Giving

Our American entrepreneurial obsession has turned Christmas into a business of selling and buying, and the idea of giving gets lost.

I stumbled across this quotation yesterday from Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American philosopher, poet, and essayist.  And -- it happens -- the man my father and I, through him, were named for.   We are Ralph Emerson Roughton, Sr. and Jr.   So I always pay attention when one of his quotations floats across my screen.

But this one is particularly apt for this season where giving has been swamped and lost underneath the load of the commerce of selling and buying.

“Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. 

The only gift is a portion of thyself." 

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Ralph