What Then Is Generosity, Or, Saturday Morning at 10:49am

We had a heat pump installed this week. Yesterday, the temperatures having reached 101F in my town, our patio hot enough to blister the soles of our feet, I felt the house starting to cool. Having lived my whole life where I got as hot as my world, this feels quite odd.

Good, in that I no longer have to run through the house opening and closing doors and windows to capture as much cool air as possible, and I no longer worry that I have to shelter in our local library if the heat wave extends even one more day. But odd, not to feel in my being what the Earth is doing right now. Let me temper this. Of course I’ve had heat all these years. But heat has been possible since we first domesticated fire. Cooling feels quite advanced.

I will say, it makes it much easier for me to feel grateful. This morning, I’m grateful for my white hybrid tea rose, Honor, it’s called, in its second or third bloom of the summer often calls pink from its roots.

Which reminds me of something someone said to me in the group of other peer grief counselors I meet with regularly–when you suffer an irreplaceable loss, although it never goes away you can look for other paths of purpose and comfort. Gratitude, for one. I think we know this, and even if I don’t know it I wrote this post anyway.

But it’s a lot easier to feel gratitude when you’re not-metaphorically or literally-overheating.

The other thing this wise woman reminded me of is the role of generosity. Not from others to us, although that’s needed, but from us to others.

In my newly cool house, I’m wondering, what then is generosity? Simply the act of giving? I don’t think so. If someone a) has more resources than they know what to do with, and b) makes themself feel big by giving things away, is that generous? Doesn’t feel like it.

Let’s deconstruct that sentence. We’re talking about a) whether someone’s gifts are easy to part with and b) whether they’re giving for their own reasons or altruistically. Now I have to let those parameters rattle around like marbles in a maze for a minute. Hold on. I’ll go deadhead the roses.

OK. Marbles are falling out. Let’s start with b). I think people can be generous without being selfless. Sainthood is too high of a benchmark. All us imperfect beings can be generous. It’s a) that’s the crux. Real generosity means the giving has to require an effort, maybe even hardship. To be generous, some part of you has to groan a little bit inside: I don’t want to spend the day with this person who needs me; I don’t want to donate that $75 because I want to buy a new shirt; I don’t want to forgive her, I want to let the fury I’m holding onto singe the room we stand in.

One last question. Does the definition of generosity require the person we are giving to like what we give them? Nah. I don’t think so. Gotta leave room for mistakes. You just have to give some of your capacity for work–intellectual, emotional or physical labor. A very Sturdy Gal concept, for those of you who’ve been here since early on.

Maybe in the end generosity is largely all of us collectively muddling about trying to give each other what we need, for whatever reasons, rather than hoarding abundance for ourselves. Cooling down helps.

Generosity with room for roses.

Have a wonderful weekend.