In my third year of college, I took a playwriting course. I was on an English Literature track and needed a certain number of writing-intensive classes. In Playwriting 205 that was all we did – write and then perform our works-in-progress in front of the class.
We were expected to write three one-act plays throughout the semester. I thought I might have a future as a famous writer of Broadway plays. Well….
My first and third attempts at writing a play were worse than forgettable. They were scheiße to put it mildly (a German word…. look it up, lol).
But my second play? It wrote itself! The title just came to me: Stuck and then the scene….
A MAN, a WOMAN, and a small BOY stand with their backs to the audience.
The three of them continue to stand there for a minute. Then they proceed to mime waiting for and getting on an elevator. Of course, the elevator gets Stuck.
The whole play from beginning to end was a magical gift from the gods, the muses, the angels or the playwriting fairies. I have seen it performed on stage twice and (if I do say so myself) it is awesome.
What’s my point? The play wasn’t something I struggled to write, like I struggled with play #1 and #3. It came to me as a gift.
Gifts – the gifts we give and the gifts we receive – are powerful vehicles for spiritual awakening. Spiritually, the exchange of gifts – whether from higher forces above or from one person to another – is a flow, a circulation that needs to be actively engaged and kept rolling, flowing unbroken. Or it stagnates and dies.
The gifts we receive need to be given away again, or they are not truly gifts at all.
In some cultures, such as ours, a gift is given and, unless we’re totally rude, we say, “thank you” and that’s that. Maybe we love the gift. Maybe it goes in a closet or in the garbage, or it gets unceremoniously “re-gifted.” It’s generally a one-way street: giver to recipient.
But in many cultures, the gift has symbolic, ceremonial, societal and interpersonal importance, far beyond a superficial, “It’s your birthday, here’s an ashtray/tie/book/perfume/I-didn’t-know-what-to-get-you-so-here’s-some-cash” kind of gift.
In these cultures, gifts carry deep and powerful meanings and obligations and are steeped in ritual and spiritual significance.
Today, I started writing my blog post and 30 minutes into it, I was Stuck. It wasn’t flowing. I was struggling. I had an inspired idea and began, but 200 words later, yuck (rhymes with Stuck).
So, I gave up the idea that I was fighting with and shifted gears. I saw that being Stuck was a gift and my topic for today, based on my real-world, real-time Sunday morning experience.
Yet by becoming Stuck, I saw that my new angle fit perfectly with my original idea; becoming Stuck in my blog post writing was a gift!
I wanted write about gifts and about gift-giving, to talk about how in many cultures, ideas about gifts have much deeper meanings, carry much more weight than our Western culture imparts onto gift-giving.
The book, “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World” by Lewis Hyde is an inspirational and influential work that I discovered during those same college years. It was originally titled, “The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property.”
Hyde delves deeply into how gift-giving cultures treated exchanges and how they developed rituals, fostered relationships and social structures and deepened their spiritual lives through the interchange of gifts.
In many of these cultures, receiving a gift implies that eventually the gift is returned – that gift is given back to the person who originally gave it.
Invited by the tribal elders to smoke a pipe, the ceremony included giving the pipe to the visitor. Westerners gladly accepted the gift – and then kept it, thinking that it was now their property.
However, these native people had a much more expansive idea of ownership and property. They would expect that at some point the pipe would be gifted back, perhaps with some fresh tobacco and some other items. In this way the gift circulated, flowed through the community, and increased! In this way the gift continued, the flow continued and grew, blessing both the giver and the receiver and the entire society.
When the pipe was never returned, they labeled these newcomers as rude and thoughtless. Meanwhile, the idea was wholly foreign to the westerners who didn’t understand the culture. They came up with a very negative – and very mistaken belief that these natives were giving “Indian gifts” and that they were, “Indian givers.” Someone who gives a gift then takes it back. They did not understand the erotic life of property at all!
In point of fact, the natives were exchanging (aka trading) in their traditional way -- a way that was truly spiritual. In this way of exchanging, true gifts are given and received and given again.
This is the same process by which the tithe and tithing activate the deeply spiritual energies in and around us, giving away freely what we have been freely and generously given, so that the channel is open, the river of life is not dammed up and slowed down, sluggish and lifeless.
I was given the gift of a wonderful play. I accepted (received) the gift. Then I gave it away in the form of the two performances.
I receive tithes from Prosperity Now! students, or income from various sources and plan how I am going to tithe 10% of it back to the Source from which it came.
All the avenues of income are channels for my good. But there is only One Source. Whether the gift is an inspired idea, some money, a smile, encouraging words, food or whatever, keeping the flow flowing is vital to our spiritual health and our spiritual growth.
In Prosperity Now! I talk about Martha Graham the famous choreographer who was giving some encouragement to a dispirited Agnes DeMille. Graham said,
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Twice Graham exhorts DeMille to “keep the channel open.” Not to question, not to judge, not to minimize or diminish or criticize, but to express and to stop looking for satisfaction in her creative work.
The gifts of the Universe are ours and it is our job to accept them, receive them, use them, give them away. To keep receiving and keep giving.
This is the only way to truly live in joy, in the moment.
Otherwise, we will find ourselves Stuck.
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