“Typically, peasants offered a gift to a king to demonstrate loyalty or request a favor. But when kings bring gifts to peasants, it turns what we think of gifts and giving on its head. . . The giving of gifts reverses the normal order of things, showing not the power of kings, but the undoing of the benefactors’ status and entitlement. What wonder! What surprise! Obligation is gone, replaced by complete astonishment. . . The baby, the star, and the wise men: a story of gifts and radical gratitude. Joy to the world!”
Diana Butler Bass, writer, speaker, and independent scholar, from Gratitude: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks