Sharing

We human beings are social animals, we are designed to share and yet one of the root causes of strife in our world is the unwillingness to share as much as we should. Far too often we adopt a “dog in the manger” attitude when it comes to sharing something of which we have little or something we prize highly. Some people seem to have a gift for sharing everything without thinking whereas for others sharing has to be a conscious decision. Clinging on to what material possessions we have accumulated or keeping say a ‘treat’ to ourselves is I believe the reflex action of our egos.

If we are not one of those lucky people who respond automatically by giving, we need to train ourselves to do so. It will take a little while but sooner or later we will find the urge to give becomes second nature to us as well. It has been wisely stated that in order to receive we need to give and to give without thought of reward. We may give to one person and receive quite unexpectedly, from another. What matters is to give for the joy of giving, not because we think someone will give us something in return. If we can subdue the natural tendency of our ego to want praise and recognition and give anonymously and generously, whether of our time, our gifts, our money or our goods, we will discover the wonders of the Law of Compensation operating all around us. After all, what are material possessions or our personal, God-given, gifts for if not for sharing? Keep them to ourselves and they become arid and meaningless; they do not grow and improve as they should but wither like grapes left on the vine when the winter frosts come.

If you want to convince yourself of the relative importance of ‘things’, ‘gifts’ and people try to imagine what it would be like if you had no human companionship, no friends, no one to visit or to visit you. How would you feel? Devastated? I suspect you would. Because we are designed to be gregarious, the presence of other people in our lives is by far the most important aspect of life on Earth. Next compare that feeling with how you would feel if disaster struck and most of your material possessions were lost. If you suddenly found you had no friends, no companions, no family, would you not be willing to give up all your material possessions for the love and comfort found in the presence of friends and family, especially when things have gone wrong? Yet if the reverse happens and you lose everything in some natural or economic disaster, is it not true that your friends and family would, through their love and concern, give you the strength and courage to start again?

Things and even our personal artistic or other gifts are given to us in order that we might share and through sharing, draw closer to our spiritual brethren. They are not provided for personal aggrandisement or to give one individual economic power over others. If you are one of those who through whatever means, have been given a more than usual share of either, you are very lucky but you are also obligated. In the days of chivalry the French phrase ‘Noblesse Oblige’ was commonly heard. It meant that nobility brings obligations in its train; nobility cannot just take, it must give and share; if not what has been given will be taken away. There is far less talk of that concept amongst today’s economic nobility but it is nonetheless a fact. Unless those who have are willing to share, eventually resentment amongst the ‘have-nots’ will become so strong revolution will result.

Life is not a matter of economic but of spiritual equality, though this important distinction is largely unrecognised in our acquisitive, materialistic society. The ‘haves’ all too often consider themselves to be superior to the ‘have-nots’. The challenges this economic inequality forces us to face are among the main reasons we choose to live an earthly life. Make no mistake, when it comes to assessing the relative merits of our lives on earth, the rich and powerful have far more reason to be concerned than the rest of us. Theirs is the responsibility to use what they have been given, or have taken, wisely. The more you have been given, the more you are expected to give in return. Jesus of Nazareth described this process much more poetically:

“It is more difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”

When assessing your wealth, people are of far greater importance than material possessions. As Scrooge in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” discovered, the miser inherits misery, not joy. The common root of the two words miser and misery is no co-incidence. Count you blessings by the friends you have, rather than by the houses or cars that you own and give, give, asking nothing in return.