Organic Gift
Years ago, I heard Dorothy Day speak. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, her long-term commitment to living among the poor on New York's Lower East Side - had made her one of my heroes. So it came as a great shock when in the middle of her talk, I heard her start to ruminate about the "ungrateful poor."
I did not understand how such a dismissive phrase could come from the lips of a saint - until it hit me with the force of a Zen koan. Dorothy Day was saying, "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward."
When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless - a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other's need to be cared for. That kind of giving is not only loveless and faithless, based on the arrogant and mistaken notion that God has no way of channeling love to the other except through me. Yes, we are created in and for community, to be there, in love, for one another. But community cuts both ways: when we reach the limits of our own capacity to love, community means trusting that someone else will be available to the person in need.
One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess - the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.
May Sarton, in her poem "Now I Become Myself," uses images from the natural world to describe a different kind of giving, grounded in a different way of being, a way that results not in burnout but in fecundity and abundance:
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root...
When the gift I give to the other is integral to my own nature, when it comes from a place of organic reality within me, it will renew itself - and me - even as I give it away. Only when I give something that does not grow within me do I deplete myself and harm the other as well, for only harm can come from a gift that is forced, inorganic, unreal.
How do you relate to the notion that burnout results from trying to give what we do not possess? Can you share a personal experience of a time that the traps of inorganic gifting became clear to you? What practice helps you move toward organic gifting?
This article by Parker Palmer, just took me back to the story of Tukaram Maharaj when the thief visit his farm and stolen the cow. And his introspectiongoes like this "who was this bheetar ka chor? Well, bhagwan ki gaay, bhagwan ki dharti, bhagwan ki baarish, bhagwan ka ghaas, aur us ghaas ko khaakar jo doodh aaya woh bhi bhagwaan ka hi. Usko mera kehna aur maanna woh chori nahin to aur kya hain? (Everything belongs to God - the earth, the cow, the rains, the grass and the milk which the cow gives after eating the grass. The one who thinks and asserts that the cow and the milk are mine is the inner thief). When i see both the story in integrated way, it revalidated my own value of simplicity.
This explains the cause of all kinds of depressive, challenging moments - being inorganic, forced, unreal.
This passage is deeply meaningful to understand life, thank you!
In reading this, many thoughts came to mind but the most predominant would be "that I burnout just about everyday"! In speaking in "organic" terms, everything has "a life". The tomatoes I planted in the Spring have done their duty for this season. I've now pulled them up (roots and all) and will begin anew with a whole new plant next Spring. For the trees in our yard, while they appear they "are finished", (it's an illusion) they are not. The tree stays rooted ... It does not "move"... It keeps it's life ... But it's life is hidden.
When I burnout, I make like a wintered tree and keep my focus on my roots! I can feel tired, finished ... Like this is it, but It is then I start "digging"! Focus on the life (God) in me. Perhaps I can't ... But, in Him, I CAN. (And you CAN, too!) God, like the roots His given us .... Seeks out the good stuff of the ground it's planted in! Believe.
Awesome reflection. Genuine giving...from our hearts..from our true nature. Genuine passion
Giving organically respects the natural cycle of growing what we have to offer, offering it up, and then resting and restoring so that we can begin the cycle again. Love the analogy of the fruit tree. Ripeness is everything, and honoring from the seasons of the heart.
It is not about giving or receiving love. It is about being love, like the ocean to which the rivers flow. The ocean is full by itself. We need to be the ocean of love, full from within
So Beautiful, so True. Blessed are the ones who know the One Source of ALL Gifts and are connected to that Source. From the Source alone will they take their reward of pure inner Joy and Equanimity. I was amazed - one more time - by the magic of synchronicity as I had just unsubscribe to the newsletter of an American teacher who shares wonderful teaching about Love and the Heart. There were so many "I...I...I" "I did this and I have done that" that this alone counteracted all my wish to be connected to his group as by doing that, I will only sustain an illusion instead of sustaining a community spirit base on Pure Love.
