Gifts of the New Year

A long, long time ago there lived a king.

He was not as rich as Solomon, as gifted as David, as brave as Cyrus the Persian or as wise as Suleiman the Magnificent. He was an “ordinary” king that tried to serve his people as best he could. And his subjects were grateful. They often brought him gifts, mostly the first of their harvest whether that be wheat, wine, salt or olive oil.

On the first day of every New Year a prophet living in the mountains came to visit the palace. He was a sight to behold with his wild hair and beard, his sun tanned skin and even the soldiers at the court stepped back as he approached. He never spoke a word with the king. When he entered the throne room everybody became quiet. The king indicated that he may approach; the prophet bowed, took an old bag from his back, searched inside and brought forth an overripe fruit.

With the fruit in hand he raised his eyes upward and muttered a prayer. Then he kissed the overripe fruit and handed it over to the king – his gift for the year.

The king, a true gentleman, accepted the humble gift in silence and thanked the old man with a nod of his head. Then he handed the fruit over to his minister in charge. The minister nodded, took the fruit and had it thrown out on the refuse dump.

The prophet bowed and disappeared in the crowd. “The New Year Holy Man” everybody, even the king, called him.

As soon as he was out of sight the courtiers started giggling because by “Holy Man” they actually meant “fool” or “simple” or “crazy, but harmless”.

The king smiled and said: “Come, come, he means well.”

The queen waved her hand as if to remove a smell and wondered why on earth he had to kiss the almost bad fruit. Her friends were curious as to why he always came on New Years Day and the minister in charge was of the opinion that he probably stole the fruit at one of the street markets for there surely didn’t grow fruit in the barren mountains.

They quickly forgot about him until the next New Years Eve. They wondered whether he will come again with his unkempt hair, his tattered clothes. Whether the same ritual will be repeated, the bowing, the solemn prayer, the kissing, the handing over, the nodding, everything up to the absurd end: the old fool returning to the mountains and the fruit thrown out.

The Holy Man never missed a New Year.

However, on one particular New Year the whole ceremony ended in chaos. Everything took place as usual but just as the king was handing over the year’s gift  to the minister, one of the king’s pet monkeys that had escaped from its cage darted into the throne room, snatched the fruit and bit it in two.

A huge deep-red ruby fell out of the fruit, rolled across the floor and came to rest at the king’s feet.

The courtiers were flabbergasted. The moment they got their breaths back, they stormed the minister: “Where did you dump the gifts of the previous years? Tell us! We have to know!”

The minister himself charged down to the refuse dump and started digging, accompanied by a huge following of dignitaries who apparently lost sight of the fact that they were over-dressed for the task at hand.

They didn’t find anything. The old man who managed the royal refuse site explained that the slaves took a lot of the refuse away before the dump got too big. What do they do with it then? Oh, the farmers are grateful when the organic material is worked into their lands. No, he has never seen any precious stones.

On their return to the palace, empty handed, smelly and dirty, the New Year Holy Man was gone. The courtiers found the king on his throne, lost in thought, rolling the ruby over and over between his fingers.

 That day there were no festivities and the court and surroundings were quiet with only a solitary member of the nobility now and then to be seen on the refuse dump, busy, as if looking for something.

With this legend, originally told by Carl Gustav Jung, we pray that in this New Year we may all refrain from judging our gifts by their covers. May we grow and learn and benefit from what 2013 has in stall for us – in whatever form it may come.

George and Matilda