Bob on Gift Giving

In response to someone who had complained about people giving in to a compulsion to buy gifts for others, particularly at Christmas:
"You really don't wish to feed into the 'compulsion' of a person to buy presents for another person (even if, in an imperfect way, it was intended to show the recipient that someone cared for and thought about him/her). Somehow, you seem to recoil from the possibility that human beings, even if in their present somewhat darkened and blind states, can have genuine caring feelings for another. Then it is even harder to imagine that Love is the core of existence. But I do believe that Love can break through, albeit in unexpected ways. To say 'undeserved' would be a judgment that, as Barack Obama puts it, is 'beyond my pay grade.' I think of it instead as an unconditional inheritance, such as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son."