Brian McLaren

A colleague had a Brian McLaren quote as part of his electronic signature, and it seemed to point a different way toward generosity growing out of our current economic crisis. McLaren is an author of over 10 influential books on Christianity in our modern context, he is a speaker, and a pastor. Currently he is talking about using the economic recovery as a way to shed our free-spending habits like an addiction. Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher, professor and author who recently published The Life You Can Save, which calls affluent people to increase their effort to end poverty in other countries. In essence these men are talking about the same thing: reducing our consumerism for our own sakes as well as the sake of the whole world.

Here is the quote from Brian McLaren:

For many people, economic recovery means getting back to where we were a few months ago. That means recovering our consumptive, greedy, unrestrained, undisciplined, irresponsible, and ecologically and socially unsustainable way of life. I’d like to suggest another kind of recovery, drawing from the world of addiction. When an addict gets into recovery, he wants to move forward to a new way of life… a wiser way of life that takes into account his experience of addiction.  He realizes that his addiction to drugs was a symptom of other deeper issues and diseases in his life … unresolved pain or anger, the need to anesthetize painful emotions, lack of creativity in finding ways to feel happy and alive, unaddressed relational and spiritual deficits, lack of self-awareness, and so on.

Notice how McLaren is pointing to painful things we are trying to salve with our consumerism.

Peter Singer

And here is Peter Singer on the same topic:

If anything good comes out of this global financial crisis, it will be a reassessment of our basic values and priorities. We need to recognize that what really matters isn’t buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment.

Singer speaks to the joyous things we can work toward as we shed that addiction. They are nice bookends. Here, in a trailer for a film called The Examined Life, Singer talks (after Cornell West) about the ethics of our consumerism in light of the needs of our whole planet.

From artist Song Dong's "Waste Not", Photo by Alex Pasternack

You must let go of a thing for a new one to come to you.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whether you have been affected by the current economic downturn or not, you - like many people - may be reacting by fearfully guarding your existing resources. This may seem reasonable, given current uncertainties, however we all need to ask ourselves if we have taken this beyond levels of reasonable precaution. If so, it may constitute hoarding, which would inhibit your happiness and spiritual growth. It will certainly inhibit your ability to be open-hearted and generous.

According to Andrew W. Lo, a professor at M.I.T. and director of its Laboratory for Financial Engineering, our reaction to a general economic crisis stems from both neurochemical and physiological processes:

…the threat of financial loss activates the same fight-or-flight circuitry as physical attacks, releasing adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream, which results in elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and alertness.

Hoarding has actually become a medical term. Walter A. Brown, MD and Zsuzsa Meszaros, MD, PhD state that hoarding is “explicitly mentioned in DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and it is seen as well in a raft of other conditions, including traumatic brain injury, Prader-Willi syndrome, tic disorders, mental retardation, and neurodegenerative disorders.”

This level of hoarding is a serious psychological disorder and exists at the extreme end of a spectrum of behavior, more moderate levels of which, we might recognize in ourselves. In fact, Brown & Meszaros find that,

hoarding is a common, highly conserved behavior across species. Animal research has focused on food hoarding, but birds and other animals also collect aluminum foil, beads, and other brightly colored objects. In humans, the rare clinically significant hoarding that results in impossible clutter seems to be on a continuum with normal collecting and the universal tendency to hold onto clothes, books, and other items far beyond the point that they are used or needed.

We might also see ourselves in the two active components of severe hoarding: the active component (collecting) and the passive one (failure to discard). In more moderate cases, the active component might be storing of unneeded financial resources and the passive component, failure to share, donate, or use to help others in need. [many people would question whether there is such a thing as an unneeded financial resource!]

The psychological disorder of hoarding, according to Brown & Meszaros, can originate from a process in brain circuitry, neurochemicals, brain pathology such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, neurodegenerative, or brain lesions. They also identify that genes may also play a role:

Hoarding seems to aggregate in families; for example, patients who hoard were more likely to have first-degree relatives with hoarding symptoms than those who do not hoard.

If this is true of severe cases of hoarding, perhaps we can also see patterns of overly cautious or ungenerous behavior in our own families. On the other hand, we might also see patterns of open-handedness and generosity, or at the far extreme – wastefulness and irresponsibility.

Patrick Arbore, Ed.D. works at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco and gives presentations on hoarding, since severe cases can involve seniors. He gives a long list of reasons for hoarding including:

• Items are perceived as valuable
• Items provide a source of security
• Fear of forgetting or losing items
• Obtaining love not found from people

Does that not sound like a list of reaction to need that we are all subject to? In fact he points to the underlying emotions of shame, grief and loss as motivators for hoarding. Arbore also talks about the spiritual dimensions of hoarding and recovery from that disorder. He says of recovery from clutter (related to hoarding),

It is removing old ways of thinking and believing from our minds in order to free our souls.

According to Arbore, wonderment is the key to spiritual growth for hoarders. Wonderment unlocks the ability to live in the present moment. This experience and appreciation of the people and things around us leads to an understanding of the limits of life, which opens the possibility of a simplified life and an uncluttered vision. This simplicty and lack of clutter facilitates an attitude of gratitude. Ultimately, Arbore says that hoarders are best assisted with caring and compassion for their suffering. This sounds to me like he is teaching caregivers to help hoarders by being generous – and in the end this generosity will unlock their fear and isolation so that they can let go of hoarding and be able to give to others – generosity unlocking generosity.

Key Questions:

• How much are you grasping out of fear, hoarding out of uncertainty or to soothe yourself?
• How has the current economic downturn affected your ability to receive from others?
• What is your experience of wonderment, and what effects do wonderment create for you?

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man.
- Albert Einstein

Wonderment by Gail Shotlander

Photo by Peter W. Spear

Kaua e rangiruatia te hā o te hoe; e kore tō tātou waka e ū ki uta
Do not lift the paddle out of unison or our canoe will never reach the shore
- Māori proverb

It is interesting that in the American media, generosity often only appears when non-profits are publicly thanking their donors or in obituaries. In other parts of the world (South and Southeast Asia, the British Isles, Canada), generosity is considered a personal and collective virtue to be taught, fostered, and practiced.  In New Zealand, the Office for the Community & Voluntary Sector, Philanthropy New Zealand, and Volunteering New Zealand have joined together to create a public campaign to encourage and grow generosity in their general culture. This is certainly a response to the economic downturn, but seems to run deeper in their societal values. These valuable materials might also teach us about growing our generosity here in the USA.

The Promoting Generosity Project is being developed by a working group called The Hub. They have already produced two documents that are available on the web: What is Generosity? and What Value Do We Place on Generosity? In these documents concepts of generosity are applied to every sector of society: society as a whole, the community & voluntary sector (non-profits), and individuals & businesses.

Although generosity is not always visible, most agree that the absence of generosity creates a society that lacks connectedness and resilience.
- From Focus on Generosity

Here is their statement of vision for generosity in the New Zealand society:

Vision - A society where:

• Giving is the norm – “It’s what we do”.
• Everybody is recognizing and celebrating generosity in all its forms.
• Giving behaviors are understood, taught and promoted – “Make it magic”.
• Volunteering and giving are supported by government, business and the community.
• Inclusive and engaged communities are built and sustained.
• We are all working together – individuals, organizations and sectors.

Their concepts are based on current research into the benefits to society as well as the detriments to society when generosity is absent. Here is an example:

Where generosity isn’t there, there appears to be less creative problem solving, less ability to care for those who need assistance, more negativity, greater reliance on Government and other organizational /authoritative decision making and direction, and poor community self esteem.
- Sylvia, J., K.Peet., R.Till., and T.Mataki (2008) Building Happy Healthy Communities

The Promoting Generosity Project is also concerned with building and spreading generosity. Among the ideas presented for ways to activate this process in their culture, they state that, Building generosity is a cyclical process: existing social networks provide channels to recruit each other, and people who receive help are then more likely to help others.

Most laudable is their inclusion and connection to the native cultures and religions of their islands. This includes the Māori as well as smaller native New Zealander tribes. I leave you with this example:

In Māori culture, tohu aroha is seen by some as an expression that incorporates the spiritual and temporal dimensions of giving
and manifestations of love, sympathy and caring.
-From Focus on Generosity

What are we doing in the USA, during this economic crisis where so many are suffering poverty, to engender generosity in our people, our systems, our communities?

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll (Recession Taking Emotional Toll, New Poll Finds), “Stress and pessimism about the economy are closely related, as almost four in 10 who said the economy is getting worse also said they are under deep stress.” That same poll found that, of people who believe it is improving, a majority of those people called the economy a source of stress. So what can you do to ease your stress and feel better? Sharon Salzberg suggests asking a key question:

What do I really need right now, in this moment, to be happy?
- Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg

Salzberg is a Buddhist teacher and author, and cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. In her article in Shambala Sun, Salzberg gives a number of examples to show that, in a moment when you are experiencing unhappiness or stress, if you can try to identify something immediate that will make you happy – that is not in the future or unreachable – it may change the moment so that you can be satisfied.

She also talks about how generosity can make us free – by challenging our craving, attachment, and clinging to things, which brings confinement and lack of self-esteem. In freeing up ourselves when we give, we also give freedom to others, she says,

If we give a gift freely, without attachments  …it celebrates  freedom both within ourselves as the giver and in the receiver.  In that moment, we are not relating to each other in terms of roles or differences.   In a moment of pure giving, we really become one.

Salzberg also brings the idea that feeling we have enough can relieve us from feeling wanting and allow us to be generous to others. She says,

One of the great joys that comes from generosity is the understanding that no matter how much or how little we have by the world’s standards, if we know we have enough, we can always give something.

These are very important questions to ask ourselves in this time of recession and uncertainty:

• How much is enough?
• How much do I really need?
• What non-material things will stimulate me and make me feel good?
• How do I live more in the moment and experience more gratitude?

The only difference between needing more and having enough is your attitude.
It costs you nothing to decide that you have enough.
- Ralph Marston

We are not fighting a losing battle,
there are so many beautiful things that we should be encouraged by.
- Majora Carter

Majora Carter

Majora Carter is an urban environmental pioneer. When asked about her responses to the ongoing economic crisis, she states that we were already in a moral crisis. Along with her other suggestions, she intimates that people have had many dormant or undeveloped skills and ideas, which are now being mobilized because there is a new urgency to respond to. She says, the tools have always been there. What resources do you have; resources that have not found expression, that have been in reserve, that you can now respond with - to help us all get through this moral and economic crisis?

From 2001 to 2008, Majora Carter she was the founder and executive director of the non-profit Sustainable South Bronx, where she pioneered green-collar job training and placement systems in one of the most environmentally and economically challenged parts of the U.S.A. Carter is a MacArthur Foundation fellow and now has her own economic consulting firm. She was interviewed as part of Speaking of Faith’s ongoing series Repossessing Virtue, about the world-wide economic crisis. Carter says that many people would have agreed that morally, people should not be dying of starvation or perpetrating environmental damage, however she looked for a way to help people address these issues. Her reasoning was that if we could reframe these things as a pragmatic, economic problem and that it would be in our best economic interests to change, then people would stand up and take notice. How much more urgent are these calls now that the world economy is so rocky?

What is Carter doing differently in this economic maelstrom? She says she is trying to be much more joyful, deliberately so. She is taking time to appreciate all that we have; all that she has. That is what is going to make the work much more joyous.

Carter was told recently: a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.  She says that, in the 10 or 11 years that she had been doing urban environmental work, she has seen not just parks developed where there were former dump sites, but she has seen people’s lives changed. She has seen people coming from families that lack the understanding that they could even have jobs, come to the understanding that they can be really powerful and that the fruits of their labor can help a tree grow and help their family survive. The tools have always been there, she says, we have just not been comfortable enough and confident enough in our ability to help make things happen.

Knowing that I am not always going to be on the receiving end;
that I have something to give, and just giving it.
That is where I get my strength.
- Majora Carter

Here is Carter speaking at the Dream Reborn event:

It is the ordinary people who are going to pull us out of this.
It is us that have to do something different.
- Naomi Remen

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen

What are you doing in your own life to change our global economic downturn? So that our human society becomes more sustainable? Are you saving more, sharing more, hoarding more, spending more, giving more away? What is the right thing to do and how do you know that? Dr. Remen suggests some even deeper questions will lead you to your own answers.

Rachel Naomi Remen is a wise older woman. She has cared for people with cancer and their families for almost 30 years and is the Co-Founder and Medical Director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Dr. Remen is also the Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal and My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging.

In a brief interview with Kate Moos of the radio program Speaking of Faith, Dr. Remen makes the extraordinary observation that because money is something you can actually touch, it is the densest form of both stored human energy and of human community, otherwise it is just paper.  She says that this energy follows our beliefs and the economy is based on people’s shared beliefs. What is a good life? she asks. The answer to that question drives our economy.

Remen suggests that, if you want to find out who a person is, you might find out by following them around and see how they spend their money, and what they spend it on. Doing this you will be able to determine their story about life, about themselves, about what is important to them. So what do we believe now? What are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about other people, about the world? What are the stories that have become our operations manuals? Remen suggests that collectively we have been operating based on these stories:

• I am alone. I have to count on myself. No one will come and help me.
• The more things I have, the more happy I will be. My goal in life is comfort.
• I am not safe.

Remen believes that we have been based on fear for a long time. With this fear, our human energy has become stagnant, our money has become stagnant, and our stories have become fixed and inflexible; these stories have been much too small. The opportunity during this time of economic crisis is to change the story; we are larger than our stories, we are part of a much larger story.

The economy is a pointing finger to a spiritual emptiness
we have been experiencing for a long time.
-Naomi Remen

So how do we change our stories, individually and collectively? Dr. Remen suggests that we contemplate 3 key questions:

• What can I trust?
• What can sustain me?
• What do I really need in order to live?

These questions lead us to a deeper, more passionate, better way of living and a much deeper connection to a larger reality. Once we have the beginnings of the answers to these questions, we will start forming new stories about money and its role in our lives. These stories will lead us to actions we can take to deal with the economic downturn and to heal our economic system.

What star are you using to guide your boat through this life?
Often you can see the light from your star only after it has grown dark.
- Naomi Remen

Here is a brief excerpt of Dr. Remen speaking about how individuals are the key to changing our world, not experts:

Fear builds walls. Fearlessness builds bridges.
- Bunan Unsui

Bert Larh as the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz

According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the word donation originates from Middle French, circa 1425, and from the Latin donatio, circa 10th century BC. This dictionary also suggests a comparison to the even older Sanskrit word danam, circa 1200 BC. This oldest form of a word for generosity may help us understand how to be fearless in this time of economic uncertainty.

The Sanskrit term Dána (from danam) is used in the Buddhist tradition as one of the 6 Perfections or Paramitas. According to Bunan Unsui, a Buddhist monk, these perfections represent passage points from suffering (Samsara) to happiness and awakening (Nirvana).  According to Unsui, the Dána Paramita (or Perfection of Generosity),

is the practice of giving freely, without attachment or expectation. This can be giving in the monetary sense, or giving of our time, our love, and ourselves - giving of our presence. Regardless of what is given, or why it is given, the very act of giving must, by definition, involve the act of ‘letting go’ by one of the parties involved.

Unsui provides 3 types of giving in the Dána Paramita, 1) giving of wealth or material resources, 2) giving of teaching, and 3) giving of fearlessness. He says,

Courageousness and bravery are not products of the reduction of fear, but of transcending fear… of going beyond fear… of acting according to our values despite the presence of fear!

So the question is, how can we hold and recognize our fears, whether they are about our current economic situation, our prospects in the foreseeable future, or even what will happen to our resources many years from now, and still act concurrently with our values? According to this Buddhist tradition, by being fearless and continuing to be generous, we are not only benefiting ourselves and moving along a path to happiness, we are also giving fearlessness to others.

Think about it. Letting go of your fear and acting that out through being generous in giving to others, your gifts can not only provide for the material needs of others, but can also inspire them to be brave and move toward a fearless place themselves.

Buddha Teaching Fearlessness by FrogBoots http://my.opera.com/FrogBoots/blog/

If you knew what I know about the power of generosity,
you would not let a single meal go by without sharing it.
—Buddha

How is the current economic downturn affecting your physical and psychological health? Studies show that recessions are generally good for our physical health and not as good for our psychological health. A good dose of generosity may be all you need to offset that psychological effect.

Physical Health
Christopher Ruhm of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro studied decades of public health data and found that physical health actually improves during an economic downturn, about a half-point decline in the death rate for every point of increase in the unemployment rate. Michael Gerson of the Washington Post makes additional sense of these findings:

During tough economic times, people seem to increase exercise, take fewer car trips, reduce smoking and cook healthier foods at home — choosing to control the remaining things in their lives they are capable of controlling.

Psychological Health
Studies like Ruhms have shown that unemployment can cause a kind of recession flu, a funk that leads to stress smoking, unhealthy comfort foods and that problematic remedy, alcohol. Gerson cites studies that have tied personal financial crises to heart disease, depression and suicide. But he also says,

Without question, the more acute social problems — such as crime, illegitimacy — are concentrated in areas of highest poverty. But sociologists and criminologists have long pondered an apparent paradox. During the Great Depression — with about a quarter of Americans out of work — crime and divorce declined. During the relative prosperity of the 1960s and 1970s, crime rates shot up and families broke down.

Our current recession is generally agreed to have been caused by irresponsible lending (by both lenders and borrowers) which led to price inflation, to greed on the part of business leaders, and to risk-taking to fuel that greed. As we assess and react to this, our economy pulls us back into an examination of our own values, and into a smaller circle of community which may be closer to home and more caring of each other.

The Generosity Offset
If we can realign our moral compasses, we might care more about each other’s well-being. And if we can be more careful in our spending, giving more time and care to our families, neighbors, and assisting others who need it, we may find that we are less affected by the economic situation.

Studies have shown that this generosity makes us happier people. Peter Singer in Newsweek says that,

…the good person is also—typically—a happy person. A survey of 30,000 American households found that those who gave to charity were 43 percent more likely to say they were ‘very happy’ about their lives than those who did not give.

So rather than dwelling in fearful thoughts about your own well-being now and in the future, try:

• Increasing your exercise by driving less
• Stop or reduce your smoking and moderate your alcohol consumption
• Spend more time with people you love, and cook more healthy foods at home
• Find ways to care for those who are in greater need
• Continue giving charitably, as much as you can, and give more thoughtfully

These are times of opportunity, when we can realign our values with our lifestyles. Although we know some of the problems are out there, let’s take advantage of an opportunity to improve some problems that may be in our own back yards.

Before giving, the mind of the giver is happy;
while giving, the mind of the giver is made peaceful;
and having given, the mind of the giver is uplifted.
- Buddha

Lewis Hyde

When the gift moves in a circle its motion is beyond the control of the personal ego, and so each bearer must be part of the group and each donation is an act of social faith.
- Lewis Hyde

Have you ever heard of a Gift Economy? Many people mistake this for a barter system but the two are quite distinct. A gift economy is actually based on people’s giving valuable goods and services away without any agreement for immediate or future rewards, that is being generous. That sounds audacious, especially in this time when resources seem so scarce for everyone. Actually, this is an ideal time to think about alternate economic patterns, which might be more stable and sustainable than the one we have now.

If you are not familiar with Lewis Hyde and his book The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, it is worth reading. He talks explicitly about gifts, as in things given willingly to someone without payment or presents, and as natural abilities or talents. In connecting these two senses of the word, he writes about gifts in relation to artists and their gifting role in our commodity-based culture.

Hyde distinguishes circular gift giving as a condition where wealth can flow, which creates abundance. Reciprocal giving, or barter, as well as commodity exchange leads to competition and scarcity. He quotes Marshall Sahlins from his book, Modern Capitalist Societies:

The market-industrial system institutes scarcity, in a manner completely unparalleled and to a degree nowhere else approximated. Where production and distribution are arranged through the behavior of prices, and all livelihoods depend on getting and spending, insufficiency of material means becomes the explicit, calculable starting point of all economic activity.

Gift giving on the other hand, can move our contributions beyond self-gratifications or the duet of barter out to contribute to our communities, beyond that to nature, and beyond that even to the mystery (God, spirit of life, whatever you choose to call it).

…so a single act of mine can spread and spread
in widening circles through a nation or humanity.
- William Ellery Channing, 1830

This all still sounds preposterous – stop using money and just go around giving our valuable goods and services away? However it can function, as shown every year at the Burning Man Festival. Burning Man occurs for 8 days every summer in the deep Nevada desert, where there are no natural or man made resources available (aside from solar power); no water, no shelter, no utilities. It started in the desert in 1990 and last year had 49,000 participants, all of whom have to carry in everything they will need for the 8 days, and then carry everything out again (leaving no trace is one if their guiding principles). Aside from a few commodities like ice and fuel, which are allowed to be sold, no cash transactions are permitted and bartering is discouraged. That’s right, they give gifts to each other unconditionally in an effort to realize decommodification, civic responsibility, and communal effort. It may still sounds like something from the ragged fringes of our society, but if 49,000 people can make it work for 8 days in temperatures around 110º F, then is should be easier in more hospitable environments and where more resources are available.

Burning Man, 2008 by Waldemar Horwat

Try moving toward more gift giving and away from buying and selling; it may be part of the solution to the economic mess we are in - permanently! If you are interested in participating in the gift economy, see these 37 suggestions from YES! Magazine.

This posting is dedicated to my generous friend Michael Cohen.

From the Von Stroheim film Greed

If your desires be endless, your cares and fears will be so too.
- Thomas Fuller

There has been an enormous amount written recently on, regulation is being tightened in the US to counteract, and people all over the country are angry about - greed. Our whole worldwide financial crisis is being attributed to this one vice. According to the Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary, greed is: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed. What fuels greed? When people cannot get enough of something, what does it indicate? I believe that underlying all greed is fear and that the way to address that fear is to 1) acknowledge it, 2) explore it, and 3) act to lessen it. In the case of the fear that leads to greed, the ideal way to lessen it is to act generously. This not only reduces the amount of whatever we are being greedy with, it also teaches that we will have enough; we will be enough. With practice, we can come to believe this is true and have confidence in this truth.

Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.
- Cyril Connolly

Dr Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, in an article on the BBC News website, says,
A financial crisis is not something which can be fixed in a technical way because there is the spiritual dimension of trust and confidence. All financial markets are based on confidence - the root of that word is to have faith together. This speaks specifically to the fact that a lot of our current financial crisis is actually driven by reactions to greed; they are a lack of trust, confidence, and collective faith.

Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic Studies at Glasgow University in Scotland, in the same article provides a rational grounding for many of us in the USA: However bad the media tells us the world economy is, for most of us in the developed world we still have a house, a job, and money coming in.  Two decades of easy money has led most of us into thinking that we can have all our fantasies - the big house, the fancy car, exotic holidays and gadgets which get better as they get smaller. Our wants have turned into needs, but we forget the needs of others who never spend, who have nothing. Globalization has given us insight into the lives of different people, but it has failed to make us appreciate that we are all connected.

There is enough on the planet for everyone’s need
but not enough for one man’s greed.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Key Questions:

• What do you fear in this economic climate? How has that changed how you feel about your life? Your future?
• When do you feel interconnected in your community, with everyone else on this planet? When do you feel isolated?
• When do you feel greed? What specific things or experiences do you feel greedy with?
• Has greed ever caused you to suffer? How did that suffering manifest?
• Have you ever noticed that you had been greedy about something and you no longer are? To what do you attribute that change?
• Have you ever had the experience of giving something away and never missing it? Or a feeling that you have gained more than you gave?

How I invest and spend may touch the lives of people in distant places, whose names I’ll never know, whose hopes I never think about.
- Shaunaka Rishi Das of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies