The Gift

Why "The Gift" IS a True Story

By Subway Serenade


In March of 1994 I was reading through the newspapers and I noticed something that most folks at the time seemed to miss entirely. I saw that although there were civil wars, as in Africa, occupations in Palestine and East Timor, and post Cold War fallout in the Balkans and Chechnya, a remarkable thing had occurred. International War could be found nowhere on the planet.

This startled me, and as I researched it further, I found not a single editorial comment. No mention in the pages of the daily papers. No mention of it on TV, or even on the Internet. How could something this important happen and only a street musician could notice? Each week I would go to the library and look through the world news on the Internet. I couldn't find an international war anywhere. I started feeling pretty good about the future of mankind, and this continued straight through to the second week in September of that year. That Tuesday when I reached my spot at the Rector Street Station, I was thinking about the possibility that we could actually have a Holiday Season coming where no two nations were engaged in armed conflict, and it was going totally unnoticed by the rest of the world. As I was setting up to perform I laughed to myself, "I wonder if anyone told God about this? I'd bet He'd be surprised."

I played for three hours, as usual, and packed up for the return home. On the train, I took out my journal and began to write, as I usually did. Only this time, every time my pen touched the paper, I began to cry. On September 29 1994, the first handwritten manuscript was completed. I first called it "A Christmas Card to the World," but realized that that the card was not to the world, but to its Creator. So I named my simple work "The Gift, A True Story of the Holidays." Since that time "The Gift" has been read and heard by thousands of people. And "The Awakening" is closer than most folks would imagine. Share it with your friends and family this Holiday Season.

David

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