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The Gift of Receiving: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind, Open Your Life To Authentic Treasure© Richard Kent Matthews
By Richard Kent Matthews
"Receiving requires genuine humility that may be uncomfortable and difficult to achieve, whereas giving poses the risk of arrogance which, unfortunately, is easy to come by." Robert Greenleaf (On Becoming a Servant Leader) North Americans are the most generous people on Earth, the most generous people in history. No one needs to tell us how be good givers. Yet, we hear it all the time: it's better to give than to receive. Perhaps. But for every gift there must be a receiver. As Robert Greenleaf points out in the opening quote, it takes a genuine humility to receive well, a humility both difficult to achieve and, apparently, lacking to a great degree in this culture. You're already a good giver; now choose to become a powerful receiver. Our neighbor, Aaron Butler, once handed my dad a $20 bill. Dad wouldn't take it. I heard him say it wasn't necessary, that he had been glad to do whatever it was he had done. Aaron was insistent. Dad still refused. Aaron then turned to me and said to my dad, "If you won't take it, I'll just give it to Richard." Which he did. And I received it willingly. I was five. Immediately I ran to the corner store, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and briefs, placed the bill on the counter, and asked the clerk, "What can I buy for a dollar?" The clerk had suspicions, which were almost immediately allayed as my father strode in about 45 seconds after I did. He explained to the clerk how I'd gotten the $20 bill, bought me a piece of candy for my troubles, and scooted me on home. He kept the twenty--I think. I never saw it again. As with many of us, Dad was hesitant about receiving what he saw as payment for a service he had willingly provided for free. He denied Aaron Butler the opportunity to participate in the giving and receiving process. Aaron wouldn't hear of it and hence, my sojourn to the corner store. Dad never changed. To his dying day, it was difficult for him to receive well. I, fortunately, grew up without that particular prejudice. Like attraction and repulsion, cause and effect, up and down, in and out, giving and receiving is one principle. All giving produces receiving. We cannot break that law; we can only work with it to our benefit or detriment. Consider the law of gravity. You jump off a cliff, you hit bottom, you mostlikely die. You remain on the cliff, all's well. The law works every time. And for everyone the same. As the Bible says, "God makes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike." Receiving, then, is part and parcel to the process. And it works well.
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