Generous Orthodoxy continuing half-baked ponderings:

On Friday Nov. 4^th the morning session was permeated with the sweet incense of Deborah Loyd’s story, up to her journey of currently ministering in Portland at The Bridge Community Church. Following the workshops, where I continued to hear from Deborah and her husband Ken about their work with street people in my home town, the next general session presentation was David Ruis, an engaging and humorous speaker whose topic was “Why the Church Needs the Poor.”

The main impact that I took away from David, was the distinction he made between ‘sharing’ as quite distinct from ‘giving’. He said it’s much easier to give than to share. An example he made was giving your house away, or sharing your house with someone else and the crux is that we cannot be truly generous without giving up personal space.

I found this interesting as I ran across a blog by Andrew Jones, Tall Skinny Kiwi, where he talks about a gift economy, and giving as a way of commerce. And on the first take of these perspectives they might seem at odds, an either/or, like giving vs. sharing. But upon further reflection I began to see how these perspectives are a both/and when seen, for example, in the 4 quadrant model of Ken Wilber. I wont go into detail on explaining Wilber’s work, (if you have questions email me and I’ll send you resource info) but Andrew’s reference articles primarily approach the gift economy from quadrant IV a third person structural view of economic social institution, and David is talking about the overlap between quadrants I and III, where the inner singular and plural are working themselves out between the intentional of an individual and a community.

The simple message here is that giving and sharing are not only generous, but a central facet of the orthodoxy of our Christian tradition and faith.