Be Generous

The Mormons have some six or seven BEs that they like to throw around like Be Grateful and Be Humble but I got a new BE and I like it a little bit better: Be Generous. I know it's corny, but let me explain. I can't remember if I was watching Kingdom of Heaven or Six Feet Under (yes, I know they're very different shows--maybe it was even something entirely different) when this came up. I'm pretty sure it was Kingdom of Heaven and either Godfrey de Ibelin (Liam Neeson) or King Baldwin (Edward Norton) said to Balian "Be Generous. With your time, your heart, your life." or something like that. And it struck me that this is how one lives--by being generous. This isn't something I'm great at; I'm a rather selfish and vain person. But narcissistic navel-gazing isn't how a person grows. And society teaches us not to be generous--we might be taken in, taken advantage of. And while we should never just give away our time or our hearts or our lives, we should be generous with them. I think that's a fine balancing act between being stingy and being careless. But I think that this sort of generosity is how we learn about ourselves and others and the world. It's how we grow and develop, how we build friendships and relationships, how we become the type of people we want to be. So be generous. It's something I plan at to become better.

On a side note, this other quote, which I know for a fact is from Kingdom of Heaven, is a favorite of Rae's and mine: "God will understand, my lord. And if he doesn't, then he is not God and we need not worry."