enerosity is love given with open hands, perhaps with a smile and laughter. Generous hearts freely give away what they have without regret. Generous minds give away honor and respect without judgment or condemnation. Among other lessons in this past decade, I have learned that I am not naturally a generous person.

Self-discovery comes in many forms. For me one means of learning who I am has been the Enneagram, an ancient path to self-knowledge which is rapidly becoming popular as a tool for learning about ourselves. A nine-point diagram helps us visualize nine personality types.

I am a “five” on the Enneagram (the fifth point), which means that stinginess is my primary compulsion or what commonly drives me to do what I do. People with this personality type (a FIVE) live out of the head, rather than the heart or the gut. We watch life go by. We observe other people without entering into their lives. We study, analyze, think, and teach, but we do it as much as possible by keeping people “out there,” staying distant in our feelings and relationships.

Stinginess for me is not as much about money or things as it is about myself. I might freely give away money or something I own. Or if somebody borrows from me and doesn’t return it, I might not worry about it much. Jesus said something about that, too, in the Sermon on the Mount, in Luke’s version. So I felt pretty good about myself when I compared myself to that.

The Enneagram, though, opened my awareness to a different aspect of stinginess. I do not freely give myself away. I do not freely or easily open up and share my thoughts or feelings or life-story with other people. That’s how I am stingy. My withholding from other people - my lack of generosity - comes from this internal, personal, spiritual stinginess.

GENEROSITY TOWARD GOD

If I don’t freely give myself to people, do I freely give myself to God? If I don’t open up to people and talk to them easily and let them know who I am and what I think and feel, am I the same way with God? This has been a difficult part of my transforming journey of these past ten years.

I made a public profession of faith in Christ and was baptized at age eight. I recommitted my life to God in my teens. I gave my life to a divine call to preach and to serve God through the church when I was twenty. And I moved steadily and dutifully ahead with those commit-ments all through my first 50 years.

I prayed and taught people how to pray. I preached and taught the scriptures and helped people find their way to God. I spoke often about love for God with all our being because I learned that way of life as a child.

Then I had to face the question of whether my love for God was only head-knowledge or if it was also heart-knowledge. Did I love God from the heart, from within my soul? How could I if I did not freely open up my heart to God? How could I love God with my whole heart if I held back from giving myself completely?

My transforming journey into a greater love for God has led me into a deepening experience of generosity. I am not perfect, of course. I have a long path ahead of me. But I am at least on the path now with my eyes wide open, with my full attention on what is just in front of me as I move forward.

GENEROSITY TOWARD OTHERS

The church today desperately needs to experience generosity, a love that gives with open hands. When we speak of generosity and giving, most people immediately think of money. And the church does need financial sup-port. But the generosity we need to experience in a greater way today is a generosity of the heart and spirit.

If the church finds a way through our divisions, it will be because we have learned to be generous, to give ourselves away. We must let go of our ideas of what is important long enough to really listen to the stories other people will tell of what is important to them. We may choose to take back the same doctrines, moral standards, and interpretations of scripture we hold now because we understand them to be true. But until we stop grasping them so tightly that we can’t let go and listen to different ideas, we will not find a way through the divisions.

Generosity is giving ourselves away. The New Tes-tament calls us to follow in the steps of Jesus, to become like Christ, by learning to be generous. In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, he calls this city church to follow the example of the rural churches north of them and learn to give themselves away. They gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us, he wrote. He talks about the grace of giving and their rich generosity. And he bases it all on the example of Jesus: You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. [2 Corinthians 8]

Does Paul refer to Jesus giving away money and making people financially rich? Of course not. He refers to Jesus’ generosity of giving himself away even to the point of dying for us. In the same way Peter urges the church to follow in Jesus’ steps, saying that Jesus left us an example by his suffering and death for us. [See 1 Peter 2]

Jesus himself spoke of setting an example for us by what he had done. The night before he died, as he met in the upper room with his disciples, he took the role of servants whose job was to wash dust from the feet of guests at a dinner. No one noticed these people. No one paid attention to them. No one cared about them. They were unimportant in the minds of the guests. Yet Jesus became like one of them and washed the feet of his disciples. [See John 13]

When he had finished, he said he did this as an example to them and that they should do the same for one another. This is the context in which Jesus gave that new commandment - to love one another in the same way that he has loved us. Jesus humbled himself, became as one who is unseen and unimportant, and did for the disciples what they would never have done for others. That night and the next day, as they all deserted him and denied that they knew him, Jesus suffered and died for them.

Generous love calls us to become like Jesus. Generosity draws us into a life where we let go of our concern for what others think of us. We willingly give ourselves to care for people in their need and let go of the need for reward or recognition. We accept rejection, abuse, even death, if it comes to us in order to continue serving people in need.

Such generosity is beyond my experience, but it is not beyond my calling. Jesus calls us to follow his example of showing such generous love even for those who desert us and turn against us. Generosity expects nothing in return, but gives everything up for God.

GENEROSITY AND FREEDOM

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius reinforces this call to generosity. The qualities of the person entering into the journey of the exercises include openness and generosity toward God and other people. We are called to listen to others with generosity, to be more willing to accept than to reject what they say and always ready to hear what the other person has to say without judgment or condemnation. Perhaps, like me, you learned this as a child as “giving the benefit of the doubt.” We are also called to freely give ourselves to God during the weeks of the exercises.

Freedom and generosity go together. To freely give - this is the way of generosity. To hold nothing back, not ourselves, our feelings, our possessions, or our love. The earliest Christians in Jerusalem gave us the example of people who claimed nothing as their own but freely shared all they had. [See Acts 2 and 4] They shared their posses-sions, their love, their houses, and their lives. This is the way of generosity.

We find a helpful metaphor for generosity in Deuteronomy 15 where the people of Israel are urged to provide for the poor in their land. Do not be hardhearted or tightfisted…rather be openhanded and freely lend whatever [another person] needs.

Put this book in your lap for a minute. Extend your arm, and turn your palm upward. Close it tight, and hold it for a moment, imagining something precious to you in your hand. How does it feel?

Now open it, and hold it out as if someone in need is in front of you. And give it away. How does that feel?

When we hold tightly to what we have, our whole being feels like our body did for that moment when we held our fist tight. When we open ourselves, and give ourselves away, that feeling of release, peace, and joy becomes our daily experience.

Generosity releases the peace of God within our spirit and in our relationships. Joy becomes real in our hearts. Love fills our minds as we think about people we know. The path to peace, joy, and love is paved with this generous spirit.

A GENEROUS SPIRIT

A generous spirit characterizes the new life in Christ described in Ephesians 4. The metaphor of extend-ing open hands to people in our lives underlies much of its teaching on the practices of a Christian life.

Humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love are practices which help us keep the unity which the Spirit creates in the church. We cannot create the spiritual reality of oneness in Christ, but we can choose to strengthen it by what we do in our relationships with each other. Giving our emotional energy, our time, and our attention to the slow process of building up rather than tearing down is our calling.

Speaking the truth in loving ways and building up one another in love reinforce the practice of generosity in the church. When love determines what we say and how we act toward each other, we show to the world that we are the followers of Jesus.

A generous spirit moves us beyond what we might

refrain from doing to an intentional choosing of what is good for everyone. Not only do we stop lying, but we choose to tell the truth. Not only do we stop stealing, but we use what we earn by working to help those who are in need. Not only do we refrain from “unwholesome talk,” but we say “only what is helpful for building others up.”

A generous spirit moves us to give up the things which grieve the Spirit of God, such as bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, and all malice. Generosity then stirs us to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, and living a life of love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

Opening the hands of our heart and mind, we freely give ourselves away through patience, gentleness, forgiveness, kindness, loving honesty, and a gracious generosity of spirit. The calling of God in Christ asks no less than this of us.

The Way of Love: A Proposal for the Church