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Some gifts are worth more the cheaper they are. The prodigal son spends and squanders his inheritance, yet he is blessed while his brother who valued his own gift so highly is ignored. Christ says we need to give everything away, and in the end we will. Some gifts we treat as important, we make a big show of appreciation, we treasure and prize them. that is what gives those gifts value, and that is what preserves the dignity of the gift-giver But there is one gift-giver who does not work that way: the giver who wants you to squander the gift. Artists may find it familiar that you receive more of the gift (the inspiration) the cheaper you treat it. The god, the muse, or even God himself does not gloat over a gift well given, does not want us to hoard away every breath and every moment. God gives us this gift so we can give it away, treat it cheaply, like water that flows too abundantly to meter it. That is what makes the gift of creativity worth something: how we squander it, how we give it away freely. And as for breath, life? Some gifts are too precious to hoard, too valuable to treasure, to holy to revere. Some gifts were given to be given away. Cheaply. Freely. Spending our inheritance until there's nothing left. "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Matthew 6:26