Generosity and Community Service

A couple of weeks ago I reached the abrupt end of my four-year term as a Local Government Councillor.

For the last four years I have also been committed to a wide range of other community activities. The end of my Council duties coincides with a deliberate withdrawal from many of these activities.

Both Council and community activities started as part of my generosity practice. A habit of saying "yes" unless there was a clear reason to say "no".

As a form of generosity practice, making commitments that generate expectations of future behaviour well beyond the foreseeable future is somewhat fraught. Making commitments that place me in a systematic position of 'authority' is also fraught.

In the hustle and bustle of a normal western lifestyle, what is conventionally perceived as 'doing good' and actually doing a wise and compassionate thing are not always the same.

Generosity that was overstretched, impersonal and systematised did not feel genuine. Practicing in the conventional structures of a competitive and adversarial society was often uncomfortable. Feeling that I was part of the arbitration of 'winners' and 'losers' was suffering incarnate.

Community service has been fertile ground for practice, even if the pressure of commitments has impacted both the time and energy available for practice. These pressures have also led me at times to be less than generous to those closest to me.

From this experience, I now aspire to generosity at a more personal and immediate scale.