From Silence to Gift Giving

Often times I spend much of my day, while doing various chores, thinking about my purpose on this earth. On days of such thinking, I try to keep distractions to a minimum. No music and certainly no television. I try to spend some time in silence. At first, this is difficult for me since I seem to always have music on. It takes me time to accustom myself to silence, to be comfortable with it. In the beginning of my quiet time I actually feel antsy.
Our phone rings a lot on any given day too, so I usually go outside for some of this quiet time just so I don't hear the phone.
Many people are very uncomfortable with silence as it makes them unable to avoid their inner self and makes them think about things they would rather not. Quite some time ago, I made peace with any inner conflict that took from me that ability to find comfort in silence. I think that is part of growing up. To make peace with events that formed some of our less comfortable thoughts.
We tend to see the growing up process as being finished around age 21 or connect it to physical growth being done, but we grow all our lives emotionally. Our life changes and so doesn't what is going on and after a certain time in life, we are ready to put off "childhood truths" that no longer are true and deal with stuff in a good way.
One of the best things I ever read was in a book by the dalai lama about being able to understand another's actions. What you do is imagine your life being the other persons, having to have been raised as they were, think as they do, be as insecure as they are, have the same opportunities or lack of and then rationalize if you would under those circumstances do anything different or react in a different way to the event in question. Now, put that person in your life's circumstances, having your childhood, your opportunities, etc and see how he/she would have reacted under that set of life circumstances. Its as though a light comes on, that sheds some sympathy and understanding that was never there before. In reality, its the same as "Love your neighbor as yourself" just has a bit more detail on how to do that.
You begin to see the how and why of things and its much easier to move past the not so positive event with that understanding. Even do this with our own children's lives, put yourself in their circumstances and be honest, really honest and you will find a much deeper understanding. I suspect its mush like how God judges us. Knowing all the details and having understanding for our ways.
As we continue to grow in life emotionally, we can find more peace. Live life more simply as you discover the truth, things mean next to nothing when you find your real self. Things are often innate items that we use to build up a broken sense of self, low self esteem if you want to use that term ( I seem to think its a bit overused )
Even at Christmas people often spend more money than they should, just to impress or keep up with the Jones'. I am sure that is the deal with the massive amounts of Christmas lights in the last few years.
Will your child still love you if you just spend $50 on them this year. I sure hope so, and if not, well then the relationship needs some help. Same with friends and family. I have wondered many times about giving the gift of Frankincense and Myrrh to a friend or family member. You can just imagine the reaction, but think about it, if it was good enough a gift for the Christ Child, well......... The point of course is not to give two resins to a person, but to see that the point in gift giving is not to impress people, but to give a reminder of love. Give a hiking trip to a child. That would require time from you and a commitment to talk along the trail and teach them things or learn together. In this crazy over stressed out time we live in, time is about the most precious gift to be given.

So from silence to gift giving.... that is where silence landed me, to the point of moving past trying to impress and finding the real gifts we can give that are tied up with heart-strings of love.