People here where I live say I’m too generous. And that is just it - the less people have, the more generous people seem to become. It’s strange but that is my observation. That’s the rub, the most generous people I’ve met in my life are those that have so little. Why is that?
You hear about how generous Gates and all the other billionaires are - giving millions here and more millions there. OMG! But that isn’t generosity. Generosity isn’t measured in naked numbers but like with the Grinch - the size of the heart it issues from.
Furthermore - generosity works in a strange fashion. It doesn’t follow expected logic. It grows and is great when it is given without a want of an outcome or expected result from that given. People criticize me for giving money to those who’ll just run off and buy a bottle. I don’t give a damn what they do with it, I give without demands. Plus, do not deny anyone their sedatives - we all have them.
And furtherfurthermore - generosity gives much more to the giver than the receiver. That’s the miracle. WE KEEP WHAT WE GIVE.
There is SO MUCH pain, suffering, need out there in the world. Most of us in the 1st world live in a bubble. We don’t realize how hard, brutal, how short life is for the majority on this planet. How much daily life is a struggle.
The best gift you can give yourself this holiday season is to walk out your door and like the Buddha before his awakening - SEE those in the shadows, those who need. The poor, those suffering of disease, of disability, those aged and struggling, those who’ve lost a loved one.
I’m making a Christmas dinner this week for friends. One way I can be generous in spirit. I’ll be giving freely and hoping my heart gets 3 sizes bigger. You?
Surprises
[a poem from my time in Kiev - true story. Witnessed it and got home, turned on the oven which was my heater and sat before it and wrote it. ]
Walking home Christmas time
late evening
bags full in both hands
and I spy a lady
going through the bin
in front of the house.
If it weren’t Kyiv
it would be an affront.
But I walk straight by
as she adjusts her
half pink wool hat
and reaches down deep again ……..
So many surprises await her!
A half-eaten sandwich, 5 kopeck bottles
a purple hairpin, old tomatoes
dry paper for tonight’s bed.
And for me?
No surprises.
I know what I’ve bought.
I’m the one who’s been caught.