The giver possesses the gift. The giver recognises the recipient. In between these elements, the giver also possesses a will to give, a need or a justification to give, a value in the giving. There is a will to give, but there is also a courage to give, a courage stemming from the awareness of the danger in giving, of the loss, of the cost, the awareness that the gift will change this world, this microcosme or beyond. It’s an awareness that the giver will be changed by the gift, and through the giving, that the giver will no longer be the giver who gave, but another, the one-who-will-have-given.
The gift is the to-be-given. The gift has, only this function and no other existence. And yet it is more than this existence. The gift is always more than it seems, even to the giver. It has life, it lives in the life of the giver and the receiver. Thus there is no such thing as an arbitrary gift. It is not possible to apprehend any thing that does not become a thing to the giver, part of the giver’s experience, world, heart and spirit. There is no valueless gift. The most value-less scrap of driftwood on the beach has life and value from the moment it enters our apprehension. It become a thing-to-be-given.
The recipient of the gift is never only or never entirely a person, it’s the space where the transformation from to-be-given to given takes place. Like the giver, the recipient is changed by giving. The gaze of the recipient is forever changed by the giving, by physical presence of the gift, its form, colour and mass. Like the giver, the value sequence of the recipient is changed by receiving and having, what counts something-to-have evolves by one step. What the receiver is nudged through its own way of being by the addition of the some thing. The value of the thing will play a role in evolving the recipient. And the living axis of the giving is the spiritual connection between the giver and the recipient. Here is where the gift becomes more-than-a-gift.