Books and reading

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On generosity: How much is enough?

Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 8.05.26 AMI’ve been reading a lot about generosity in preparation for leading a retreat on that subject this weekend. The books have ranged from informative (The Paradox of Generosity: Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose) to challenging (The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty) to inspiring (More or Less: Choosing a Life Style of Excessive Generosity). Each of them has invited me to re-evaluate the way we live.  And the way we give.

Christian Smith and Hillary Davidson, researchers at Notre Dame, identify various types of generosity: Giving money, volunteering, neighborly generosity (watching someone’s house when they’re away, etc) and relational generosity (being generous within one’s extended family). They found that generous Americans experienced more health, happiness, purpose in life and sense of well-being. Despite this, they also found a surprisingly high percentage of ungenerous Americans who live in fear of not having enough for themselves down the road. Continue reading →

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Books – My Friends or My Addiction

I sometimes wonder if my love of books could be an addiction of sorts. I can get high just walking into a bookstore. When we downsized from a four bedroom house to a room in this community, books were among the most difficult things for me to let go of – and I did let go of boxes of them. Despite this, books are the major clutter in our room now.

pile of booksI once met a person who claimed to have read ninety per cent of the books she owned. I never imagined such a thing was possible. I don’t think I’ve read more than 50% of the books I own, but that doesn’t stop me from acquiring more. The Kindle app is not my friend when it comes to this. The ability to download books that don’t take up room on the shelf is sometimes too great a temptation to resist.

And yet, when I think of the experiences books and reading have led me into, I don’t really want to put a negative label on my love of them. As a shy child in an alcoholic family, trips to the library were pure joy. The only cloud was that I couldn’t check out more books than I could carry. Books let me imagine different worlds than the one in which I lived. Continue reading →