Generosity

Such a beautiful word in so many ways especially when we dig into what it really means. When you look at the word itself, we immediately can see the root word gene which comes from Latin meaning to give birth or beget. Gene then quickly evolves into the word genus which in Latin means race or stock with derivatives of both that lead to family and/ or tribal groups. Osity forms a noun usually from an adjective giving the quality of being. Here, I might as well add while I am in the linguistics mind set, the greek word Genesis, which we recognize as the first book of the Holy Bible dealing mainly with creation, is a rendering of the Hebrew word bĕrēʾshith, which is literally translated, in the beginning. Of course in modern english, we know the word generosity itself to mean the quality of being kind or generous.

With all of that being said, lets dive into the the mindset I am going to try and point out in all of this...Generosity is the quality of being generous and kind to others as if they were our own family. And quite frankly, this is why we were created, in the beginning as it were, to treat everything and everyone as if it were belonging to our own family. The best families, we can recognize, thrive on love. The cause of creation is this very same love for as a wise old friend (Mike Megaludis, yes, for you wrestling fans Nico Megaludis' grandfather) once relayed to me the very first time we talked , " God is Love - Love is God, without God there would be nothing!" I have never forgotten these words or this first encounter which we had in an orthodox monastery cemetery where we prayed together for our loved ones who had passed. Our friendship would continue to grow until the day when he passed and I was there when we buried him at the very same spot where he spoke those words to me. Mr. Megaludis exemplified those words in his own generosity to all others. May his memory be eternal.

I think a lot of people may associate generosity as being out of pocket, from our treasure per se. But, I would like to add that although those who are fortunate enough to give financially especially without expecting anything in return truly are being generous, this is not the only means to show generosity. Often, I express to my students that we are only given three things in this life, namely, our time, talent, and treasure. And since these are the only three things that we truly have then we can quickly deduce that these are also the only three things we can truly give from. So, in addition to our treasure, we must be generous with our time and talents also if we really want the world to be a better place. Essentially, this is what it means to be a Christian and really what humans were created for in the first place or as we said earlier , in the beginning.

In conclusion, our quality of being, can be summarized in the Golden Rule, to treat others as we would want to be treated. And I mean all others, not just those who are literally from the same family or background (race, tribe, etc.) but we must treat all others as if they are our own family. When we find the humility to treat all others with love and kindness and put their well being ahead of our own then we can really begin to see the absolute beauty of the word generosity!