ungiving?

I think about this often: How can I make a difference to life around me, to my community and my world? To make the fact that I existed count. Or am I too busy living hedonistically, centring my life around what it gives me and not what I give to life.

I think maybe the consumerist culture has taught us to look at things in terms of what it gives us and what we can get out of it.

I suppose that's true for material possessions, for relationships, and even, believe it or not, for one's faith. Relationsips are mostly about getting; how much good will this be for me, how much can I get from it. Sadly few people truly give and give deeply, becuase they are too busy trying to take. I thought of Khalil Gibran's poem on Giving, from The Prophet. It is revolutionary. It is about giving out of pain, out of little, out of the sheer joy of giving.

And I notice a disturbing trend in the way the Christian faith is preached! It's all about what we can get from God, and what God can give us. So we go to church to get something and feel good. Our faith is generally about getting something from God and other people - be it churches, books or even sermons! So little of it is about how much we give God...and His world. Where are all the sermons about "dying to oneself", about being "a grain of wheat that falls to the ground", about taking up a cross?

We are lap dogs. Pampered and spoilt. Wanting more. Demanding more. Taking more. And yes - giving less. Divinity was poured out for the world and all we do is just sit there and lap it all up with smug satisfaction. The world and God owes us happiness and good times...big time.

Divinity doesn't go beyond our outstretched tongues.

I find the words of David profound! When he is offered free items for a sacrifice his response to the offer is "I will not give to the Lord that which costs me nothing".

What is wrong with us that we have turned so selfish? No wonder the world is full of pain! It's made of a generation of takers and there are so few who truly give.