Today is my birthday.  No, really it’s OK if you forgot.  I wasn’t expecting presents.  Cards maybe, but not big ones.  A postcard is fine, really.  (I’m joking, folks.)

When it comes to remembering, recognizing, and commemorating others’ birthdays through the giving of gifts–I am THE WORST!   I hit the necessary relationships–wife, children, parents, but beyond that I’m pretty hopeless.  I’ve even stopped posting "birthday wishes" on my blog because I realize how hit-and-miss I am with it.  Friends get forgotten, family members feel slighted.  I guess giving gifts is not really my primary "love language". 

But I must say, other than the reciprocal guilt factor, I do appreciate receiving gifts.  For example, right now I’m wearing a new digital watch that I received from the girls.  This is an annual present for me.  Every year I get a new watch (not a very expensive one–for good reason) and I usually forget to take it off at the swimming pool in Thailand.  So by March I am in need of a new watch and I just wait patiently until January.  Water resistant is NOT the same as water proof I’ve noticed.  Maybe 2008 will be different…

Living out here in the hinterlands, it’s kind of funny what kind of presents we appreciate the most for birthdays, Christmas, etc.  Part of my gift from my family this year (only part mind you, I also got said new watch, a DVD series, and SOME glorious books I was wanting) were Pop-Tarts and Doritos from the Xining import store.  You can’t imagine how exciting a bag of chips can be when the supply doesn’t meet your insatiable demand.  It’s the little things.

And then there’s music.  I don’t buy music throughout the year, but music is something I am passionate about.  Thankfully, friends and family pass music my way or give me i-Tunes gift certificates for birthday/Christmas.  I usually try to stretch my i-Tunes credit as far as possible during the year.  It’s fun to sample album after album and buy the ones I want without ever leaving my living room–in rural China!  It’s the little things.

But this post is not a thinly veiled attempt to score presents.  Really it isn’t; I promise.  I am well stocked.  In fact, the  real reason I am blogging about my birthday on my birthday is because I think we’ve got birthdays all wrong.  When you are a kid it is pure delight to receive gifts on your birthday (presents, cake, parties) BUT as you mature you realize that the life you were given (re-opened each year) is the real gift–and you are the sole benefactor.  It’s flattering to have other people celebrate your birth, your existence, your character and activity in the world, but as your eyes are opened to the gratuitous beauty of life all around you–it’s too much grace to swallow.  It’s extravagant–almost decadent.

This may sound like I am being excessively magnanimous or that I’m just trying to be cute, but I’m not.  The sensation I’m feeling (or wanting to express to you all) is immense gratitude for this life that I’ve lived thusfar that each of you have added value to.  In Tolkien’s Fellowship of The Ring, we learn that hobbits, on their birthday, give all of their friends and acquaintances small gifts.  It’s the reversal idea that I’m talking about.  I wish I could do that.  I’d attach a real sunset or mountain view into an email and I send it to you, and when you opened it–you’d be in that place. I’d use carrier pigeons (or owls, you decide) to send each of you your favorite coffee drink or hot cocoa.  If I had my way, I’d bottle a bit of infectious laughter, chuck it into the ocean and it would surface in your bathtub.  I’d write you a poem that would capture that forgotten impression that’s been eluding you all these years.  I’d do all this and more.  We would be at Bilbo’s party watching the fireworks in awe.

I guess if there is one idea that has surfaced in my mind at the start of this 34th year it’s this:  I am the GIFT that I’ve been trying to open all these years.   It takes a while to rip through all the packaging, but I’m getting there.  It’s not conceited to say this; we’re all His gifts to the world.

Robbie Seay has a song entitled "Give Yourself Away" and this is what I am aiming to do with my life.  It’s what Jesus did to perfection; it’s what I aspire to.  So, in light of my birthday, I hope you ALL know I have already received so much from you–from God who gives all these gifts we take credit for.  My life is a gift received and (hopefully) given.  I am blessed beyond words.  I am toasting and celebrating you from way over here.  Cheers! And Happy birthday from me…

*****

Jer, I’m wearing the Guinness shirt today.  It’s sweet.  Listening to tunes, too. Thanks.