Generosity and Agency
and suggestions for cultivating them, both close to home and across the world
Hi there, dear people,
I’ve been thinking a lot about generosity lately. How can I have more of it? Is the best kind selfless, selfish, or something in between? Is it enough to be generous with one’s nuclear family and established circle of friends, or does being a generous person require casting a wider net?
I consider myself a reasonably generous person, thanks in large part to the on-job training as a parent. The amount of day-to-day generosity required of parents extends beyond obligation. It is a deep empathy that is played out day in, day out, with few breaks. I care about my kids’ feelings. After nearly 15 years of this parenting gig, I still dedicate the lion’s share of my leisure time to going above and beyond meeting their needs: cooking them good food, listening to their worries, organizing their lives, snuggling, answering questions, cheering them on.
Extend the circle a little wider, and my desire to be present and helpful in the lives of my larger family and friends continues.
The hard part, the human part, is that it doesn’t stop there. I see what’s going on in Gaza. I hear the politicians’ dehumanizing rhetoric about migrants at the US border. My heart cries out in pain for these victims, and yet I feel powerless to fix anything despite my impulse toward generosity.
With my nuclear family, with my friends, with my neighbors, I can help. Widen the circle to the global community, and I feel like I lose my agency.
So I’ve been wondering, is it enough to smile at a stranger? To care for my kids? To make my grandmother laugh? To teach folks how to sew?
Is it enough to write down my musings? To learn to draw? To make something beautiful? To marvel at the splendor of Spring?
In several recent conversations with dear friends, I learned that they just can’t take in the horrors of what is happening outside the US borders. These are good, kind-hearted women, and, perhaps to protect their own hearts and emotional boundaries, they are choosing to focus only on political issues that have the potential to affect their own families.
I have compassion for this response.
I remember being in the pediatric ICU after my newborn son’s first open heart surgery. The energy required to simply be present with the suffering and stress surrounding me was all-consuming. It wasn’t until weeks later that I learned about the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I just didn’t have the bandwidth to onboard the information.
I do think it’s ok to not always feel able to grapple with the suffering of the world. There are days when I can, and days when I just can’t. No moralizing necessary; our emotional lives are nuanced, changing, and complex.
On the days that I can widen my circle, I do read the news. I try to work on a piece of art that is an attempt to wrestle with witnessing the pain of others. I buy my high schooler an anti-war hoodie. I attend a protest. I call on my congresswoman to stop supporting the horrors of war. I remind myself that, while it is harder to see the impact, we living humans each have some ability to compel changes, even at the global scale.
On the days I can’t, I don’t check the news. I make a nourishing meal for my family. I sew something fun. I read for pleasure. I sing harmony with my daughter, who has a beautiful voice. I find humor in odd places, like the electric eraser (great for drawing animal fur!) that Patrick got me for my birthday, which I initially thought was a nose hair trimmer.
But I do think that we should practice expanding our hearts’ capacity for compassionate generosity outward, to see the humanity of the people we do not know, living in situations we struggle to understand from our lives of relative ease and comfort. And remember that you aren’t alone in the discomfort of living in this cognitive dissonance. The discomfort is a sign of the goodness of your heart.
It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Krishnamurti
Suggestions for close-to-home generosity on the days you just can’t
Make this salad for yourself and your people. The perfect blend of spice, crunch, and tanginess, my oldest (who is not a salad aficionado) claimed it was the best salad he’s ever eaten. (Tip: Shred the Brussels sprouts in a food processor. If you have otherworldly knife skills, more power to you, but I do not.)
Yard work friend crews: My neighbor mentioned this brilliant idea while he was kindly trimming off some dead branches on our side of the fence. Get a group of friends together, say, four families, and one day a weekend, host a yard work day. All friends convene on one yard, the hosting family feeds everyone, and you hang out and get a bigger task, or a bunch of smaller tasks, checked. Keep rotating to different family yards until everyone gets a spruce-up day. It’s like a modern day barn raising without the barn. Although, you could probably get a chicken coop out of it! And even better, you get to hang out with friends and do purposeful work.
Enjoy this video about the process of artist Rebecca Louise Law, who uses flowers and community help to build her impressive art installations that pay homage to Nature.
Suggestions for widening the circle of your generosity
Reading
I’m not yet finished with this modern day retelling of Charles Dickens David Copperfield, but it hits hard as you follow the Appalachian protagonist from misfortune to misfortune. Great for opening your heart to the plight of the rural poor right here in the US.
A stunningly beautiful memoir recounting a 9 year old boy’s difficult journey to the United States from El Salvador, following migrant trails that had been forced into the dangerous Sonoran desert by the anti-immigrant politics of the 1990s, border walls, and unrealistic limits on legal immigration. The author Javier Zamora generously offers his readers a rare chance to empathize with these hidden and brave humans who are once again being demonized by anti-immigrant demagoguery.
This is on my list. I’m currently re-reading the author’s other book, Loving-kindness, which helped me move through the aftershock of my middle son’s traumatic medical needs over a decade ago. I have a hunch that reviving my loving-kindness meditation practice might help me keep going (and being useful) in the face of man-made horrors at our southern border and across the world.
Watching
My husband and son’s video podcast:
Patrick and Finn recorded this episode on the history of Israel and Palestine while exploring our moral obligations as witnesses (and US citizens.) Note that this was recorded at the end of December, and the scale of the suffering has only grown since then. Hopefully they’ll have a chance to record more episodes this summer, when Finn is on summer break.
Throughout this Oscar-winning film, the German commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, his family, and their visitors ignore the horrific sounds carried over the wall that separates the camp from their idyllic home and garden. It is a haunting metaphor for our too-human capacity to tune out the horrors being carried out around us as we try to enjoy and improve our lives. What are we ignoring today? (If you, like me, have a low tolerance for on-screen violence, know that the real-life horrors are kept out of frame. This is not a gory movie.)
Sarah Dyer is hosting another charity draw for Palestinians on March 29, 7 pm GMT. Proceeds go to the Gaza Skate Team.
I’d love to hear your suggestions for cultivating generosity both close to home and far away. May you find some peace in loving others this week.
Thank you for this post, you echo so much of my own feelings during this time.