“Generosity tends to feed on itself.” Richard Rohr
Friends,
Tell me. Right now. What are you grateful for? Right now, this very moment. Take your time. Notice what is bringing you pleasure or joy or something essential to your very existence. No right or wrong answers. Only the willingness to pay attention to the abundant gifts that life has to offer in any given moment.
Right now, in my world, a full moon is rising in the eastern sky. I have a full stomach and a full pantry of food, clean water at the touch of a hand, and sheltering walls to keep me safe through the day and the night.
Gratitude is the well from which generosity springs. Gratitude means approaching life with an attitude of abundance, noticing what is present instead of dwelling on what is missing; abundance versus scarcity.
When resources seem scarce, generosity can feel as elusive and unreachable as the moon. But as Richard Rohr points out in his book, The Universal Christ, “Generosity tends to feed on itself.” In other words, generosity increases abundance.
Autumn is a season of fullness, of harvest, of bringing in the goodness of life’s abundance, a gift of grace given by the natural forces of seed and soil, sun and rain, and the labor of human bodies.
In the face of life’s good gifts, each of us must ask ourselves what it is that we have to give, what we have to offer to the goodness of life.
Generosity doesn’t always come easily to me. I’ve heard it said that humans aren’t born with a generosity gene. Today’s culture reinforces a tendency toward a scarcity mentality, that our worth is somehow measured by net worth, measured in material and financial resources.
Our Unitarian Universalist faith teaches something different, something counter cultural, that every one of us is imbued with inherent worthiness – not earned – but granted by virtue of being alive.
Beginning from a place of gratitude – generosity is possible. And if Richard Rohr is right, generosity feeds on itself. It’s like a muscle made stronger by use. Generosity makes us stronger. Generosity springs from gratitude.
Right now I am grateful for the love of family and friends, for the comfort of a cool night, the promise of a new day, and for a church community that holds life-affirming values like generosity.
What are you grateful for, right now, in this very moment?
Yours in shared ministry,
Rev. Diane
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