Misty has been organizing thank-you cards for supporters. Here’s a picture of her working on making some bead bracelets:

She loves crafts, games and decorating. She is always involved with decorating for parties we have. She is always cleaning and organizing.
She lives in a basement near Middlebury Chapel. She is really involved in the homeless community.
A project she is diligent about is making thank-you cards for supporters. Here are three she made for people this week:

and here are the insides of them:

These cards were made for Paul, Margie, and me.
These cards are powerful for me because she doesn’t just go buy cards. Store-bought cards are too expensive in our neighborhood. She finds them somewhere. They look like cards she’s found in drawers somewhere.
Then she writes a message on each card and then goes around and has everyone sign the cards.
Like most things in life, the thought and intention of the cards are the most beautiful part of the thing. Although, the cards themselves are definitely beautiful.
In my giving journey, I practice letting go of what I give. Whatever it is, once I give it, it is no longer mine. I try not to hope it will do something good or worry if it will do something bad. If it is “stolen” from the place I originally gave it, I practice assuming it is going somewhere else where it is needed. If it is broken or destroyed, I practice assuming it no longer needs to be given.
If a thing is received from a place of anger and entitlement I try to practice assuming the person was suffering so much they needed the thing very desperately.
Not being thanked for something I give or do is easy for me. I am highly embarrassed to be thanked for what I do. I wish people wouldn’t say anything at all. Every time I am thanked for doing something, I only feel that it was such a small gesture. I could have done so much more.
Giving is an important part of my life. I do not give because I feel like I need to; I give because I want to.
I don’t love the government redistributing wealth from people who don’t want to redistribute it. I have an instinct that if a billionaire feels the need to hoard wealth, there is probably a deep-seated need to hold on to that money. They must feel deeply afraid of loss, insecurity, and letting go. (Although left unchecked, the risk is that those few people will just suck up all the resources from everyone else. Balance is always the answer.)
I much prefer voluntary giving. I believe in some sort of reincarnation. That there are “older souls” that are ready to give. For their journey to be realized fully, they should not be forced to give but should feel the call to give.
Although, I don’t hate forced giving in some cases. Homeless people were forced to give up everything in their lives. And their fellow homeless people repeatedly steal their belongings (which were either given to them or stolen themselves). So they have no choice but to practice letting go and finding peace with nothing. Homelessness, in one regard, is an advanced placement, accelerated class on learning to let go of superficial things. They learn not to be afraid of free falling. It’s amazing. I’ll often see people dip in and out of homelessness after they have given up living in a tent for years. They aren’t afraid of just walking into the woods in the middle of winter for a week or two with nothing.
I think the evolution of giving looks something like this:
- Here’s a sandwich, socks, hat, coat, or tent. – It’s a thing a person thinks another person needs. And it’s true. They do need it. Without this level of giving, everything would be devastatingly worse. This level of giving is critically important. It is also the level most people who give are at. Isn’t that interesting?
But then things start getting interesting from the giver:
- Here’s a candy bar.
- Here’s a cigarette.
- Here’s some money.
- Here’s a beer.
- Here’s some marijuana.
- Here’s my last cigarette.
- Here’s my coat.
- Here’s my shoes.
- Take my bike.
- Take my vehicle.
- I got some food. Have as much of it as you want.
- Move into my house.
- I might be caught and thrown out if you move into my house. Move in anyway.
- Take whatever I have. It’s yours.
My personal level of giving ends after the first 5 items. But the rest of that list is OFTEN and REGULARLY practiced by the poorest people in communities all over the world.
I likely will never achieve those advanced levels of giving in this life. But I see a future where I am reincarnated as a homeless person (who hates and thrashes around about the indignity and injustice of being homeless) and, hopefully, learns to accept the extreme enlightenment of having nothing and giving everything. But there’s no hurry. We have all of eternity (as we perceive it) to get there.
The overarching idea of giving is to give. Let go. Expect nothing in return. Want nothing in return.
I can’t tell you how many people have come to me (mostly men) and have said, “I want to help people who want help.”
I always tell them that I don’t know anyone like that. Those aren’t my people.
I understand his motivation. He wants a return on his investment. If he gives someone a sandwich, he wants them to eat it and then immediately fill out a job application.
I know there are people like that out there somewhere. But they don’t come to me.
The people who come to me are the people society has shit out on the sidewalk as worthless excrement. They don’t “want” help. If you ask them what they want or need, they will tell you they don’t want anything. They are so far down the rabbit hole of hopelessness they can’t even imagine they need anything. And honestly, I don’t see that they need much. They are given food. But they’d steal it if they weren’t given it. They live in some sort of structure that keeps the wind and rain off of them. And they have friends and maybe a dog or cat. Really… what more do you need?
In a way, they are 21st-century monks and ascetics… people who practice self-denial and self-mortification. They are practicing a serious spiritual discipline and don’t even know they are doing it.
If you can’t see even a representation of Jesus in these people, much less Jesus himself, you need to keep reading and thinking.
We all have a lot to learn from these people. But the first thing we have to learn from them is to give. Give acceptance. Give understanding. Give appreciation.
And then let it go.
Thank you all. I am so grateful to all of you.
Sage