Jennifer Wilhoit, founder of TEALarbor Stories: The Ecology & Art of Listening, tells this story in her recent newsletter:

Walking with my dog last week, I came across a dying coyote pup lying in the hot sun in a neighborhood greenbelt. He was furless, gaunt, bloodied. I wondered how he had come to wander into that urban community and what tragedy had led to his condition. Slowly a small band of concerned citizens gathered together. Without any real organizing principle, each began to take charge of a piece of the situation. A few people kept track of the coyote's whereabouts. Others made calls until they reached authorities who would pick up the animal. Two more sat quiet vigil with the pup and offered a bowl of water. Several neighbors compared stories and speculations about the small animal; shed a tear about his condition; offered hope and hugs once the coyote was taken to a shelter.

None of us had a fairy tale ending in mind for the pup, but we did co-create a story that wove together the wild hearts of us all. Broadening our definition of "community" to include a dying coyote, we worked together for a common purpose with the wild animal at the center. Our community was made richer when we stretched beyond sameness or proximity, when we reached beyond ourselves and our familiars. 

This story beautifully illustrates the compelling necessity of doing what the moment calls for, even if there is absolutely no certainty that your efforts will bear fruit. The people who gathered together gave a last gift of presence to a dying animal. They also gave a spontaneous gift of responsibility, mindfulness, and compassion to one another. I think they give inspiration to all who hear this story as well.

At the end of every vision quest we guides bring up the subject of the "gift" the questers will bring back home and give away to others. At this point some people worry. They assume that a gift is something you can define precisely, like a healing touch or a clear soprano voice. They think that giving a gift means ministering to the poor and sick in the Calcutta slums or performing some other large, saintly task that they themselves would abhor and the world greatly admire.

In truth, the "gift" is simply who you are, shining outward. It is your own light, with a brightness that increases the more you bestow it on others.

Here's a story about a young man who received his gift from an unexpected source.

Tim joined a vision quest in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico just a few weeks before the birth of his and his wife's first child. He was extremely anxious to be a good father, especially since he'd had a very troubled relationship with his own father. His intention for his three-day solo was to focus on the meaning of fatherhood in his life.

For the first two days he sat at the edge of a dense spruce forest, watching and waiting for insight from the huge trees that, to him, embodied strength, endurance, eminence--all qualities he associated with fatherhood. The trees gave no clue that they heard his prayers.

On the third day Tim's attention drifted away from the big spruces and down to a cluster of tiny saplings nearby. It had been there all along, this "nursery," as he began immediately to think of it. He made his way to the young trees and sat down before them. He felt that he, too, was young and frail, a boy himself, hardly ready for fatherhood at all.

But gradually he came to feel more like the guardian and protector of the little trees. It occurred to him that he needed to sing to them. The song that arose was about growth in abundant sunshine, about deep roots that could withstand rugged environments, about strength and fragility in strong winds. He stood and began moving among them, singing his "Lullaby of the Spruces" and brushing his fingers over the crowns, practicing the gift of fathering.

A good gift, a right gift feels bigger than you can afford, in terms of time or energy or money. Even as you want to give it away, you also want to hold onto it. Yet give you must, for the person to whom you are giving it seems to your imagination vitally in need of it.

Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher believed that a gift ought to have qualities of "the extraordinary, the unusual, the strange, the extravagant, the absurd, the mad."  

We are meant to feel disdain when Mad Men's Don Draper asks his secretary to buy a birthday present for his daughter Sally. This is giving gone awry! Here is a person who cares only for the form of social behavior and is so wrapped up in his own concerns that he can't take time to select something that might match the wish or need of one he loves.

The recipient can perceive the genuineness with which the gift is given. To have meaning, a gift requires, along with the form of the thing itself, thought, intention, and an awareness on the part of the giver of who the recipient is. Ideally, the recipient feels that the giver has wrapped this gift not only in paper and ribbon, but in consideration and generosity as well.

 Painting by Jason Cianelli 

One of the best gifts I ever received took place in just a few seconds of real time and was given when I was not even present.

This gift was given to me by my friend Carrie Field. We became friends in 1964, when we were high school sophomores in Omaha, Nebraska and both wildly in love with the Beatles and English literature.

Although I haven't lived in Omaha for decades, Carrie and I still see each other now and then, and we still love the Beatles and literature. A few years ago Paul McCartney gave a concert in Omaha, and Carrie went to see him. She told me that the crowd was much different from what it had been when we saw the Beatles as teenagers. Then the screaming was so loud you could hardly hear the music. Now Paul could banter with his quiet and respectful audience between songs.

But Carrie just couldn't let one of those moments of silence pass unclaimed. During a pause she shouted, "I love you, Paul!" And then, a second later, called out again, "Trebbe Johnson loves you too!"

The Holy One disguised as an old person in a cheap hotel

goes out to ask for carfare.

But I never catch sight of him.

If I did, what would I ask him for?

The wheel of ecstatic love turns around in the sky,

and the spinning seat is made of the sapphires of work and study.

This woman weaves threads that are subtle,

and the intensity of her praise makes them fine!

Kabir says: I am that woman.

I am weaving the linen of day night and day.

When my Lover comes and I feel his feet,

the gift I will have for him is tears."

From Kabir: Ecstatic Poems, translated by Robert Bly