December 12, 2003

Gifts that money cannot buy

by William J. Byron, S.J., Interim University President

I thought, at first, that it was just a beautiful legend but later learned from the central figure in this story that it is indeed true.

It is not a Christmas story, as such, but a great tale to recall whenever the forces of materialism threaten to crush the Christmas spirit. It is an account of the enduring romance between journalist-playwright Charles MacArthur and the woman who became known as the first lady of the American theater, Helen Hayes. It is she who told me that what follows really happened.

When they were young and about to be married, Mr. MacArthur bought Miss Hayes a bag of peanuts, presented them with a flourish, and said, "I wish they were emeralds." Years later, as Charles MacArthur was dying, he gave his wife an emerald bracelet and said, "I wish they were peanuts."

It is a challenge every year at this timebefore, during, and after the Christmas gift-exchange to keep our peanuts and emeralds in perspective. Perhaps we can all learn something from the child who enjoys the box more than the toy that box contained, as is sometimes the case on Christmas day. A lesson worth learning, in any event, is that being is more important than having, and that the best gift of all is the gift of self.

Expensive and fancy gifts, even if they satisfy human wants, rarely meet genuine human needs. Christmas gifts to others in the family can be artful dodges enabling the giver to avoid or postpone the gift of self. True gift giving is an expression of love. True love means giving of oneself (not one's wealth) to meet another's deeper human need.

In an age when we rightly celebrate the equality of men and women, we can forget that men and women are not identical; they have different, deeply-embedded needs. Deep in the heart of any husband is a keen sense of his success or failure as a man. What gift does he want from his wife? A great deal of encouragement when he is weak, and approval when he is strong.

His wife lives with womanly fears of being unloved or even unlovable. She can be beset at times with a gnawing sense of loneliness. Her husband must be sensitive to this need and give her considerate, attentive, and affectionate love, just as she must learn to give him encouragement.

This is not to suggest that men don't get lonely or women don't get discouraged. It is simply to acknowledge differences in degree of need that should be noted when a gift list is under consideration.

It is the same with children. A child's most basic need is securitythe certainty of being loved. Boys and girls experience this need differently. Those differences should be respected. They reflect the need for encouragement in boys and the need in girls to have at hand the reassuring presence of others.

In her famous "Dairy," Anne Frank repeated a saying that she personally treasured: "In its innermost depths, youth is lonelier than old age." Parents should remember this as they think of Christmas gifts for children. Nothing less than self-donation is required of parents to meet their children's needs. Often the measure of this is time. Make a gift of time to them. In the process, a child (even those who profess a preference to be "left alone") will receive something morea sense of affirmation and self worth.

As I suggested at the beginning of this reflection, the secret of successful gift giving depends on our ability to keep the value of both emeralds and peanuts in perspective.