Generous Hearts

We have been gifted a trip to Italy! That's the second time in our marriage that the generosity of other people has sent us to places we never expected to go. The first was a wonderful trip to Ireland for our honeymoon. Our usual vacations are either camping, renting a house on LBI, or day trips. We're very excited, of course, along with a little apprehensive regarding our travel skills for Europe, but we won't be traveling alone. Our son, Tim, and his girlfriend (who grew up in Rome, just three blocks from the Vatican) will be our tour guides. 

But the thing that's mostly on my mind in the writing of this, is the generosity of the human spirit. 

We live in a world that easily causes people to feel insecure, fearful, greedy, distrusting, and angry. Society has created a sense of life that in some ways feels threatening to our well-being. And, of course, there is a truth to the fact that people do get hurt in hundreds of ways in making their way through life's journey.


But generosity in its deepest and most meaningful sense is the calling of everyone who would earnestly seek to make this a better and more congenial world for the whole human family.  When I say "human family" I mean everybody regardless of age and background, how much money you have in the bank, how many degrees you have hanging on the wall, and regardless of your religious affiliation. (Religion, by the way, is irrelevant if it is merely a way of practicing some form of ritual for the sake of having completed a spiritual obligation and/or represents a form of elitism and doesn't create a generous heart.)

A truly generous heart doesn't require the spending of money.It is completely free for those who choose to express it. It merely involves being loving, open, compassionate, forgiving, sympathetic, empathetic, kind, inclusive, nonjudgemental and sensitive to the feelings of others. 

Sound trite? I don't apologize for that. For those of us who claim the Christian faith, that is the Way of Christ--nothing less. But beyond that, for anyone who would seek to make the world a better place--even in simplest way--having a generous heart is the greatest contribution any of us can make toward that end.