Personal:

Generosity of spirit

In a post for the recent Spirit of America fundraising campaign, I wrote about the generosity that Americans are known for around the world.

The world knows the people of the United States, not the government but the people, as remarkably generous. Even during the height of tensions between the US and Iran, every time there was an earthquake in the region, the people of the United States contributed to relief efforts. Any time there is any kind of natural disaster in the world, the people of the United States are in the forefront in contributing money and other forms of aid to the stricken region, regardless of past or present enmity.

This generosity is nothing to sneeze at and will add to the good in a world that has more than enough evil.

Ultimately, though, it is easy to be generous with money.

True generosity is generosity of spirit, which is far, far harder to achieve.

The generosity of spirit I speak of is not the trite "love all mankind" that is the mantra mindlessly repeated during this time of the year.

The generosity of spirit I speak of is not giving of yourself until you have nothing left for yourself.

The generosity of spirit I speak of is not denying your nature or your humanity.

What is it, then?

Generosity of spirit is recognizing the humanity of everyone.

Generosity of spirit is avoiding the laziness of labeling and taking the time to look at the heart of matters.

Generosity of spirit is opening your mind to the thoughts of others, even when you do not agree with them.

We are all human. We all have to eat to live. We all have to sleep to stay sane. We all suffer from the same curse so eloquently allegorized in the story of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge and have the need for our lives to have some meaning, some external recognition that we are important.

Generosity of spirit recognizes this common need, this essential emptiness we all share that can only be filled by others. The very recognition of this need satisfies it and assuages the loneliness that is so central to being human, yet this recognition is often the most difficult to give and requires a true effort of will.

The single biggest way we can do good in this world is to take the time to try to understand those we regard as our worst enemy and recognize in them the same humanity that exists in ourselves. Evil arises out of the refusal to see enemies as human. Does the world really need more of this evil?