The true art of giving

We are alive during a time of large graft, small grift, and sometimes extravagant personal attention to gain. What’s in it for me? Why should you be the one to prosper? Life and our circumstances may feel unfair. We are easily tired. The corners of our principles have become susceptible to the wear and tear of media noise, political theatre, and unbridled vitriol, permitting our aspirations and better values to leak through the fragile folds of the container we sometimes call our character.

Friends, this is no time for fatigue. We cannot afford ourselves the luxury of assuming that our behaviors are isolated, that our actions have no consequences, that our inactions are without impact. How we live our lives, every day, makes a difference. What we stand for, in our thoughts, words, and deeds, has significance.

I recently had a conversation with a special soul who I’ll call Sol. “Are you a giving person?” Sol asked me.

Not wanting to respond with too much certainty, I hesitated, then answered yes.

“How do you know that?” Sol pressed gently.

“Well,” I shrugged, “I try to not to always focus on myself. I try to think of others … you know.”

Sol’s expression was not one of knowing. “When you give, is it with truthful intent?”

There are some conversations in life that quickly find depth, interactions where there is no repartee, the pace feels momentous, and memories somehow are formed before the dialogue has unfolded. Truthful intent? Well, I’d like to think that I did but I felt vulnerable to misrepresenting either myself or my actual experience. Nonplussed, I let the question sink. Sol simply waited.

“It’s hard to know truth, Sol,” I eventually responded. “Can anyone really know if their intent is pure?”

Answering a question with a question is a time-honored avoidance technique. Sol was having none of my misdirection. “So you don’t offer gifts with a pure sense of giving?”

Again, difficult words. Gifts. Pure. Offer. I was fairly convinced that I failed to meet such a standard. No, I knew that did not. My eyes pawed the ground like a dog not knowing where to dig.

Sol embraced my embarrassment. “Have you ever witnessed a real act of selflessness?”

Indeed! I was certain of it. Whether directly or through reports from others, people are able to offer miraculously to each other. Images raced to my mind: caregivers, fire fighters, health care workers, soldiers, saints, neighbors, parents, strangers spontaneously offering assistance – –

“Would you give your life for another?”

Perhaps another time I will describe my unusual questioner. Suffice it to save for now that Sol has the sort of soothing voice that insinuates itself effortlessly into one’s psyche. I responded quickly, affirmatively. Yes, I would do that. More scenarios flooded my senses, remembrances of times when I have proactively offered, through internal prayer, my own life as protection for another. Would I still willingly offer my breath, my place here, in this body, at this time, so that someone I love might continue in their own journey? Without a moment’s —

Sol’s voice: “Is such intention not pure?”

Perhaps. It feels simply right. Complete. Decision-free. And yet, despite the prior offers, I am still here. An intention is not an action. The willingness to release from attachment in order to benefit someone I love could be a greater type of attachment.

Sol dismissed such circularity with an eyebrow. “Love, freely offered, is neither attachment nor excuse.”

You might imagine my confusion. A person buoyed by moments of beauty, someone also saddened by his own inconsistency in embodying simplicity and kindness, I struggle to settle myself in our modern universe. Externally, I am skeptical of many human motives, including my own. Internally, I am inspired by a myriad of human actions.

My conversation with Sol had found itself far afield from where it had actually begun. It was not Sol, in fact, who had asked the first question. “Why won’t people wear masks during the current surge in the pandemic?” I had originally wondered. “Why aren’t people able to see that a simple face mask is an expression of caring? If everyone were to wear face masks in the weeks ahead, if we all were to make decisions over the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday from the vantage of caring for others, we would save many lives. Why can’t we help everyone understand that — “

“The art of giving takes practice,” Sol interrupted. “True giving is not linked with assurance of outcome.”

Filtered through a multi-colored mask, these words seemed almost spoken by Sol’s eyes. It was where our initial conversation ended. Since then, I have wondered at the implications of giving without attachment to outcome. I tried the following theory with a family member: suppose you knew that the mask you wore today could interrupt a unique infectious transmission chain that results – two or three people in the future – in a death of a stranger. Suppose you could see, into the future, the identity of that person. Would you wear the mask today to prevent that person’s death? I would. I bet you would too. Suppose the mask that someone next to you in a grocery store wears could interrupt its own unique transmission chain that results – a different two or three people in the future – in the death of someone you know. Would you plead with that person in the grocery store to keep that mask covering their mouth and nose until they reach their car? Those are real outcomes. The gift from the mask is measurable.

“Are you a giving person?” Sol’s question rings in my ears. It challenges me to release my upset with those who do not wear face masks. It is not my role to judge. Nor is it my role to critique. My place is only to give, and to do so with the right intent. Is it truthful? I cannot say. Will it make a difference? Usually. Occasionally. Always. Never. The answer should not matter. My life neither begins nor ends with me. We are inextricably intertwined.

May exploration into the true art of giving help us restore the tattered corners of our collective character.