"Move the Gift" 1st Annual Party

Last night our dear friend, Ash, hosted a most wonderful party. We were all assigned a person to share the thing we are most passionate about and then to challenge them to "move the gift" (to do something with what we had given them--to share the love). Each of us received a little book containing everything that everyone gave. The book began with a true story from Ash and ended with:

"Real gifts are given around corners. Real givers expect them to come back, not from the person who got them (because that requires no faith!) but from the person who got them from the person who got them from the person who got them from you. It's called different things in different cultures. It's called karma, honor, faith, but it always means the same two things: It means we must believe in others and it means that...we cannot bless ourselves. A blessing is a gift given in faith and received again with reverence. A blessing is always a prodigal son, yours or someone else's. Anything else is a possession. There is one other thing about gifts. They must always move. A gift, to be a gift, cannot be kept. It can only be sent, forward, in the hope it will be cared for. This is a frightening thought for all people who have tried, with accomplishments and clothes and money, to bless themselves. In a gift economy, you can't take it with you, not even for a second. In our current economy, we spend what isn't ours and save everything (ourselves, each other). This Christmas we are traveling light, keeping nothing. This Christmas we are moving the gift, giving our cares in hopes they will be cared for, hoping to be blessed in the act of blessing. We are giving our hopes and dreams and our secret fascinations. Which is good. Conviction rot as fast as things if they are kept. Christ promises, "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you." This is mysterious. Sometimes it feels like a lie. We asked, and we got nothing! But maybe as we go, we might learn the beautiful rule: that asking is receiving if everyone asks."

LOVE YOU, ASH! THANKS FOR URGING US ALL TO GIVE OUR CAUSES!