Exchanging gifts with strangers

I express my congratulations and best wishes to ALL the contestants I heard and saw last night in the preliminary round of the Maryland Hispanic Youth Symposium Talent Competition!

It was a real pleasure to hear and see the performances. The symposium is hosted by Towson University, and that's how I learned of it. About 135 students were present, chosen from about 650 applicants. I am grateful that I could serve as a judge in the preliminary round of the talent competition, which is a competition for scholarship money. I appreciate the wide-ranging gifts and the work that I saw in poetry, dance, instrumental performance and song.

Even more, I appreciate the character that was on display. Everyone was generous and encouraging -not to mention patient - during the long evening.

I have been thinking about the idea of gifts as it relates to the performing arts. Judging this contest really brought these ideas to the front of my mind. It is a commonplace for people to single out performers and say that they have a gift, as if entertaining were on a par with Peter raising Tabitha from the dead. I'm of two minds about that. Yes, I believe in a Creator who is the Father of Lights, the Giver of all good gifts. But that boundlessness is also the problem, because our tendency is to ignore other less showy gifts that are deeply valuable. Something good in your life? Gift.

But there's another sense of the word I really want to think about. I don't want to take anything away from the beautiful simplicity of artists as thankful recipients, freed from the burden of thinking we grew ourselves. But there is another giving that happens in the arts: from the artist to the audience.

It is interesting to think about when something is a gift, and when it is just a transaction. Seth Godin says (here) that "a gift costs the giver something real. It might be cash (enough that we feel the pinch) but more likely it involves a sacrifice or a risk or an emotional exposure. A true gift is a heartfelt connection, something that changes both the giver and the recipient."

A sacrifice. A risk. An emotional exposure. A heartfelt connection that changes both giver and recipient. That's a tall order! And yet I think artists work toward that all the time. (Maybe it's true of all people of faith, too - but I'll stop sermonizing.)

So I want to thank the young people at the Maryland Hispanic Youth Symposium for taking that risk, and for really giving. Thank you.

Keep your mind set on excellence, on truth, and on the things that are really worth it. I wish you all the very best.