fernWhat if we stopped using the loaded terms of giving and receiving and instead, started noticing that life moves back and forth. Like the sending and receiving of impulses, or like electricity that moves as a single current, waves flow back and forth, cells expand and contract, human beings flow back and forth. We human beings are touched, moved; we move and then we act on some impulse.

Have you noticed that these terms “giving” and “receiving” have become so loaded?  Giving: loaded with feeling good about ourselves and do Gooding and not having to be the one who is vulnerable. We like giving so much. Don’t get me wrong. I do, too, and I like it more than receiving. Receiving: loaded with weakness and vulnerability and some sense of insufficiency for having to take something from someone, as if we are not always taking anyway. We do have a few socially sanctioned spaces for receiving. The holidays, for one, where getting gifts is ok. Birthdays, too. Most every other time, though, even when someone dies – a time when it might seem, at first blush, obvious to accept support and care – we squirm, push away, down play our need, and tell people we are fine, don’t need anything. It’s ok. Don’t worry.

A dear friend of mine has been facing multiple challenges at once: family illness, real structural scarcity around money and support for her family and her three-year-old twins. You know, real life looking down the barrel of the gun. In our world we call that law #5: no one is exempt, not even me.

We were moved, my partner and I, to do something: a plane ticket to see her mom? Groceries? It seemed obvious to do something. Natural. We landed on groceries, called the market and bought a gift certificate and asked the manager to mail it. We told him a bit of the story – a friend who could use a moment of knowing her friends love her. Our story moved him, too. He took the gift certificate over to her house and delivered it personally. Our friend heard a knock on their door at 7 pm at night. Then she was moved…to tears.

I followed my impulse. He followed is. We each gave something: the gift itself, the generosity of time to hand deliver it, the opportunity to be generous. We each received something. Me, the satisfaction of being able to offer. Her, the gift of people in her life having her back. The store manger, well, I never asked him what he got. But what if we just did what we were moved to do? Followed our impulse. Sent a signal. The signal was received. Then another sent. Then another received. Impulses like electricity being followed and honored. What if when we are moved, we act? What if it were not so much about “giving” and “receiving” the way we have categorized them and infused them with references from our inequitable economic model, but rather infused them with honoring the natural impulses of life?

Question: is it about WHAT we give (a gift certificate for groceries), or that we give? The act of giving is acknowledging the humanity of the other. It is the ACT that is important, not the what. YES. YES. Does that get you closer a bit more?