Tithing

Tithing.  The practice of giving away one-tenth of one's income.  Some people say it must be given to the church or a religious organization.  Others think it can be given to any charitable cause. Some debate whether the ten percent is before tax or after tax or even if the tax is part of the ten percent. 

For a very long time, I "religiously" gave away my ten percent.  I fall in the camp of any charitable cause.  On the last time my client and I were together during an intentional living intensive before the client went home, we would talk about my tithe.  I always shared half of it with a charity of my client's choosing.  That was a rich experience.  My dollars went off to many wonderful causes that I would never have known about otherwise.  During the summer when many North Carolinians were thrown from their homes by Hurricane Floyd, I explained my sharing approach, and then I would ask if they minded if both halves went to the storm victims.  They always said "yes."

When I first moved to North Carolina from Oregon, one of the first things I did was research potential local recipients because I felt it was important for me to know where my tithes would go before I started earning money in my new home state.   In recent years, giving has been an important part of my budget, but I've never had enough that I felt I could make a full tithe.  Whenever I received a bonus or a tax refund, a large part of it went to making up some of the gap. 

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher had us write a paper about what we would do with a million dollars.  Most of my classmates wrote about what they'd get for themselves.  I wrote about the good work I would do in the world with it.  Perhaps that is the result of a firm spiritual foundation early in my life.  I was taught to tithe, even when I received a dime for an allowance; I would give a penny to my church. There is something about seeding my money to worthy causes that makes me feel complete. I truly am happier giving than receiving.

This pay period I received a promotion.  For the first time in five years, I have the flexibility to actually choose where I spend rather than trying to figure out how I will be able to pay the bills.  My financial planner says it should all go to my meager retirement fund, and some will.  However, in my heart of hearts, I know that much of it needs to go to causes I feel strongly about.    I am excited about being able to choose who I will share with, not that what I am able to give will make any meaningful difference to those organizations.  Inside me, there is a 3 or 4-year-old taking a penny of her 10-cent allowance to give away...and feeling almost giddy about doing so.

A friend of mine once was angry because she felt her father supported worthy causes because it made him feel good rather than just doing good.  Frankly, I think it is wonderful to feel good about doing good. 

Generally, I've identified several causes that were aligned with my goals for giving, and then I have given an equal amount each month. Yet as I write this, what is coming to me that rather than being thoughtful about my new giving, this time I should be more prayerful about it.  My guidance is that each pay period, I should sit and pray about where to send the money.  I like the idea, and I am guessing that it will end up going places I couldn't have anticipated...and once again, I am feeling almost giddy about it.  I have no apologies about feeling good about doing good with my money.

What Do You Want To Be Remembered For?

I was watching an old movie with friends this evening, and sandwiched in between some other dialogue, the question was posed, "What do you want to be remembered for?" Although the action of the movie hardly paused for the unanswered question, it penetrated me at my core.  What do I want to be remembered for?

In an almost instantaneously quick life review, I knew that how I've lived in recent years was not the answer to that question.  It's not that I've been doing anything so bad in recent years. I've survived in a world which focuses on surviving.  Almost as quickly, I felt that longing for the days when I made my decisions, based on thriving. I don't want to be remembered for racing through life like everyone else.  I want to be remembered as someone who was special.

I am mostly proud of my life until recent years.  I delight that I wrote several books that have changed people's lives around the world and especially their work lives. I am proud of the company I ran and the executive coaching work I did. I find satisfying the contribution I made to companies in which I consulted.  I am humbled by the contribution that I have made to humane globalization. I smile thinking of the young minds that I touched in both the classroom and one-on-one coaching as a university teacher.

But, I am reminded of the phrase, "What have you done for me lately?"  What have I done for my legacy in the last eight years? I've been so focused on paying the bills and refunding my depleted retirement that I've forgotten the two things that are most important.  What have I done to nurture a better world around me? What have I done to nurture my own soul?

I believe that those contributions are made in the moment-by-moment decisions that we make about how to live our lives, but what I've been leaving out of that calculus have been the questions, "What do I want to be remembered for?" It's not just about what is the right thing to do in this moment to survive, but if the act I am making in this moment were the headline on my tombstone, is it what I would want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for a generous heart--not just monetarily generous, but was I remembered for being generous with my time and attention? Were others able to feel my caring, not just hear caring words? Was the love I felt for others love that radiated from my heart and not just a thought from my head?

After my last post about giving, I compiled a daily gratitude list.  What stood out to me on both the "gifts received" list and the "gifts given" list was that I hadn't felt the gifts in the moment. I hadn't been a gracious receiver or an intentional giver. I was only intellectualizing them several hours later.

As I think about what I want to be remembered for, perhaps that is it: I want to be remembered for feeling my interactions with others. How can I have a generous heart if I don't feel what I am giving? How can I feel love, if I am not actually feeling? I want to be remembered for being a feeling person who was really present to the people and relationships around me. In my busy life, that will be a stretch, and if my legacy is to be the one I choose, if will be absolutely essential.

Smile!

On my way out of the building after work this evening, I caught a glimpse of someone from the corner of my eye, and I literally turned in place to go back and speak to him.  This man has the best smile in the building.  I know his job is demanding, but I have never once seen him when he wasn't
smiling and pleasant.  He is one of those people who can brighten my day, and those of everyone he sees, without saying a word. 

Since I hadn't talked with him in a while, I decided that I would make a conscious connection.  As I turned to walk into the galley where he stood by a vending machine, I started to say, "Your smile brightens my day!" just about the time he was saying something similar to me.  We laughed and talked briefly about how a good smile could just brighten the day.

Then he said the name of a work colleague, a man with developmental delays, who has a great smile.  He does, and I think the man knows almost all of our 1,000 people.  He always has a pleasant smile and a funny word.  What he may lack in other abilities, he more than gives back with his smile and humor.

The day had evolved differently than I had expected.  A very long meeting that I had expected to be unpleasant played out with humor, and in a group that had been working together for months, we actually got to know each other a bit.  Our work was still onerous, but much more enjoyable than other days during which humor had been absent.

While my day was enriched by people who smiled, laughed, and connected pleasantly, occasionally someone walks through my life who brings a negative shadow.  They always have an unpleasant word to say, and when I see them coming, I often try to avoid them. No matter how I try to be pleasant, they resist. While the smilers make my day, those who are dour can kill it.  The way I see it, we always have a choice.  If we have the intention of making the world better, then we bring the smile and the laughter.  Why not? It is way more fun than leaving a wake of negativity around us.

This round of the Grocery Store Game (12/1/13) continues to surprise me as I make connections in ways that surprise me.  Today's connections were with people with whom I've been interacting, but today was characterized by humor and interest that usually isn't part of the interaction.   What seems to be a consistent part of The Grocery Store Game is that when I reach out to connect with others to honor them, each person brightens my day.  Give a little with the expectation of giving and surprise! I get a lot back.

What goes around comes around

In my blog on gratitude (9/24/13), I described keeping a daily record of gifts I received and those I'd given.  No matter how hard I tried to keep up with what I received, I just couldn't.  A funny thing has happened over the last few days since I have been playing The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13) again.
What has been occurring parallels what happens with the gratitude lists.  The more I try to connect with others, heart to heart, the more people do and say kind things to me. 

I have been pondering this and what it means.  I really think that what we put out does come back to us, but I am pretty confident that it cannot be put out for the purpose of bringing things to us.  A giving heart is pure in motivation.  If something comes back to me, I am grateful, but I shouldn't give for the purpose of getting. 

So I believe it is with connecting, heart to heart, with people.  If something comes back to me, that is nice, but if I connect with the purpose of getting something in return, I have put up a wall between my heart and that of the person with whom I wish to connect.

There is an old expression: "what goes around comes around."  It suggests that how we live in the world is how we will experience the world around us.  We really plant the seeds for what we want in our own hearts, reflected in our actions.  When we give gifts or connection, that is what we attract to ourselves.  If it is done for selfish reasons--hoping to get something back, selfishness is what we will experience coming back.  If we do from pureness of heart, that too is what we will receive.

Making a life

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." Winston Churchill

Yesterday I wrote about gratitude, and although we usually think about being grateful for something we receive, I did introduce the concept of giving as an element of gratitude.  Today, I want to focus on giving.  We can give many things.  Money and things are easy to give.  Time, commitment, focus, consistency, and passion are harder.  These require that we give of ourselves--our life energy.

I am guilty of saying, "I'd really like to do that, but I don't have time."  What I am saying is that I don't make that thing a priority in my life.  Yet when I look at the time that I fritter away every week in activities that are meaningless to me, it is clear that time is not the issue.  What has been lacking are commitment, focus, and consistency.

For at least a half dozen years, I'd talked about starting a blog about heart-knowing.  Only this week have I mustered the commitment, focus, consistency, and, yes, time to actually do so.  When I pushed myself to my computer to write my blog last night, I was really tired, and it was late.  Where would the energy come from to write?  But, I was committed to writing daily. A funny thing happened: by the time I was done writing, I was energized, satisfied, and passionate about what I'd written.  I thought I was giving to others, and my gift came back to me tenfold.

I am not sure why I was surprised.  Each time I've written a book my time in the "flow" state with the words tumbling out of me like water from a waterfall has left me deeply satisfied and with a heart warmth that glows from inside of me.

Whatever our gifts may be, when we make using them a priority, we give to the world the very thing we came here to give...and we are making a life by doing so.  That's what I know in my heart today.