Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. This Sunday we again visit the “Articles of Faith” series. Today, we target: Gifts

  • With 10 day to Christmas, six more to the New Year and inauguration, January 20th, are gifts, the getting and the giving, a big part of the deal?
  • Is it truly a time of joy and hope or one of depression and pessimism?
  • Will a gift of opportunity fix the latter? Is there a catch?
  • Is an article of faith “It’s better to give than receive?” Is there a catch?
  • Does it, in part, depend on who is doing the giving and who is doing the getting?
  • If the government is giving or, more likely, promising to give, or de-gifting for that matter, is there a catch?
  • Can you gift self-esteem or self-confidence?
  • Are the best gifts the ones you earn and deserve?
  • Is it all about success?
  • Was Henry Ford right in defining success as doing more for the world than the world does for you?
  • Does “life’s persistent and most urgent question, what are you doing for others” (Martin Luther King Jr.), have an urgent counterpart, what are the others doing to take advantage of the “doing” other than taking advantage?
  • Is tough love a gift? Should it be given more often?
  • Do we dare improve on Churchill’s: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give?”
  • Should we add: “And how we give it and to what result?”
  • Does Picasso create beauty with paint (on occasion) and words often: “If the meaning of life is to find your gift, isn’t the purpose to give it away?”
  • Are love of beauty plus good manners, including reasoned exchange, in so far as we can, gifts that standout like beacons in the night?
  • Do we act like the Prophet speaks when we give not of stuff but of self and find faith and warmth in a hug and a thank you well meant?
  • Do we assess, then, the better giving than getting article of faith to be worthy?

Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. “ The answers and actions are yours.