Nurturing Generosity

Margaret Wheatley, in her book, Restoring Sanity, is clear that what is needed right now are Islands of Sanity. Places of rest, refuge, support, reflection, courage, and compassion. Places where we can gather our souls back close to us, ground ourselves in the values of truth, integrity, love and justice. Places where we create the conditions to be generous, kind and creative, because “these three,” she writes, “are essential to develop trustworthy relationships free of judgments and biases, and to use everyone’s talents and perspectives in solving problems they care about. While these qualities are innate in people, it takes certain conditions to evoke them.”

The most important condition is faith and confidence in the human spirit. Faith is different from beliefs. Faith, in this case, is a deep knowing that even when people disappoint us, even when anger and fear seem to be running rampant, even when we’ve been hurt and deceived, gaslit and manipulated, that despite it all we have faith in the inherent goodness of people. Faith that under it all there is a soul that wants to be loved and wants to love. Faith that underneath it all people really do want to be generous, kind and creative. Faith that each one of us can remember that we are enough, that we are beautiful, that we have gifts to share, that we have love to give, that we are worth loving. Faith that the divine spark, the Sacred Presence, divinity itself resides in each of us and we would see it if only we could peel away the layers.

I have this faith. And when I begin to lose this faith, the people of our spiritual community bring it back for me. That’s what a community is for.

Experience is the other important condition. When we experience generosity, kindness and creativity, our faith in humanity increases, and a desire is evoked within us to do and be the same. It becomes this beautiful circle that lifts us and others up to a higher level of being.

The opposite is also true. If we experience negativity, bullying, violence, lying, cheating, there is an instinct within us that wants to give as good as we got. But if we do that, we experience a downward spiral of negativity, cynicism, and lashing out against others. This is not who we want to be, not who our souls call us to be.

Over the course of six weeks, I want to talk in depth about generosity, kindness and creativity – how to nurture them and how they change and connect us.

So… generosity. Generosity and kindness are closely related, so let me be clear about a definition. Kindness is about being friendly, considerate, respectful, thoughtful.

Generosity is a readiness and willingness to give more than is expected or anticipated. Generosity is not only about money and things, but about time, talent, and energy as well. As Margaret Wheatly says, “Generosity is offering something we value to a person or situation we also value. This is altruism, not reciprocity. We want to extend ourselves or offer something to another. Generosity is a willingness to give without needing to receive.”

Jesus echoes this in the Matthew 6 when he says, “Beware of practicing your piety before others to attract their attention… when you do acts of charity… don’t have it trumpeted before you; that is what hypocrites do… but when you do acts of charity, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing; your good deeds must be done in secret…” Generosity is NOT about accolades or ego. Authentic giving is not about receiving anything in return, it is done purely because one wants to make someone smile or make someone else’s life easier.

Let me share a story with you…

Once upon a time there was a wise woman traveling all through the mountains. One day, she found a precious stone in a stream. She was so happy and grateful. It could change her life. The next day she met a man traveling just like her through the mountains. He was hungry, and she was happy to share her food. But as she opened her bag, the man saw the stone and he knew with this stone he would be able to eat all his favorite foods. His mouth watered imagining all the incredible flavors all the ways his life would be filled with so much goodness.

“Instead of food,” he asked, “Can I have that stone?”

The woman looked at him, “Of course.”

And just like that it was his. The man was so happy! He ran quickly away, afraid she would change her mind. A few days later, however the man appeared again, carrying the stone in his hands.

“Take it back,” he said. “Instead, I hope you can give me something even more precious than this precious stone. I hope you can give me whatever it is within you that made it so easy for you, when I asked, to just give it away.”

Wow. I’d like more of what the wise woman had inside as well. But it is hard to be so generous sometimes. We’re afraid of not having enough for ourselves, we’re afraid of being scammed and taken advantage of. We don’t trust how other people will use our gifts. And sometimes we simply don’t have the time and energy to be generous. (In those times we need to learn to graciously receive, but that is another sermon.)

If we look around a little bit, we can find that there are many churches leading the way in generosity. Churches that are turning a portion of their buildings into facilities to help the people in their neighborhoods, churches that are building low-income housing on their property, and farm churches leveraging the resources of the farm to help with food insecurity in their communities.

Let me leave you with questions and a thought:

Questions: What more can we do as a community? What ideas do you have? Is there energy around a certain project we could spearhead or be a part of? How can we nurture and practice a spirit of generosity?

Thought: Even if you don’t experience generosity from other people, consider experiencing it from the Earth. Consider the generosity of beauty that we are shown every day, consider the infinite giving of the land and animals that we might have food to sustain us, consider the air we breathe and the water we drink… all things given freely by Mother Earth.

My fervent hope and prayer is that we nurture in ourselves a spirit of generosity so that we don’t spend our days counting the cost of giving but reveling in the ways we can give.

Love & Light!

Kaye