Generosity Changes & Connects Us

We began these conversations this month with my desire to follow Margaret Wheatley’s advice to become an Island of Sanity in these chaotic, challenging, sometimes scary times. Within these communities, Wheatley says, we must create the conditions for generosity, kindness and creativity to be evoked and used to accomplish good works.

Last week we talked about nurturing generosity by regaining faith and confidence in humanity, which happens when we come together in communities like these where people are supportive, compassionate, kind and inclusive. And generosity is nurtured when we experience or witness generosity. When we are on the receiving end of a generous gift, or even when we watch the generosity of someone else, it evokes a desire in us to be more generous.

Why focus on generosity? Because, Wheatley says, it changes and connects us. How? That’s what I want to talk about today.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians, says:

Keep this in mind: if you plant sparingly, you will reap sparingly, and if you plant generously, you will reap generously. You must give according to what you have inwardly decided – not sadly, not reluctantly, for God loves a giver who gives cheerfully… You will be made rich in every way for your generosity, for which we give thanks to God.

We probably don’t realize the power that being generous has, power to change the giver and receiver physically and emotionally. The Buddha believed this so strongly that he said that if we only knew the power that generosity had we would share every meal we ever ate. Perhaps this is the richness that Paul talks about.

There is a soul richness in generosity, an opportunity to practice letting go and the freedom that brings, an opportunity to bring joy to another, which resonates inside our very selves. As we change inside, we manifest that on the outside. And since generosity affects not just the giver and receiver, but those watching, too, giving has the potential to spread much good.

If you need scientific back up to this, we have it. Studies have shown that volunteering (a generous act) prompts a release of endorphins in our brains which are natural mood-elevating and pain-reducing chemicals that help increase our ability to cope with pain.

There is something called the “Mother Teresa effect”  which shows that even watching a video of Mother Teresa helping others offers the watcher the same physiological benefits as actually being generous themselves.

Another study at the University of Notre Dame has shown that generous people tend to be “emotionally happier, physically healthier, and… have a greater feeling of purpose and meaning in their lives.”

So, we’ve got the science to back up how generosity changes us physically and emotionally. Now, let me share a real-life story as just one example of how generosity changes and connects us.

​In 1895 in Coronado, California, Gus and Emma Thompson, a Black couple, built a house and barn before the city’s racial housing covenants restricted Black residents and other people of color from buying or renting properties in the neighborhood. In a spirit of defiance and the resolve to help others, the Thompsons converted the upper level of the barn into a boarding house for the vulnerable.

In 1938, they rented their house to the Dongs, a Chinese American family, at a time when others wouldn’t. In 1955 the Dongs purchased the property, making them the first Chinese American family to purchase real estate in Coronado.

The Dong and Thompson families were both marginalized people trying to make it in a land that didn’t see them as full citizens, so they supported each other. Now the Dong sons are carrying on the spirit.

Over eight decades later, the Dong family sold the house and apartment building next door and donated $5 million to the Black Resource Center at San Diego State University in honor of the Thompsons.

“The Thompsons gave my parents a foundation to owning a house and sending their kids to college,”  said Lloyd Dong, Jr, age 82. “Selling the house and donating it to the Black community for their education is a good thing.”

The generous act of renting and selling that house to the Dongs certainly touched many lives over the course of 80 years. Obviously it affected the children enough to give back a huge portion from the sale of that property to continue a legacy of generosity by offering and enhancing opportunities for Blacks at San Diego State University.

Our world tends to focus way too much on how much we don’t have. Our advertising is designed to show you that there is something you are lacking but really need desperately. And we’re driven by a fear of scarcity – there won’t be enough. Perhaps it is time we looked a little closer at what we do have, the time we do have, the money we do have, the stuff we do have, the love and compassion we do have. And then letting go of the fear of having less, giving it away and discovering that, oddly enough, now it feels as if you have more.

May we all be empowered to share generously.

Love & Light!

Kaye