Fairness and Generosity

I'm a "Libra." I've always liked being a Libra, because I've always considered myself a fair person (on average) and the scales of the Libra sign reflect this. I don't put a lot of weight into astrology, but in my case I thought that for what ever reason, my personality really did seem to match what the Libra scales represent: fairness, justice, equality, etc. Fairness is a quality I really value in others and in myself, and I have reasonably good 'self-esteem' in that area, I guess you could say.

That is until I was at work the other day and found myself getting all grumpy because no one had filled up the filtered water container for tea, again, and I had to do it, again, even though lots of us at work drink tea or some other hot beverage that we use the filtered water for. I was grudginly filling up the water container, all the while thinking, "Why doesn't anyone else ever do this? Why am I stuck with doing this all the time? It's just not fair that other people don't take their turn."

Then it hit me: all my concern about fairness was sure putting a crimp in my ability to be generous. It washed over me all of a sudden: putting such a high value on fairness was really just a cover for only doing my "fair" share and no more. And resenting others for not doing their "fair" share gives me an excuse to feel all superior and better-than-them-y. Silly Theresa. I broke out into a big grin and shook my head at myself. And proceeded to fill the water container with a much lighter heart and generous spirit.

In the days and weeks since, I've embraced my role as "water jug filler," doing my best to top up the container in the daytime and making sure it's filled in the evening so that there is water to put in the kettle first thing in the morning. And I enjoy my first cup of tea of the day much more now that it is flavored with generosity rather than resentment.

(Here is a nice little dharma talk by Clark Strand on generosity, in the context of the practice of 'green meditation')

Book draw entry now closed....

Thanks to everyone who submitted their names for this draw! There were a few entries made shortly after the deadline, but I'm going to include them anyway, because time zones can be confusing! Plus, I'd rather be inclusive than exclusive any day. I also want to carry forward with the spirit of generosity of David Wann, who yesterday left a comment here kindly offering to replace for me the copy of his book that I'm giving away. Is that nice or what!

I will make the draw tonight, and then post the results tomorrow....

Generosity

A couple weeks ago Gord and I volunteered, along with about 50 other people from our Tai Chi club, to serve dinner at Edmonton's Mustard Seed street church. We had been looking forward to it for quite a while, and we really enjoyed helping out there. Hundreds of people who had waited outside in the rain for at least an hour were fed a tasty Chinese meal. Most of the people had likely been out in the rain much longer than that, since many of the people served by the Mustard Seed are homeless, a lot of them living in the "tent city" about a block away.

Everything went well at the dinner and all of us volunteers had a rewarding experience helping out our fellow citizens, but that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

Before we went into the church to get set up for serving the dinner, there were two people waiting around back to get into the kitchen with us - an older man and a younger woman. They were wanting to see how things get done in the kitchen because they were going to be serving a meal there in the near future. That was all Gord and I heard about the two of them at the time, but when we were at Tai Chi two days ago we spoke with another Tai Chi-er who had talked with the man and lady a bit more. It turns out that the two were father and daughter, and that the father was turning 60 soon and wanted to serve a meal to the Mustard Seed folk as his 60th Birthday celebration. Now that's generosity!