{"id":7650,"date":"2023-12-15T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T19:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/?p=7650"},"modified":"2025-06-07T11:01:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T18:01:22","slug":"uu-and-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/news\/blog\/uu-and-gifts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of Gifts [#82]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a gift-giving holiday season.\u00a0 Media ads urge us daily to shop for, wrap, and give presents to our loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>At the Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, rather than viewing gifts as coming mostly from stores and websites, we see the loveliest gifts as emerging from within each other.<\/p>\n<p>In his book\u00a0<em>The Healing Wisdom of Africa<\/em>, Malidoma Som\u00e9 (our minister\u2019s mentor) writes, \u201c&#8230;people crave two things: the full realization of their innate gifts, and to have these gifts approved, acknowledged, and confirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Som\u00e9\u2019s people (the Dagara of Burkina Faso) understand that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>we ALL have gifts<\/li>\n<li>these gifts come into the world with us when we are born<\/li>\n<li>when expressed, these gifts enrich the well-being of our community<\/li>\n<li>human beings long to deliver their gifts and to have them acknowledged<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our gifts\u00a0are the qualities we have\u00a0as unique human beings with rich life experiences. They can\u2019t be bought or taught. They can\u2019t be used up or lost.\u00a0 We shine when we offer them to others.<\/p>\n<p>A gift needn\u2019t be a bunch of information or stories, a skill set or a talent. It can be our way of being, of seeing, of speaking, of moving, of relating to others. Each of us has easy-to-miss, subtle, unflashy or even oddball gifts that contribute to others\u2019 well-being.\u00a0 Even the least \u201ctalented\u201d person among us has gifts of infinite value to offer the world, every day.<\/p>\n<p>Your gift might be making others comfortable in your presence, acknowledging someone\u2019s kindness, listening attentively, or an infinity of other ways that help your community thrive.\u00a0 These gifts are built in; they flow freely from us; we can offer them abundantly to others.<\/p>\n<p>This holiday, when you see each person, ask yourself:\u00a0<em>What is one of that person\u2019s spiritual gifts? How have I witnessed that giftedness in action? How might I affirm the gift I see? How might I offer them my gifts?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A better, more just, more loving world gets closer when we know what our gifts are; when we see others\u2019 gifts; when we express our gifts; when we use them humbly and in service of a greater Love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, rather than viewing gifts as coming mostly from stores and websites, we see the loveliest gifts as emerging from within each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7650"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8883,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions\/8883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}