Are You A Generous Person?
I begin with a question, an invitation to some honest self-reflection: Are you a generous person? Asking this same question of myself, I find it a hard question to answer accurately. I so much want to be a generous person, and because I do, I am tempted to distort my answer to reflect more positively than the facts may otherwise prove. So pausing for a few moments to give a more accurate answer I can say without question that, "Yes, I am indeed a generous person... sometimes."
The season of Advent, a season observed by many Christians, begins this Sunday and continues through Christmas Day. Like my simple opening question, the season of Advent is an invitation to some honest self-reflection. I find that this period of self-reflection is something that happens naturally for most of us this time of year, regardless of our faith (or no faith) tradition. The holiday season, along with the closing of another year in our lives, gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect a little more deeply on our lives.
This year our Living Compass Wellness Initiative will bring together my opening question about generosity with the season of Advent. Each Advent we create a booklet of daily readings around a particular wellness theme and this year's theme is, "Practicing Generosity With All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind." We have already distributed 25,000 printed booklets. While it is too late to get one of those, we are offering the daily readings from the booklets via email. You can use the link below to sign up.
I find that when I am at a beginner's level skill in something, the one way I can always get better at it, is by practicing. This is true of playing the piano, speaking Spanish, dribbling a soccer ball, baking pies, learning Photoshop, fly fishing, and yes, even being generous. I usually get better at the things I commit to practicing.
This time of year provides countless opportunities for us to practice generosity-with our time, our money, our gifts and talents, our volunteering, and our presence to others. In light of this, I have personally set an intention for myself to do two things each day between now and Christmas. The first is to reflect and learn more about what it truly means to practice generosity, and second, to practicing generosity by doing something generous each day for someone.
As already mentioned, I so much want to be a generous person--not just sometimes, but most of the time. I am hoping some good practice over the next month will help move me toward my goal.
I invite you to join me in my commitment to practicing generosity this holiday season.
To sign up for the daily Advent emails on Practicing Generosity, click HERE.
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