Value for Saturday of Week 26 in the season of Ripening

Being Generous

By being generous, we advance beyond responsibility and reliability, and see our lives in terms of service to others.

  • Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style. [Rebecca Solnit]
  • True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations. Time and love are the most valuable possession you can share. [Suze Orman]
  • Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out. [attributed to Frank A. Clark]
  • In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who has much but he who gives much. [Erich Fromm]

Doing more than is required or expected is the essence of being generous. A generous person does not keep score, or ask for recompense, but gives what she can give. Seen that way, actions become acts of service. This reflects moral excellence in the domain of action.

You may be tempted to think of service along the lines of a maid or butler, or a food server in a restaurant. If so, you may be put off by the economic inequality that often accompanies and gives rise to such work. But for some people, service to others is a constant and joyful act and not subservient at all. The Kennedy family comes to mind in its ethic of political service to country. The family matriarch, Rose Kennedy, often expressed that view. When we ask “what would the world be like if . . .” examples like these may come to mind.

Being generous boosts mental and physical health, strengthens interpersonal relationships, and is an important trait in leaders. Essentially synonymous, kindness too produces these results. “Generous behaviour is known to increase happiness, which could thereby motivate generosity.” It also boosts self-esteem. “The associated feel-good chemicals can help reduce aches and pains and help us sleep better, too.” A study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain has demonstrated that generosity produces a pattern of activity in the amygdala, and is associated with increased happiness.  

“. . . generosity has its roots not just in our individual development but also in our very biology and evolutionary history. Species as diverse as bees, birds, vampire bats, rats, and chimpanzees all exhibit forms of generosity, or what can be broadly described as ‘prosocial behavior’—acts that benefit others.” “Current studies of generosity come from many different and often disconnected disciplines and focus on various terms, such as philanthropy, volunteerism and altruism.

Generosity is an indispensable step on the path toward spirituality: spirituality implies ego transcendence into harmony with something greater than the self. Giving freely is a spiritual act.

Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Ebenezer Scrooge could not turn back the clock. He could undo the wasted years, or the unhappiness he had previously inflicted. But he could live anew, and he changed his life from miserliness to generosity:

The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.  His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.  "Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"  "I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time."  "You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please."  "It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir."  "Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your salary!"  Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.  "A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"   Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. [Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave V: “The End of It”.]

Novels:

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

From 1782-1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed four symphonies, all in major keys. A fifth, formerly attributed to him, is of similar character. They are uniformly ebullient and forward-looking. In them, we can hear the value of generosity.

Olivier Messiaen, Saint François d’Assise (1983) (approx. 236-264’), is an opera about a man who lived in service to others. “Saint François is unusual because the drama is of an interior, spiritual nature . . . As the composer himself wryly observed: 'Some people have told me, "There's no sin in your work." But I myself feel sin isn't interesting, dirt isn't interesting. I prefer flowers.'” Unfortunately, Messiaen missed the most important point about François’s life: “Decidedly anti-dramatic (there is little or no action), it fulfills Messiaen’s aim to present the journey of St. Francis’ soul toward grace.” Recorded performances have been conducted by Seiji Ozawa in 1983, premier performance (here is audio and video), Kent Nagano in 1998, and Sylvain Cambreling in 2004. 

Albums:

Music: songs and other short pieces

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

Shadow side:

This Is Our Story

A religion of values and Ethics, driven by love and compassion, informed by science and reason.

PART ONE: OUR STORY

First ingredient: Distinctions. What is the core and essence of being human? What is contentment, or kindliness, or Love? What is gentleness, or service, or enthusiasm, or courage? If you follow the links, you see at a glance what these concepts mean.

PART TWO: ANALYSIS

This site would be incomplete without an analytical framework. After you have digested a few of the examples, feel free to explore the ideas behind the model. I would be remiss if I did not give credit to my inspiration for this work: the Human Faith Project of Calvin Chatlos, M.D. His demonstration of a model for Human Faith began my exploration of this subject matter.

A RELIGION OF VALUES

A baby first begins to learn about the world by experiencing it. A room may be warm or cool. The baby learns that distinction. As a toddler, the child may strike her head with a rag doll, and see that it is soft; then strike her head with a wooden block, and see that it is hard. Love is a distinction: she loves me, or she doesn’t love me. This is true of every human value:

justice, humility, wisdom, courage . . . every single one of them.

This site is dedicated to exploring those distinctions. It is based on a model of values that you can read about on the “About” page. However, the best way to learn about what is in here is the same as the baby’s way of learning about the world: open the pages, and see what happens.

ants organic action machines

Octavio Ocampo, Forever Always

Jacek Yerka, House over the Waterfall

Norman Rockwell, Carefree Days Ahead

WHAT YOU WILL SEE HERE

When you open tiostest.wpengine.com, you will see a human value identified at the top of the page. The value changes daily. These values are designed to follow the seasons of the year.

You will also see an overview of the value, or subject for the day, and then two columns of materials.

The left-side column presents true narratives, which include biographies, memoirs, histories, documentary films and the like; and also technical and analytical writings.

The right-side columns presents the work of the human imagination: fictional novels and stories, music, visual art, poetry and fictional film.

Each entry is presented to help identify the value. Open some of the links and experience our human story, again. It belongs to us all, and each of us is a part of it.

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The Work on the Meditations