June 18, Thursday - Thoughts on Giving

A World of Possibilities 1 - acrylic on canvas by Jim Rose-Foreman

A World of Possibilities 2 - acrylic on canvas by Jim Rose-Foreman


Quite a number of years ago, even twenty years ago, I was having tea at my house with a friend, kind of an ordinary event. But I remember that the energy in our conversation was electric. We were communicating deep feelings and passions about our lives, really listening and enjoying each other's company. At one point we were standing in the dining room and my friend commented on how much she liked the sweater I was wearing. It was a big, fluffy, hand knit, lamb's wool, traditional Icelandic sweater. Beautiful indeed. Suddenly I pulled off my sweater and slipped it over her head. Helping her into it I assured her that it was a gift. Just as quickly she removed her necklace of turquoise carved birds handmade by an old man she had come to know at the Zuni Pueblo where she made yearly trips to the sacred corn dance. She placed it around my neck. The necklace was beautiful and meaningful. We were both moved. This was the cleanest moment of gift giving I have ever experienced. No thinking, just pure heart. I still have the necklace though I have moved away and lost touch with my friend. That moment between us lives in me every time I see her gift.

Its funny how clearly I remember that moment. Surely there have been many other times when the gift and the moment were just perfect. Yet over the years I have noticed how messy giving can sometimes get. This is often most true when we give through a so called charity. The connection which was so vibrant between my friend and I is non-existent or blunted by the distance and facelessness of the encounter. And sometimes it is blunted because the gift is made out of obligation or guilt.

Recently I read an article in Christianity Today written by Richard Stern president of World Vision a Christian aide organization. In the article entitled, "We are not Commanded to be a Docent in the Art Museum, We are Commanded to Love the Poor", he takes members of the Christian churches to task for not responding seriously to the crisis of children in the world. This man is not a dummy when it comes to marketing. He has been a CEO of major corporations for 25 years and head of World Vision for 10 years. So one would expect that when he writes to an audience of prospective donors he would try to make them feel good about themselves, tell them touching stories of how their money is helping children far away in order to wheedle his way a bit deeper into their pocketbooks. He doesn't do that. He spends his time telling it like it is.

Twenty-six thousand children die of starvation or preventable disease every day. As he reminds us, this is like 100 airliners crashing every day. Our society gets very upset over even one airliner crash and goes to great lengths to retrieve the black box for clues to the cause and to assure all that the problem will be remedied. Yet we don't do much at all about the daily deaths of 26,000 children. He went on to seriously question the priorities of his Christian audience:

Our church bulletins read like the table of contents for Psychology Today: support groups for pornography addictions and eating disorders, Taekwondo, aerobics, and on and on. Our churches are increasingly meeting all of our needs but decreasingly going out to change the world.

The message is not that these are not good things to do, the message is, Hello! Wake Up! There are children dying! It seems kind of like ironing the table cloth while the house is burning down. It is not a bad thing to do, it is just not what is needed right now.

So I am wondering why we are not taking this global crisis seriously. These are some of the reasons I came up with:
1. It is too overwhelming to think about.
2. It is mostly far away and our national, corporate controlled media ignores it so we do too.
3. Many of us feel overburdened with what we are doing just to get through the day.
4. We may feel that this culling of the weakest is the way of nature or of God since there are already too many people on the Earth.

There seems to be some truth in all of these reasons for inaction. So I wonder then if there is any reason to act. I answered myself with another question. If even one of those 26,000 children was your child or grandchild, how would those reasons for hanging back sound to you? Looking over at the picture on my desk of that amazing beautiful, loving little boy who is my grandson, suddenly my heart bursts open with gratitude. I want to give to every child in the world, not our of guilt but out of gratitude for all the blessings of this life. I look around me and see this beautiful planet, my own clean water and healthy food, the flowers out my window, my loving partner, our healthy children and grandchildren. It reminds me of how I felt that day when I spontaneously gave away my sweater. It seems that true generosity pours forth spontaneously from a full heart.

Here I am again with a full heart for the plight of children half way around the world. What to do? Beyond giving the small amount of money that we are able to give and signing petitions on the Internet and of course holding these unknown children in my heart and prayers - all good and valid responses, I can't really think of any other response. It sounds kind of lame doesn't it?? My ego definitely wants it to be more flamboyant, for me to be special instead of just a worker ant. I want to be the queen bee of giving. Then of course I remember the key fact I tend to forget, I am not alone in all this. I am just one tiny drop in the ocean of love that is the Universe.

So our small monthly pledge to Oxfam and signing the petition to support a vitally needed bill The Senator Paul Simon Clean Water Act of 2009 will be my contribution today. This bill could be our national response to those 26,000 unnecessary childhood deaths every day. If it is passed by the US Senate, over 100 million people will get access to clean water for the first time ever. Clean water means vastly improved child health and survival. Eighty percent of preventable childhood deaths from disease are caused by dirty water. This would be a major step for our nation to take. Yet there is a real danger that the bill will die in committee for lack of co-sponsors. This is where we can help right now. There are five co-sponsors so far and at least twenty are needed before it will be taken seriously by the Senate. At the One site you can sign a petition that goes to your senators asking them to co-sponsor the bill. There are already have over 75,000 signatures. A personal letter to your senators is probably even more effective if you have the time.

From that long ago memory of the gift exchange with my friend Jeannie I understand the connection between gratitude and the gift. Gratefulness happens spontaneously when we are truly present to our life. It opens us up and allows whatever gift we have to come forth from us. I never thought of gratitude as being that important. I thought that changing the world came from hard work and tenacity. Those help of course. But gratitude is what makes everything flow. Perhaps those Christian churches that Richard Stern was talking about should be teaching and practicing gratitude. Perhaps if gratitude was returned to a place of importance in our culture, taught to our children and practiced by all, we would be able to respond naturally to the needs of children and families and our planet Earth. Br. David Steindl-Rast,OSB Benedictine monk and teacher, has known this secret of gratitude for a long time. He has a web site Gratefulness.org where the subject is explored extensively. There he writes, "Gratitude is thinking in tune with the cosmic intelligence that inspires us in grateful moments. It can change more than a mood; it can change a world."

Now I wonder if my friend Jeannie still has that Icelandic sweater and if she ever thinks of that day when we had tea. If she does, wonder where it leads her? I'd like to find her again and have that conversation.