Civil rights are a beginning in the struggle toward justice. An overriding social theme during my lifetime (I was born in 1954) has been epic struggle against hypocrisy, and how that played out in the human and civil rights struggles of this age. For the first time, the United States began to take its stated commitment to “liberty and justice…
Read More
Value for Saturday of Week 26 in the season of Ripening
Being Generous
By being generous, we advance beyond responsibility and reliability, and see our lives in terms of service to others.
- Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style. [Rebecca Solnit]
- True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations. Time and love are the most valuable possession you can share. [Suze Orman]
- Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out. [attributed to Frank A. Clark]
- In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who has much but he who gives much. [Erich Fromm]
Doing more than is required or expected is the essence of being generous. A generous person does not keep score, or ask for recompense, but gives what she can give. Seen that way, actions become acts of service. This reflects moral excellence in the domain of action.
You may be tempted to think of service along the lines of a maid or butler, or a food server in a restaurant. If so, you may be put off by the economic inequality that often accompanies and gives rise to such work. But for some people, service to others is a constant and joyful act and not subservient at all. The Kennedy family comes to mind in its ethic of political service to country. The family matriarch, Rose Kennedy, often expressed that view. When we ask “what would the world be like if . . .” examples like these may come to mind.
Being generous boosts mental and physical health, strengthens interpersonal relationships, and is an important trait in leaders. Essentially synonymous, kindness too produces these results. “Generous behaviour is known to increase happiness, which could thereby motivate generosity.” It also boosts self-esteem. “The associated feel-good chemicals can help reduce aches and pains and help us sleep better, too.” A study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain has demonstrated that generosity produces a pattern of activity in the amygdala, and is associated with increased happiness.
“. . . generosity has its roots not just in our individual development but also in our very biology and evolutionary history. Species as diverse as bees, birds, vampire bats, rats, and chimpanzees all exhibit forms of generosity, or what can be broadly described as ‘prosocial behavior’—acts that benefit others.” “Current studies of generosity come from many different and often disconnected disciplines and focus on various terms, such as philanthropy, volunteerism and altruism.”
Generosity is an indispensable step on the path toward spirituality: spirituality implies ego transcendence into harmony with something greater than the self. Giving freely is a spiritual act.
Real
True Narratives
Book narratives:
- Emmy E. Werner, A Conspiracy of Decency: The Rescue of Danish Jews During World War II (Basic Books, 2002): how strangers gave of themselves to save others.
- Nate and Kalie Klemp, The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship (Penguin Life, 2021): on “radical generosity”.
- Langdon Hammer and Stephen Yenser, eds., A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill (Knopf, 2021): “. . . a cosmopolitan, bejeweled and philosophical chronicle of friendship, love, sex and work. … Their entertainment never feels like a performance for posterity, but rather something directed at the living, individual recipient, who seems to be sitting directly across from the sender.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Ebenezer Scrooge could not turn back the clock. He could undo the wasted years, or the unhappiness he had previously inflicted. But he could live anew, and he changed his life from miserliness to generosity:
The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. "Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?" "I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time." "You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please." "It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir." "Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your salary!" Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat. "A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!" Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. [Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave V: “The End of It”.]
Novels:
- George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel (Random House, 2017): “The father must say goodbye to his son, the son must say goodbye to the father. Abraham Lincoln must stop being the father to a lost boy and assume his role as a father to a nation . . .”
- Jonathan Evison, Small World: A Novel (Dutton, 2022): “Tam, a server who works with Laila, gives her money that Tam must have been saving for months. Her reasoning is moving: 'The whole hope was to save Laila from Tam’s life.'”
- Sue Miller, Monogamy: A Novel (Harper/HarperCollins, 2020): “Not all writerly largess derives from their relationship to readers, however. It can also be about how a writer relates to her characters — her willingness to put their needs before her own.”
Poetry
- Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time” (analysis)
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
From 1782-1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed four symphonies, all in major keys. A fifth, formerly attributed to him, is of similar character. They are uniformly ebullient and forward-looking. In them, we can hear the value of generosity.
- Mozart, Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, “Haffner” (1782) (approx. 18-23’): this symphony presents some of the warmest passages in music. The second movement (Andante) especially, evokes a joyous celebration among loving friends. The work was a gift, of a kind, although Mozart protested that he was too busy to compose it. Still, the work speaks with the spirit of a gift. “In July of 1782, Leopold Mozart sent his son a letter asking him to write a new symphony for their friend Sigmund Haffner, a wealthy Salzburg merchant and burgomeister. Some years earlier, Wolfgang had composed his Haffner Serenade for the wedding of Sigmund's daughter. Now Haffner's son, also named Sigmund, was to receive a title of nobility, and a new symphony was to be played at the celebration.” Excellent performances are conducted by Walter in 1953, Böhm in 1959, Szell in 1960, Harnoncourt in 1979, Tate in 1985, Mackerras in 1988, Pinnock in 1995, Brown in 2006, Abbado in 2008, Adam Fischer in 2013, Collins in 2024, and Gothoni in 2024.
- Mozart, Symphony No. 36 in C major, K. 425, “Linz” (1783) (approx. 25-32’): On reaching the city of Linz with his young wife Constanze in 1783, Mozart wrote: “When we reached the gates of the city . . . we found a servant waiting there to drive us to Count Thun’s, at whose house we are now staying. I really cannot tell you what kindnesses the family is showering on us. On Tuesday, November 4, there will be an academy [concert] in the theater here and, as I have not a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one at breakneck speed.” Perhaps the music reflects their generosity. Top performances are conducted by Böhm in 1966, Karajan in 1978, Tate in 1985, Pinnock in 1995, Mackerras in 2010, Collins in 2024, and Gothoni in 2024.
- Most musicologists now believe that the work long attributed to Mozart as his Symphony No. 37 in G major, K. 444 (1783), is properly credited to Michael Haydn as his Symphony No. 25, MH 334 (1783) (approx. 14-15’). Mozart composed a brief introduction to it, Adagio maestoso, which is now listed as his K 444. The work is similarly generous of spirit as the symphonies Mozart composed during this period but it is not as advanced. Bohdan Warchal has conducted the work, to good effect. This performance conducted by Rudolf Barshai includes the introductory Adagio maestoso.
- Mozart, Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K 504, “Prague” (1786) (approx. 25-37’): During his time in Prague in 1786, Mozart was enjoying great success as a composer, with his latest opera “The Marriage of Figaro” a hit with critics and audiences. His “Prague” symphony is in the most highly resolved of all keys, yet the work suggests that Mozart was troubled. Rich in contrapuntal and harmonic expression, “the work became a spectacular gift to a city which treated Mozart well . . .” Still, “darkness lurks just beneath the light, where equivocation calls every seemingly joyous outburst into question.” “In the Prague, you hear the effect of . . . expanding musical horizons on Mozart's idea of what a symphony could be. This is really the first of Mozart's symphonies . . . in which Mozart transforms the social and entertainment functions of a piece of grand orchestral music into signifiers of a different kind of discourse. In virtually every bar of this piece, you hear him straining at the limits of what his invention, his orchestra, and the symphony can do.” He expressed his generosity through music. Excellent recorded performances are conducted by Beecham in 1950, Walter in 1954, Böhm in 1960, Jacobs in 2007, Abbado in 2007, Mackerras in 2008, Haitink in 2017, and Gothoni in 2024.
- Mozart, Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543 (1788) (approx. 26-27’): “Mozart’s audiences . . . expected a symphony to be relatively small and light.” “Martin Bookspan explained in 101 Masterpieces of Music and their Composers, 'he had an inner compulsion to create—a matter of personal expression without regard to the demands of patrons or public. That motivation goes far to explain their extraordinary scope and striking ingenuity which surely would have been lost on audiences of that time.'” By today’s standards, however, Mozart paved the way through his musical generosity to the grand symphonies we have today, and since Beethoven’s time. Excellent recordings are conducted by Böhm in 1966, Mravinsky in 1975, Colin Davis in 1982, Karajan in 1988, Pinnock in 1995, Mackerras in 2008, Abbado in 2011, Brüggen in 2014, Herzog in 2018, and Savall in 2019.
Olivier Messiaen, Saint François d’Assise (1983) (approx. 236-264’), is an opera about a man who lived in service to others. “Saint François is unusual because the drama is of an interior, spiritual nature . . . As the composer himself wryly observed: 'Some people have told me, "There's no sin in your work." But I myself feel sin isn't interesting, dirt isn't interesting. I prefer flowers.'” Unfortunately, Messiaen missed the most important point about François’s life: “Decidedly anti-dramatic (there is little or no action), it fulfills Messiaen’s aim to present the journey of St. Francis’ soul toward grace.” Recorded performances have been conducted by Seiji Ozawa in 1983, premier performance (here is audio and video), Kent Nagano in 1998, and Sylvain Cambreling in 2004.
Albums:
- Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp & Michael Visio, “The Gift” (2012) (61’)
- Sarah-Jane Summers & Juhani Silvola, “Sølvstrøk” (2023) (49’) presents “music that is as wonderfully performed as it is confident and generous.” The same is true of their album “The Smoky Smirr O Rain” (2021) (45’), where “improvisation blend(s) with traditional music and original writings.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Natalie Merchant, "Kind and Generous" (lyrics)
- Nawang Khechog, “Bodhisattva’s Magnificent Heart”
- Supertramp, “Give a Little Bit” (lyrics)
- “Seasons of Love” (lyrics), from the musical play “Rent”
Visual Arts
- Feodor Bruni, Charity (1820s)
- El Greco, Madonna of Charity (1604)
- Lucas the Elder Cranach, Charity (1534)
- Giotto, Charity (1302-05)
Film and Stage
- Babette’s Feast, about a talented chef who uses her talents to thank others for their uncertain kindness
Shadow side:
