The Spiritual Discipline Of Generosity

Maya Angelou one said, " No one has ever become poor from giving." You know what? She's right. Why doesn't everyone just take a minute out of their 1440 minute day? It's not like you're going to give them 30,000 dollars either, are you? Even if you do go poor,(you won't) all the giving you did will add to both their Personal Bank Account and yours. That's like being a trillionare right there.

From the reading “From an Ethic of Altruism to Possibilities of Transformation in Teacher Candidates Community Involvement” by Solomon, Manoukian, and Clarke. I thought the narratives were the highlight to the reading. I felt I could connect with previous teacher candidate’s experiences, but also learn from them. In this reading two approaches are discussed about student’s perceptions of servicing learning either a charity orientation or a change orientation. From this reading, I realized that I am taking on a change orientation. Though I am at my community centre once a week I can see the difference the other teacher candidates and I have made. In the reading, it talks about a change orientation which involves developing caring relationships

There are many things in our lives that we take for granted, such as food and clothing that are not accessible to a big portion of the population. This surplus of things that most of us have can easily be given to people who are in dire need of them. Personally, I had an abundance of clothes from when I was younger. They were things I was never going to wear again and were simply being stored, unused. Knowing that, I decided to donate the clothes to an organization that will then donate it to people who need it. My contribution was going to help someone out there in need and that felt significant. Food is also something that a lot of people do not have access to. From my peers, I notice that a

Ernest Holmes addresses a trepidation we may have when giving: our resources will be temporarily depleted. It is common sense that the more we give, the less we have; but there is a principle at work which defies common sense, because the appearance of loss and lack is deceptive. Once we have sown a seed our hands are empty, but the soil is full and soon we will have our hands full with the harvest of that seed. If we had held onto that seed, there would be no harvest and we would eventually be empty-handed. However, giving in a principled manner does not incur a loss, but gains. Giving, as a matter of principle, is the difference between gaining more or having less. Of course, if we go through the motions of giving — appearing to give, but actually throwing money away in an unprincipled manner, then we have simply wasted our time, and our treasure. Not every seed sown, grows; some fall on hard, stony ground and never take root. Not every prayer is heard and answered; some fall on deaf ears — our own. Having ears, we hear not. Having eyes, we see not. And having our hands full, we give not. It is a shame, because we could give, have and enjoy more.

Another code of ethic that is important to me is to exhibit generosity. This code of ethic is not only based on my religious belief but it is morally right. The bible states that God loves a cheerful giver; it also states that one should give and God will see others give to you. I believe that generosity is the habit of giving without coercion. I think people see me as a generous person. To me generosity goes beyond a wealthy person giving charitable donations such as money or expensive gifts to the less fortunate. Being generous to me is merely paying a bus ticket for my daughter since she cannot afford it. Other examples of generosity is sharing dinner with a homeless person, giving a gift to siblings whose parents cannot afford a Christmas present. I will continue to be generous because the thought of sharing and giving unselfishly without wanting in return shows that I do care about others and is a personal ethics that I attribute.

When the colonists came to America and started establishing their own settlement, some key values were implemented into their new culture. In the first primary source, “A Model of Christian Charity” by John Winthrop, the values of unity and loyalty are shown. In the third primary source given, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, awareness and cooperation were presented. In the fourth primary source, “Excerpts from George Washington's Rules of Civility” the values of respect, courtesy, and good character are given. Lastly, in the fifth primary source, “Tombstone of Benjamin Franklin’s parents”, the values of hard work, perseverance, and reputation were shown.

In the sense of the word, charity, means to be generous with one’s own resources, not out of a sense of pity but out of a sense of a relationship with and concern for others (Jeavons, p. 207). Nonprofit organizations depend on the generosity of their supporters, which they get by showing their generosity to others as well. For example, when I held an internship with the William and Lanaea C. Featherstone Foundation, one key element my boss etched into our brains was that if you do not show generosity to others you will not receive it back. This was done at our nonprofit by going to every event by supporting every organization that generously donated to us. We showed our gratitude with our presence and charity to organizations that showed it to us. In my opinion, reciprocation of generous actions is what an ethical practice in nonprofits delivers

In the story The Good Deed by Marion Dane Bauer, the main character Heather has successes and failures of kindness. Heather has to do a good deed for a sight-impaired woman named Miss Benson. She meets a girl named Risa, who lives across the hall from Miss Benson, whom Heather does not fancy right away. Heather then realizes that Risa has a difficult life, and struggles to take care of her family. In The Good Deed, Heather has built-in confusions, failures, and successful acts of kindness.

When one sees the word selfless-service, he or she literally sees the words self and less, followed by service. Self refers to an individual (in this case, it refers to one’s own interests) and less indicates a lack of, or without. Service can be a synonym of the word volunteering or duty. Therefore, the term selfless service must literally mean the lack of the pursuit of one’s own interests for the betterment of others. There is no measurement of selfless service. No matter what the scenario or who is involved, everyone who is involved benefits from one’s selfless acts. The one who shows selflessness may benefit by receiving a “thank you,” or even just a good feeling of helping others. Of course, the ones who receive the selfless acts benefit from obvious reasons. Selfless-service can be shown by anyone and everyone, including a soldier putting his/her life on the line to save a fallen comrade, a husband and father protecting and spending time with his wife and children, someone donating his/her time by volunteering as a tutor or with the American Red Cross or some other goodwill charity, and the teamwork of two or more athletes. Those four examples provide different scales in which selfless-service can be displayed. Selfless-service can be displayed in regards to one’s nation/military, one’s family, one’s community, and any team sport.

Altruism in Christians suggest Christians are selfless and help others genuinely without thought of cost and benefits. The opposite of altruism is the performance of sin. Most act of sins arise from selfish desires. When Christians perform sins, they feel the benefit is worth the risk of disobeying God and hurting others. For instance, an individual’s choice to steal from a wealthy woman is a sin that breaks one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shall not steal. Maybe this individual is experiencing financial instability and assumes the best way to feed their family or pay bills is taking money from an innocent person. This sin of stealing is selfish because this person wants to help their family at the expense of the innocent wealthy woman. According

More than half of the total number of participants practiced charitable involvement in higher education reported to feel joy and grateful, who have also self-rated gratefulness as one of the top personal qualities as compared to their peers (Dreyer & Bennett, 2006). Meanwhile, participants with ethic of caring agreed they wish to make changes, bring social justices and transform the world (Bennett, 2004; Dreyer & Bennett, 2006; Lerner, 2000; Lerner & Chopra, 2000). Practices of ethic of caring and charitable involvement have rated gratefulness and helpfulness as two of the top five most rated personal qualities among undergraduates, with µ = 3.81. There is a significant and positive relationship between charitable involvement and learning

In “Effective Altruism” by Peter Singer, Singer talks about how we can take actions that help others as much as possible. This is known as effective altruism. Effective altruism is a social movement that aims to revolutionize the way we live. Effective altruism encourages individuals to make altruism a central part of their lives and do as much good as possible, typically by contributing a fixed percentage of one's income to the world's best performing aid and development organizations. Philosopher Pete Singer for Ted Talks discuss that you can donate at least a tiny percentage of money and still be able to live a normal life. He also references many people who donated by individuals to to the world's poorest people can make a great

John Winthrop wrote A Model of Christian Charity in 1630 aboard the Arabella. Winthrop was a firm believer in the Puritan faith and is known to have spoken this sermon on board the ship to help inspire passengers to go forth and create a “new society” focused on God “in a perilous environment” (Beardsley 1). Winthrop and his fellow Puritans were determined to establish a new society in America that was focused on doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God (9). In A Model of Christian Charity, Winthrop uses theological and biblical references to define justice as loving and respecting all those around you, despite any differences, and as living out actions God wants his people to do; this exemplifies Winthrop’s Puritan religious beliefs which focus on creating a close-knit society.

Moral obligation to be charitable to others in Mill’s perspective will be defined in terms of morality as the assessment of consequences. He will say that the correct or right action is the one that creates the greatest utility (happiness) for the greatest number. A utilitarian argument on obligation to others according to Mill will be very simple. In his definition, he will argue that in order for anyone to accept any obligation, they need to estimate the utility generated by accepting the obligations to others we do not know. An example will be being charitable to a homeless person who is about to steal from the grocery store due to his hunger. He will continue his argument by saying that we should estimate that

Like in traditional farming, is there a particular time to sow seeds of kindness? The answer is no, it can start as early as the younger age of infant and toddlers and can go till any age. In fact, I feel that everyone is born with abundance of love, affection, kindness and the quantity starts reducing once we start learning some materialistic realities of life. It’s like the metaphor – there is no such thing as noise, but it is rather absence of peace. There is only peace everywhere on this planet earth if you hear to the nature closely. It’s us who is removing the peace and that is noise. There is no darkness, it is just the absence of light. Unfortunately, we see so much of hatred and violence these days. What is it basically? It is absence of love, which was and is our natural state of human being.