Sacred Gifts

Let me begin today by asking a question:

Think for a moment about the word sacrifice. As you begin to focus on it, notice your emotional reaction, and notice your thoughts. How do you feel about the word? How do you define the word? And so then the question:   What does sacrifice mean to you?

Most people tend to think of sacrifice as “noble suffering” – something unpleasant or painful that’s “worth it.” Giving up one thing for another. We also think of it as the thing that happens when you work really hard to obtain a goal. These are valid and good definitions – but I’d like to offer us the challenge of thinking about it differently. If we dare – lets move away from the dominating idea of sacrifice as suffering and pain, and open ourselves up to fuller meaning.

The word sacrifice is derived from the Latin word sacrificium – which in direct translation means, “to make sacred.” Well, I’m already feeling a little differently about this – aren’t you? Now, before we start down the path of evoking bloody images of “ritualized sacrifice” in its many and far-reaching forms, and begin to turn away and back to the notion of suffering, suffering, suffering – let’s slow it down and take a better look.

The spiritual practice of making offerings in the form of grains, wine, honey, money, animal sacrifice, and in some cases even human sacrifice – have stood as paramount in numerous and various cultures and traditions. But why? Why have we – across lands and ages – defaulted to giving things up as showings of devotion. I think it is because we humans are always seeking ways to involve ourselves in a sacred exchange. We need a sense of meaning and we need to experience connection.

The idea of exchange feels very important to me here – because it can take on many faces. Are we guided by fear or love? Selfishness or service? Are we offering gifts in expectation of receiving gifts? Are we engaging in a purely transactional process of trying to buy good favor, or are we trying to participate in a relationship rooted in love and cooperation. Depending upon the answer, the same actions can have very different intentions behind them. And so, when we boil our actions down to their basic parts or intentions, we can ask: What am I doing? Am I saying, “My energy right now is in service of you?” Or “My energy right now is in service of me?” Am I giving this gift because I want something? Am I giving because I feel I am obligated to do so? Do I experience my actions, therefore, as forced suffering? Or, am I giving this gift because I want to.

Let’s take the example of giving up your seat on a crowded train. If I am sitting and I see someone struggling to stand, I have a choice. I can give a gift. And so, do I get up and offer the seat thinking everyone will admire my action? Do I get up and offer the seat because I don’t want to be judged for not doing it? Or do I offer my seat because I know I can make a difference in someone’s experience – and I want to. And guess what? I can actually enjoy that too. A sacrifice? Yes. Suffering? No way.

See – there’s the tricky part. I do get something when I give from my heart. I get happiness and joy, and I get to share in the delight of the other person enjoying what I have to give. A hand outstretched in offering looks exactly the same as a hand stretched out to receive. Look at the picture attached to this post – and try a little exercise: See the hand as giving. See it as receiving. See it as receiving through the act of giving.

Here again, my friends, the simple magic of perspective and intention. But what a profound result. The giving and the receiving can be the same thing.

 

And I will add this – As we begin to grasp the ways in which we are all connected to all things in the magical network of existence,  the idea of this combined experience becomes so much more clear. It becomes clear that others gain nothing by my suffering for the sake of suffering. In fact they lose. And that when I give out – I accept in. Because it’s all the same. And so, sacrifice, in its best form, looks a lot more like rearranging the furniture – than burning it all to the ground.