This young man discovered that to truly give, you must know what is wanted. To know that, you must form a relationship with the other–you have to love them. Love is merely the willingness to know the other person as he or she truly is, and then offering yourself as you truly are. In love, […]
Events
The Joy Of Giving
I was speaking in a classroom of third-graders one day about kindness and generosity. I asked the kids why we should do nice things for one another. Hands popped up: “Because it’s the right thing to do.” “Because it makes the other person feel good.” “Because then they’ll be nice to you.” Then a girl […]
Not Giving As Giving
We are all generous to greater or lesser degrees. And we are all generous in different realms. We’ve learned to be openhearted in some areas but not in others. It’s good to take stock of just where and when we are and aren’t generous. Once we’ve become conscious of our habits, we have more freedom […]
Giving Is Living
There was a farmer who was a premier corn grower in his community. His corn was always sweeter and better than anyone else’s, and it always won the blue ribbon at the county fair. At the end of the growing season, he would take his seed corn, the corn that would be sown the following […]
God Is No Thing
One of the central functions of the dark night, he says (referring to St. John of the Cross), is to convince those who grasp after things that God cannot be grasped. In John’s native Spanish, his word for God is ‘nada’. God is no-thing. God is not a thing. And since God is not a […]