Year: 2008

Giving or Trading?

Where is the line between “giving” and “service”?

On one level, they are the same. We “give” our service to others. But then, when I am paid to do a job, then I am providing service as well. But is it still “giving”, or is it just “providing”?

The difference is in what comes back it seems to me. Whenever I “give” something with some hope or expectation of something in return, then it is no longer giving, is it? Now it is just bartering or trading for services.

And what is in our nature I wonder? Are we put together to be able to truly give?

Evidence would suggest that we are not put together this way – that we are generally inclined to be looking for every opportunity to get more in return than we have to give. Yet, my experience is that the greatest grace that a person can experience comes as part of a true and selfless giving process.

Nothing can fill a heart like the simple and pure harmony that rings from within the soul when pure service is given as a gift to another person.

I know this to be true, and I suspect that most people know this to be true, yet we do it so rarely. This doesn’t make sense, and makes me wonder about the way we are put together. Why do we continue to pursue the bartering and the trading, when they render so little to our soul, yet we rarely allow ourselves the luxury of the things that render so much to our soul?

40 Units of Time in the Wilderness

Both Lent and Passover have ended. What seeped into my soul this year as these wonderful seasons passed beside me?

Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, fasting and wrestling – perhaps wandering. The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness, wandering and seeking G-d. Cultures and religions everywhere have strong traditions of fasting and “wilderness time” as part of the transformation process.

It would seem this “wilderness time” is a critical element in any transformation – certainly in transformations that we hope will take us closer to Eden.

But time in the desert is not easy. Are we willing to deny ourselves the immediate needs that our desires demand in order to allow the path through the wilderness to unfold?

When we are in the desert, it is easy to look for ways to surround ourselves with things that feel like the moisture that we seek, even though the place that we are ending up may – in fact – be the swamp. The swamp might feel like a good place at first, but we will rot there if it is only a hiding place from the desert that we are meant to cross.

When the wilderness and the desert are presented to us on our path, then shouldn’t we embrace that phase of our journey rather than hiding from it? What we might need is a little time in the desert by ourselves, to embrace the gifts of the desert and learn what the desert has to speak to us. If we hide from the desert in the swamp, then when the rain does come, we can’t discern the miracle of rain from the swamp that we have immersed ourselves in.

It is only through our time in the desert that we can gain the gift that lets us see the miracle of the rain when it comes. Miracles are happening around us all the time, but few can see them. It may be that time in the desert is tightly linked to the ability to see the miracles that we are surrounded with.

The Heron Visits My Pond

As I looked out my window this morning, I watched as a heron tried to have breakfast at my Koi pond. I think that he got a few, but I scared him off before he did too much damage.

We have a relationship, this heron and I.

My ponds and my fish represent an easy meal for him, even though there are many places close by where he could eat unmolested. For him, the fish represent his way of making a living for his family.

For me, I raise the fish and sell them, so they represent – for me – one way that I make my living for my family as well. A single fish can represent a value of $100 or more for me, and a hungry heron can easily devour several of them at a meal.

So we are at a loggerheads, the heron and I. I look for ways to stock the pond close to me with fish that he can eat for free, and ways to deter him from my ponds. But my fish will always represent the easy meal for him.

This little relationship is a microcosm of geopolitical politics, isn’t it? We are all after the same thing – a way to make our living in this life – and way too often my way of making my living will keep you from making the living that you want.

What shall I do, then? When does it become OK to simply shoot the heron so that I can have all the fish that I want? By law, I could never do that, but figuratively speaking, where is that point? If I put a little effort into the problem, can I find a solution that makes us all a little more rich, and the heron can live?