The gift of a lesson learned

My family is about as white as it is possible to be in this melting pot we call the United States. Known ancestors come from the British Isles, Germany, France and Holland. Though I’m brown-haired and hazel-eyed, my children are blond-haired and blue-eyed. In another era and in a different place, they could have passed for Nordic “Aryans” and would have been well within the norms for being thee Teutonic racial ideal. Not only do we tend to be white of skin, we tend to be Midwestern (Iowa and Colorado) and live in white neighborhoods. My ancestors also tend to be politically and religiously conservative. All this is to set the stage for an incident which my wife and I experienced in the late summer of 1971.

We were married in June, 1970 in San Diego - a white-only affair, in a white community---the church itself was actually stark white, perhaps emphasizing the whiteness of our lives. We moved to the Bronx in order to teach school during the 1971-72 school year. She taught first grade; I taught third (another lesson learned - don’t teach unless you have the calling - she does, I don’t).

1971 was a time not so far removed from the racially charged times of the late 1960s that we didn’t remember the fear and anxiety. I still remember the smoke rising from the Los Angeles Watts area during the summer of 1965. Skin color was a touchy issue, sometimes more than socially touchy.

Suddenly we were plunged into a racially and culturally diverse community. We lived on the Grand Concourse, just north of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. We walked about a mile to the school where we taught. Though the neighborhood was culturally and racially diverse, there were distinct lines drawn. The Grand Concourse was a thin white line where all the apartments were restricted to white residents. On the side streets there was a mixture of African American and Puerto Rican apartments. Housing was technically non-discriminatory, but we applied for an apartment in a building whose owner told our Puerto Rican principal that there was no vacancy. We got the apartment; she didn’t.

Prior to learning that NYC is not a place in which to own a car, we had our 1969 Pontiac Tempest with us. Mostly having it meant that before you parked for the night, you had to carefully check to see which side of the street would be swept. If you forgot, your car was impounded somewhere in New Jersey and there was no public transportation to New Jersey. But I digress.

One day, for some reason, we were driving the Pontiac on a parallel street to the Grand Concourse. It happened to be the street on which the Elevated ran. We stopped to shop and when we returned to our car, it would not start. Among my few talents, I cannot count auto repair or even good trouble-shooting skills. I understand the general theory, but even removing a bolt was and is a challenge.

I got out, had my wife pop the hood latch, and stared at the offending hunk of metal. I reached in and tugged at a couple of wires so my bride would think that I was actually savvy about this domain of the male ego. I asked her to try the ignition again. Nothing.

A cardinal rule of NYC streets is: Don’t Be Noticed. We stood out like a sore thumb: We were driving; we were in a disabled vehicle; the hood was up; I was scratching my head; we were white.

Suddenly, to my left, I felt a presence. I turned to look and found myself staring at the abdomen of a man. My eyes drifted up and then froze. He was black. I don’t mean brown; he was black as skin can get. I froze. All my whiteness was fully on display. Besides being in a distinct minority in that place and time, I felt half his height and certainly half his bulk — none of which was fat.

“Got a little trouble?” he said.

“Yes,” I gulped anticipating all the pain I was certain would follow.

“Let’s see here,” he said as he leaned into the engine compartment. “Go try the ignition,” he commanded. I slid into the driver’s seat, taking back one small part of the male domain. I turned the key. Not a peep from the engine.

He fiddled for a minute or two and said, “I see what the problem is.” Now I don’t know for the life of me how he knew. What magic is given to some people to know these things without tearing the whole engine down and putting it together again?

“I’ll be back,” he said, and crossed the street to the Elevated.

True to his word, in an hour he returned with a part in a brown paper bag. Removing and replacing the part, he said, “Try it again.” The engine roared to life. “How much do I owe you?” I asked with some trepidation (together my wife and I earned $1000 a month, of which fifty percent went to rent).

“Nothing,” he replied.

At least let me pay for the part,” I said, hardly believing my ears.

“No, I won’t take it.”

He closed the hood and stepped onto the sidewalk. I should’ve watched him walk away - he might have been an angel and I might have seen him disappear; but I didn’t.

A gift on top of a miracle smothered in kindness.

The gift I received was more than the five dollar part. I was wrenched from my comfortable white cocoon and thrust into a real rainbow world and found that people are nice on the other side of the color divide. I found heart, love, acceptance and giving--humanity, the commonality just under the skin. Every so often I bring my own heart back to this story to sit by the still-warm embers and bask in its heat and am inspired and challenged once again by an unknown man showing himself to be, for a moment, my neighbor, my brother.

Nuclear Giving

Japan, the only nation that has felt the horror of atomic warfare, the only nation to taste the terror of nuclear destruction and radiation poisoning, is staring once again into the darkness created by subatomic particles--such a small nation to stare twice into the maw of a true Godzilla.

Many hero songs could be sung of those who risked their lives to save another from the watery grip of the tsunami. Many responded beyond their own known limits of courage to save. Now this bravery is of the enduring kind for most. But there is a small group, 55 reportedly, who dare enter that even-more-terrible terror inside the nuclear reactor. They do it repeatedly, routinely in order to keep a worse tragedy from befalling those they know and love and even those they don’t know.

They face almost certain death from radiation poisoning. Yet they return; these men who have the knowledge and skill to do that which is increasingly hazardous but so very necessary. Their deaths will not be pleasant. Their nation knows this well; 65 years is not too long a time for some to have known someone who died from it. Yet they go back into the curtain of invisible death.

Their giving is of an entirely different order of magnitude from mine. I am humbled by their gift. My paltry dollars, my few moments of giving cost me little and I’ve already spoken of the joy that is my reward. Their giving dwarfs mine, an Atlas to a microbe. Theirs is Christ –level giving. He said, “Greater love has no man than this: that he give his life for his friends.” (New Testament, Book of John, Chapter 15, verse 13). He gave the same way. He would understand these men. He and they walk the same road. Knowing what is before, they walk steadily away from safety to their own death, but into life for others.

It is not to shame you or guilt me that I think these thoughts; but rather to put all giving onto a continuum. Mine is a small gift; theirs larger than life. But we share this: that we are giving; that we know the contentment of giving and reap the reward of that peace that is beyond speech or comprehension—the experience itself. I can’t truly know their feelings and thoughts. But I can, from this small perspective and from this long distance, know for a certainty that they are doing this from the same heart as I; from the same well of caring. They could not do what they do with just courage. Their motivation must come from a deeper place, from love itself.

May we who will survive this disaster be enriched by their gift and freed to give even dearer gifts.

Generosity and Ego

Many years ago a wealthy gentleman here in Portland, Oregon made an offer to the board of a large community center: I’ll donate $2 million to your building fund, but only if you name the center after me. The board debated his proposal and ultimately agreed. The donor’s name has been prominently displayed over the building’s entrance ever since.

This story has stuck with me, partly because it’s fun to see rich people look foolish, but also because I secretly want recognition for my own generosity. For example, I recall making a donation to a local nonprofit a few years back, then feeling disappointed when my name didn't appear on the donor page of their website.

Our egos crave recognition and approval. This isn’t “bad” or “wrong” - it’s just the way we’re wired. Anonymous giving is an affront to our egos. The ego says “Hey, wait a minute - look at what a generous person I am!” So, for me, anonymous giving is a powerful way to gain insight into the workings of ego. And, it helps activate deeper motivations than ego gratification: sharing gladly what I have with others; recognizing that we’re all interconnected; and feeling the delight which comes through small acts of kindness.

Joy

We usually think of fun, pleasure, happiness and joy as being nearly identical. Not being the editor of a dictionary, I’m not going to be held liable for an incorrect definition, so I’m going to venture out on a long limb and try not to saw it off behind me.

All four of these words describe a sense of well-being; all four share a common positive experience. Fun, pleasure and happiness, though, are usually considered products of exterior events. A roller-coaster ride is fun (well, for those with great intestinal fortitude, at least). Pleasure comes from a good meal, great conversation and other human activities. The butterfly of happiness alights on the flower of our senses for a moment with the advent of a new love. But another flower calls and the happiness departs; the meal ends and we are presented with the bill; the ride ends and a sense of queasiness overwhelms.

Joy, I contend, is not like these. It is not temporary; it takes much to dispel its sense; it can be present even in pain and sorrow. For example, the joy of love may not be quenched in the presence of death in having loved the beloved. Unjustly imprisoned, one can rejoice in a clear conscience.

So what does this have to do with secret giving? Good question. I have found that the result of secret giving is fun, is pleasure, is happiness. But more than all these, or perhaps the sum of them all, anonymous giving is joy. It is a joy of the abdominal sort, tucked up under the ribs next to the heart where we experience the fluttering of new love and the excitement of cresting the Disneyland’s Matterhorn. But it lasts longer than the temporary thrill and outlasts the waning
birth pangs of the discovery of love. In memory’s eye, it can ever be fresh, turned over and over, worn smoothed with the remembering but still carrying the weight of the original. It is the deep and the high of human experience, plunging one into the well of goodness and raising to the soaring heights of all that is it is to be human.

Welcome

Hello, welcome to  “The Society of the Muted Right Hand.” We expect a great deal of puzzlement over the name of our group. This first message is an attempt to give just a bit of background and the reason we chose this name.

Giving is a part of the warp and woof of U.S. culture. Per capita, we give more than most, if not all, other nations. We are a generous people. Perhaps it comes from our religious heritage; perhaps from our self-reliant nature; perhaps from the inherited sense of being in this all together. But in our lifetime, we have moved from giving within the family or village circle, to corporate giving. We give to charities, to large institutions, to groups and organizations more than to the individual. Giving itself has become corporate - United Way, charitable runs and walks, food drives at work, group participation in charitable activities. In this kind of giving, we lose sight of the person to whom the gift is being given; we lose the ability to be anonymous in that gift.

We’re not saying this is wrong. But to this list we’d like to suggest adding one more element - giving anonymously. In the course of this interchange between us, we will share some reasons for this and some of our experiences. We encourage you to join in the joy of this type of giving and then share your experiences. Since the group can be anonymous, we will only know of your own joy and learn from your own artful way of giving anonymously.

A word about the title: Most of the world’s great religions have extolled giving in a way that does not reward the giver. Tibetan Buddhists have a training slogan, “Don’t expect applause.” Jesus said “If you give for reward, you are a hypocrite.” He also said, “Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing when you give.” From this, the title comes: “The Society of the Muted Right Hand.”

Keeping silent about giving is difficult. But secret giving is the most exciting and rewarding of all giving. It’s like having a delicious secret; one that can be held close giving warmth to the heart. So join in the fun. Find a way to give secretly and find that joy which comes from having and keeping a secret and knowing that the world is just a little better for that secret.

About “us”: The “we” of the above paragraphs are two guys who over the last 25 years have met over a restaurant meal every two or three months. We were introduced to each other by one of our wives and have grown in friendship ever since. We are very different from one another: one of us is a searching Buddhist, the other a seeking Christian; one is from an East coast Jewish family, the other grew up in a fundamentalist group in San Diego; one participated in anti-war
protests, the other hardly knew the 60’s happened. We share a great deal, nonetheless. One of these shared values is that of giving. We have arrived at our mutual understanding of the joy of anonymous giving from our different paths, but have found great satisfaction in sharing our mutual joy.