Romans 12:1-8
H,
Do all
good and perfect gifts come from God? I tend to think so. I do not mean the
desire to be gifted means that everything is a gift or that all things gifted
are above all things human. The mistake, I think, is to make the gift the point
of life. As that great writer once said, and I paraphrase here, gifts are a
support system for life and it is never the other way around. I would add that,
in God, the gift is for others and frequently trains the giver in the capacity
to love much and seem to gain little. What you really gain is God.
good and perfect gifts come from God? I tend to think so. I do not mean the
desire to be gifted means that everything is a gift or that all things gifted
are above all things human. The mistake, I think, is to make the gift the point
of life. As that great writer once said, and I paraphrase here, gifts are a
support system for life and it is never the other way around. I would add that,
in God, the gift is for others and frequently trains the giver in the capacity
to love much and seem to gain little. What you really gain is God.
The other
day I went on about Bach’s Pachelbel’s Cannon in D major and you said something
silly like “there are many others”. Of course they are but there is nothing
like that glorious piece of music. I am back to jazz and classical
compositions. No more bum bums bigger than Bombay for me. Hehehe. We will see
how long that lasts.
day I went on about Bach’s Pachelbel’s Cannon in D major and you said something
silly like “there are many others”. Of course they are but there is nothing
like that glorious piece of music. I am back to jazz and classical
compositions. No more bum bums bigger than Bombay for me. Hehehe. We will see
how long that lasts.
It is such an overt gift Bach had. How do you transcribe
emotion into musical notes and then sound that says so much without any actual
words? Genius. Perhaps that is the problem; the curse of the overt gift and the
silly idea of competition and degrees between gifts. Music must have a composer
and tone deaf listener like me. Gifts need a giver and a receiver. The best
example here is that if gifts were food we feed each other. All bring something
to the table. Not one is greater than the other. We think in castes and
structure not in body and church. Many seek the overt gift because we forget to
say there is no such thing in terms of quality. Some speak, some sing, some
write, some organize, some encourage and some have a hold on that devil called
money. All build up, all add up and all make the body more complete. There is
no exhaustive list of gifts and as you walk in one particular gift others occur
in you. They all are the service of love. The thing we give the most is love. If
you do not give in love you might as well not give at all.
emotion into musical notes and then sound that says so much without any actual
words? Genius. Perhaps that is the problem; the curse of the overt gift and the
silly idea of competition and degrees between gifts. Music must have a composer
and tone deaf listener like me. Gifts need a giver and a receiver. The best
example here is that if gifts were food we feed each other. All bring something
to the table. Not one is greater than the other. We think in castes and
structure not in body and church. Many seek the overt gift because we forget to
say there is no such thing in terms of quality. Some speak, some sing, some
write, some organize, some encourage and some have a hold on that devil called
money. All build up, all add up and all make the body more complete. There is
no exhaustive list of gifts and as you walk in one particular gift others occur
in you. They all are the service of love. The thing we give the most is love. If
you do not give in love you might as well not give at all.