Mary did it, George! Mary did it! She told a few people you were in trouble and they scattered all over town collecting money.
They didn’t ask any questions— just said:
‘If George is in trouble—count on me.’
You never saw anything like it.
- The film It’s a Wonderful Life

Here comes Thanksgiving, the American holiday built around food. This is not only distinct from holidays that include gift giving; it is also one where many people act charitably to others. Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, however much of the traditional Thanksgiving foods were hunted and gathered rather than farmed.  To celebrate the holiday, here is a post about an anthropological study which finds that hunter-gatherers who share generously are better cared for when they need support than those who keep their food resources for themselves.

Why do individuals give away valuable fitness-enhancing food resources to other individuals? Answers from anthropology generally fall into one of three categories: nepotism (supporting relatives), reciprocal altruism (mutual back-scratching), or tolerated theft (not giving up ownership, but not prosecuting people who need and take). In “It’s a Wonderful Life”: signaling generosity among the Ache of Paraguay, Gurven, Allen-Arave, Hill, & Hurtado from the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico show that,

…those who shared and produced more than average (signaling cooperative intent and/or ability to produce) were rewarded with more food from more people when injured or sick than those who shared and produced below average.

Although they currently reside on permanent settlements, the Ache of eastern Paraguay were full-time hunter-gatherers occupying a 20,000-km area of the upper Jejui watershed up until the time of contact with researchers in the mid-1970s. They continue to spend up to 33% of their time on extended foraging trips.

It is important to note that consistently high food producers who give more than they receive, gain the least risk-reduction benefit from daily pooling of food resources because they are the least likely to go without food on any given day. The study shows that, even though these generous individuals do not receive the proportion of food they give, they receive additional food during hard times. These hard times might include episodes of sickness, disease, injury, or accidents which are fairly common events in traditional societies and can render individuals incapable of producing food.

What seems to be important in this research is that these people have a reputation for being generous that endures over time. So even when they are not able to share, they are known as people who would if they could – based on their past behavior. It also seems important that, by sharing generously, they build a reputation for being able to produce large amounts of food. For that reason, there is motivation in the rest of the community to support those people, so that they can recover and return to high levels of food production (and then share it). The authors conclude:

If altruistic behavior is analogous to paying a high premium for long-term health insurance, then extensive food sharing can be construed as risk-averse behavior in the long term, even if it may appear as risk-prone behavior in the short-term.

Are you generous with your food resources, during Thanksgiving and throughout the year? If so, why? If you are not generous, why not? This time of year is also traditionally a time of reflection, so consider what you are gaining and risking with your habits and practices.

Not what we say about our blessings,
but how we use them,
is the true measure of our thanksgiving.
- W. T. Purkiser

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine,
then let us work together.
- Lilla Watson, Murri (Aboriginal Australian) visual artist, activist and educator

Over time a theme has emerged on this blog; that is the relationship between charitable contributors, organizations who engage them, and the beneficiaries who are supported by their efforts. This can be seen in many of the postings under the category Contributor Relationships (in the gold bar on the left).  Kim Samuel-Johnson recently posted a frank and poignant essay about her struggles as a philanthropist to be in relationship as a contributor. She says:

I’ve noticed that isolation, or at least a feeling of bleak separation, can occur in the very act of philanthropy; that sometimes the manner in which the gift is made diminishes and isolates both the person who is seen as giving and the person who is seen as receiving.

Ms. Samuel-Johnson is the president of the Samuel Foundation and a board member of The Synergos Institute. Synergos publishes the online newsletter Global Giving Matters and this essay is the first to look at the inner journey of a philanthropist.

Samuel-Johnson is concerned with the isolation that comes from having financial resources out of scale with others; this can make her feel like an outsider. She is advocating that the contributors, service providing organizations, and beneficiaries join together as a community of concern. This is reflected in postings on this Generosity Path blog such as A Relationship with Beneficiaries. She says is beautifully here:

So, far from feeling separated out as “the person with the money,” or the outsider in some other way, I feel the boundaries between the “me” and the “they” disappear. I feel welcome as part of, if you like, the family. This means a lot to me.
And yet – and this is important – there has to be a clarity and an honesty about what it is that each of us can bring. In my case, I try to bring a lot of passion and very high standards, two qualities I consider essential for philanthropy, because we all need to engage both the heart and the mind. I’ve also brought monetary resources, which are generally not unimportant.
In the case of others, though, they have brought resources of comparable or greater value, including knowledge of the community, management or other skills, creativity, hard-won knowledge, or a commitment to see the project through. In a way, mine may have been the easiest contribution to secure!

In the essay Samuel-Johnson also connects giving and receiving into one dynamic, where both givers and receivers benefit in their own way. She says,

I finally understand that if the giving and receiving is done with the right spirit, from all corners, bearing in mind that we are all giving and receiving simultaneously, then money is a facilitator, not my “gift” per se but instead an expression of my commitment, and an important one at that.

And here she lays out a vision of how this contributor/beneficiary relationship can honor everyone’s contributions and reduce isolation for all of the collaborators:

If the giving and receiving is shared and if everyone is able to come to the table, roll up his or her sleeves, and work together with an understanding of the interests, experience, passion, and goals that brought us together, then each of our needs will have already been factored into the initiative.
What is left then is simply a group of people creating something new together, in harmony, where no one at the table and from there outwards to the various partners or constituents feels like they are ever alone. I interpret this kind of collaboration as stemming from a wholesome and generous spirit of giving and receiving, a place of being included.

This is beautiful, brave, and counter-cultural work Samuel-Johnson is doing. It is also a spiritual journey, where she is working to live out her values. BRAVO!

A true vision of peace sees a continuous mutuality between giving and receiving. Let’s never give anything without asking ourselves what we are receiving from those to whom we give, and let’s never receive anything without asking what we have to give to those from whom we receive.
- Henri Nouwen

Tara Brach

For Tara Brach, generosity can come as spontaneously as our breath; it is the natural outflow from receiving, from being grateful. Brach is an author, a Buddhist meditation teacher, and leader of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (DC). She guides her students to use meditation, their acute sensory awareness, and to cultivate a consciousness of the present moment — which she calls Natural Presence.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 2007, Brach gave a talk called Gratitude and Generosity. In it she pointed out that breath can become a guide to living life fully; that you can breathe in, let the breath come in fully and deeply, and understand the experience as an expression of receptivity. Then breathing out and really letting go of the breath, surrendering it, can be understood as an expression of generosity, of offering into the world.

Gratitude has everything to do with happiness.
- Tara Brach

For Brach, gratitude is a recognition and appreciation, which confirms a sense of abundance in the world. This leads naturally to generosity.  She notes that people who are happy are appreciating life and that their happiness flows out naturally into the world, as a gift. However this recognition and appreciation, which precedes gratitude, is only possible by being truly present in the moment and place we inhabit, by seeing things as they are, and by letting reality as it is flow through us. She contrasts this with being caught up in our thoughts, memories, and judgments about the present reality, which distracts us from what actually is.

Since she lives near a river, Brach uses the river metaphor to deepen her explanation of being in natural presence. She says that similar to when we are standing in a river, if we allow the water to flow through and around us rather than trying to fight the current or control the flow of the water, we are more stable and secure. With our consciousness, if we allow the flow of life we are more present and free, and giving also flows more naturally. In this way generosity is an expression of inner freedom.

Brach believes that the basic way of expressing our abundance, freedom, and generosity is to give our blessings to other people, to give our love. She tells a tale from Rachel Naomi Remen’s book, My Grandfather’s Blessings. When Remen was young her grandfather would spend time and tell her about her goodness. He gave her a name, Neshumela, which means little beloved soul. After his death, Remen realized that she had learned to see herself through his eyes, as blessed. She says, “Once blessed we are blessed forever.”

So breathe in as a practice of receiving, practice meditation as a way to cultivate natural presence, as a way to feel the abundance of the world. And breathe out, giving your presence as a gift. Brach exhorts us to then: tell the people in your life about their goodness, bless them, and let them know your love – out loud.

Gratefulness is flowing from my heart.
- Hezekiah Walker

Listen to the Gospel song Grateful by Hezekiah Walker: