The Gift of the Magi

A couple of years ago, I clipped a priceless "Peanuts" cartoon from the Sunday edition of our local newspaper. Sally and Linus are pushing a cardboard box up a grassy-green hill in the middle of the summer and Sally says "Wouldn't this be better in the snow?" Linus says, "Grass is just as good...grass is slippery...besides maybe it'll snow." They get into the box together and as it begins to rain, Sally says, "It doesn't snow in July." With the rain pouring down, Linus says, "What do you call this? Hang on here we go." The box doesn't slide very well, and dumps Linus and Sally out onto the muddy slope. The next frame shows Sally back at home, muddy and soaking wet. She says to her older brother, Charlie Brown, "Love makes you do strange things."

What an absolutely classic statement: LOVE MAKES YOU DO STRANGE THINGS. Love makes you do things like - hang on to a marriage when all your friends could tell you that it is a lost cause - let a teenager make a decision about his/her life that you know most certainly will not be for his/her best interest - spend money you don't have to give a gift you can't afford. Everyone needs memories of strange behavior explainable only when love is factored in.

In 1905, William Sidney Porter, writing under the pen name, O. Henry, published the short story, "The Gift of the Magi." It is the story of James and Della Young and the strange thing their love for each other made them do one Christmas when they had no money for purchasing gifts.

Porter says of the gift that each gave the other: "And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who gave gifts, these two were the wisest....They are the magi.

If you haven't read this story, it should be a must on your reading list - read it before Christmas.

Some people have never done "strange things." Their actions are always rational, well thought out, defensible, common-sense-directed---How sad! They live their lives without the kind of love that causes other people to do the irrational, the spontaneous, the indefensible, in short, the STRANGE THING.

I hope all who read this posting have memories of doing strange things prompted by love. If you don't have, make a memory for yourself this Christmas season. Do something strange that can only be explained by your love for someone else. Go ahead! Give it a try. When you are old and there is little to do but talk about the past, you will be glad that you have an exciting story to swap. You might even enjoy recalling it every now and then in 2004.