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Three Cheers for Acts of Anonymous Kindness
Considering the incivility of politicians, cyber bullying, and terrorist attacks, reports of random acts of kindness happening all over the place is good news that lifts the soul. In an article at Nytimes.com, "Ma'am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For," Kate Murphy writes about the pay-it-forward phenomenon. In drive-through food places, a person pays for the meal of the person in the car behind him or her and then drives away.
Considering the incivility of politicians, cyber bullying, and terrorist attacks, reports of random acts of kindness happening all over the place is good news that lifts the soul. In an article at Nytimes.com, "Ma'am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For," Kate Murphy writes about the pay-it-forward phenomenon. In drive-through food places, a person pays for the meal of the person in the car behind him or her and then drives away.
Pay it Forward
This is an old-time favorite practice of giving, one I find simple but powerful. Every time someone does something for you, pass on a similar deed to someone else within twenty-four hours. For example, if someone lets you go ahead of them getting on a bus, make a vow that you will do the same for someone else within twenty-four hours. And when you forget, and perhaps remember later, think back to where your intention to carry it forward got lost. Remember, none of the practices are intended to cause guilt. Guilt is just some thing that the self adds on. We're trying to wake up to patterns of thinking and acting with openness and curiosity. The power of this practice is that it heightens our attention to what we are receiving and encourages us to give in simple ways.
Here are some simply daily practices:
Water a plant that looks like it could use a drink, even if you don't own it.
Pick up some trash or litter your find as you walk along the street.If you bring something for yourself to eat or drink at a meeting, bring a little extra to share with others.
Pay the toll for the car behind you in the "cash" lane of a toll station.
At a busy intersection, give another car the right to pass.
When waiting for a parking spot, give the space that just opened up in front of you to the person waiting behind you.
Give someone who you find difficult to listen to your full attention for at least sixty seconds. (This is a particularly powerful practice in developing the Paramita of Practicing Patience.)
Give someone the benefit of the doubt.
Take in your neighbor's barrels.
Guidance for increasing our awareness of receiving and giving in like manner.
A Ladder for Thieves
"When a man heard noise coming from his yard, he looked out and saw neighborhood boys climbing up one of the fruit trees in the yard, trying to steal some fruits. So he went out into the yard and placed a ladder underneath the boys in the tree. He then quietly returned to his house. Is this not a stupid thing to do? The boys are stealing his fruits, but the owner does not stop them from committing an unlawful act. This man feared that when the children try to come down the tree, nervous about being caught, they might slip and fall, and hurt themselves. His impulse was to prevent them from being injured, not to save his property from thieves."
To Practice: Share a story about a time when you were surprised by someone's kindness to you. Find a way to be kind to an unsuspecting person.
A teaching story about kindness and concern over other emotions.
Feeling Words
Make a list of feeling words and consult it when needed. If you have difficulty identifying your feelings, perhaps your emotional vocabulary can be expanded. Try making a list of every feeling word you can think of. Consult a thesaurus if you get stuck. Watch for feeling words in things you are reading. Try to fill a page with multiple columns of words. Then, when you don't know what you're feeling, you can 'check the list.' Make it a game, joke around with friends and loved ones about it, but check the list when you need to. Here are a few words to get you started: happy, sad, angry, confused, irritated, nervous, afraid, anxious, infuriated, frustrated, ecstatic, overjoyed, excited, curious, lost, lonely, depressed, grieving, overwhelmed, content, peaceful. Developing the capacity to identify your feelings will help you grow in self-awareness, move toward self-acceptance, and ultimately love yourself and others with generosity.
Pathway to self-awareness and love through identifying your feelings.
Invitations
Come, God of Peace
Come, God of Above
Come, Lord of Life
Come, Lord of Love
Come, Spirit of Hope
Come, most Holy Dove
Come now,
Come in this stranger.
Prayer to increase hospitality.
Walking the Path of Kindness
A person who walks the path of kindness will constantly be striving to give to others and express love. Even if he has achieved much in other areas he still chooses to make his world one of love and generosity. He makes every effort to love every person; he strives to help his fellow in every possible manner — in thought, speech, and deed. He constantly arouses the love that is in his heart.
Ways to bring love and generosity to the world.
A Thread of Kindness
In Old Constantinople, Avraham is a poor farmer who is living with his thrifty wife Esther and their five sons. They live in two rooms and are grateful for having bread and milk to eat for every meal. They also view their children as being worth more than all the riches in the world.
Avraham encounters an old man who asks him if the One Above would give you six years of wealth, would you take it now or when you are old? After consulting with Esther, they decide to take the wealth now. At home, his sons dig up a chest full of gold coins and rejoice in their immense good fortune. But instead of spending the coins on themselves, they decide to share it with others: "If we help others, the thread of kindness will stretch on forever," says Esther. So they give money away for a boy's Bar Mitzva celebration, a couple's wedding, some shoes for a poor boy, and many other deeds of kindness. Six years pass and the old man returns to see whether or not he should reclaim the treasure.
A Thread of Kindness is adapted from a Jewish Midrash, Yalkut Shimoni (Ruth 4, 607) by Leah Shollar. The illustrations are by Shoshana Mekibel. Generosity is a virtue in all of the world's religions, and this sturdy folktale shows how blessings abound when we share what we have with others who are needier than we are. This children's book is designed for kids from grades two through four.
A sturdy Jewish folktale about the benefits that accrue from the spiritual practice of generosity and putting others before ourselves.
Honor Yourself
Patricia Spadaro has coauthored six books on personal growth and practical spirituality. She is also a publishing coach, freelance writer, and executive editor. In this sprightly paperback, Spadaro challenges us to take a hard look at what she calls "the delicate dance of giving and receiving in every area of our lives." She believes that the chief cause of stress is our inability to participate in the play of paradox. The result is that we lose our balance. Spadaro calls upon the sages of East and West for their spiritual guidance.
The book is divided into four thematic sections:
• Fill Yourself and Honor Your Inner Needs
• Give Yourself Away and Honor Your Heart
• Free Yourself and Honor Endings
• Celebrate Yourself and Honor Your Own Voice
Losing balance is an uncomfortable feeling on the street or the dance floor. But it is even more distressing when this problem becomes a regular part of our lives. Spadaro provides a snappy series of "Keys to the Balancing Act" with gems on Seven Steps to Setting Healthy Boundaries, Six Tools for Honoring Your Heart through Giving, Releasing Regret, Seven Strategies to Keep Voting for Yourself, and more. All of these resources add up to help for the reader give birth to his/her best self.
Wise counsel on giving birth to your best self through participating in the play of paradox.
Giving - The Sacred Art
"The act of giving is a source of blessing for two parties. A wise Chinese proverb says: 'A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.' Generosity can give you joy, it can remind you of the purpose of life, it can give you greater connection with the vast expanse of humanity, and it can give you the power to change the world. You, as the giver, have the opportunity to make positive changes in your own life by giving," writes Lauren Tyler Wright, former program manager at the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving at the Center of Philanthropy at Indiana University. She is now a researcher and seminar leader on the topic of generosity in faith communities.
All of the world's religions have acknowledged the sacred art of giving and its manifold benefits. They bloom under the umbrella of practices including stewardship, almsgiving, zakat (alms tax), sadaqah (voluntary charity), dana (giving), charity, chesed (loving-kindness), tzedakah (righteous giving), and tikkun olam (repairing the world). In this paperback, Wright presents the philosophy of generosity replete with illustrative material and a toolkit for putting this lifestyle choice into practice. The book is divided into the following chapters:
• Giving as Worship: Responding to God's Generosity with Joyful Gratitude
• Giving as Stewardship: Managing Our Abundance
• Giving as Redemption: Restoring Money as Life-Giving Legal Tender
• Giving as Charity: Providing for the Needy with Compassion
• Giving as Justice: Believing in and working Toward Righteous Equality
In her ample discussions of giving, Wright covers many different layers of it, including the significance of the offering at churches, the secret of holding lightly to your possessions, the energy drain of seeing the world as a place of scarcity, the sacred act of budgeting, giving to organizations, tithing, the gifts of charity, and sharing nonmonetary extra-abundance. Here is a sampler of some of the pithy quotations in the book, which is part of Skylight Path's The Art of Spiritual Living series:
• "Even a smile is charity."
— The Prophet Muhammad
• "When you see someone practicing the Way of giving, aid him joyously, and you will obtain vast and great blessings."
— The Buddha
• "The natural response of a mind that sees scarcity is to grab for as much as it can get — for itself."
— Lauren Tyler Wright
• "When a sparrow sips in a river, the water doesn't recede. Giving charity does not deplete wealth."
— A Punjabi proverb
• "Charity is equal in importance to all other commandments combined."
— Talmud Baba Batra 9a
• "Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you."
— Andre Gide.
A rich multifaith guidebook on a lifestyle of generosity.
Minyan
In Minyan Rami M. Shapiro writes: "Spirituality is a conscious practice of living out the highest ethical ideals in the concreteness of your everyday life." The author, who is rabbi of Temple Beth Or in Miami, Florida, believes that each individual is a unique expression of God's presence in the world. In order to fulfill our potential, we can take the Ten Commandments as vows, or daily affirmations of spiritual intent. Shapiro spells out just what this means and then moves on to the ten principles for living a life of integrity. They are meditation, repetition of a sacred phrase, inspirational reading, attention to the present moment, generosity, kindness performed with no thought of reward, dreamwork, ethical consumption, self-perfection, and celebration of the Sabbath.
Although this primer on spirituality is based on the Hasidic tradition, it has relevance to the quest for purpose and meaning of all seekers. Best of all, everything in Minyan is practical, poetic, and mystical. Drink deep of the sagacity on these pages and your spiritual practices will be enriched immeasurably.
Try a Spiritual Practice on Forgiveness
Drink deep of the sagacity on these pages and your spiritual practices will be enriched immeasurably.