipline of the imagination: visualise our doings literally as presents to God, the universe or ‘whatever you call it’. Our ‘mere’ thoughts, too, of course: have you just had a horrid thought about your least favourite person? Well, are you going to wrap that in the glittery paper or the plain red? In too much of a hurry to cross over to that bedraggled man clearly in need of help? Well, am I going to find a nice round gift box for my selfish haste, decorate the shame of it with a big blue and white bow? Hmm. Let me see. Maybe not in quite so much of a hurry after all…
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