I have a new book coming out in early September and wanted to provide a little preview here form the introduction. I hope you like it – and I hope it will make you want to buy the book when it is live!

How do we give well? How do we love well? How do we receive graciously? And how do we, all of us, make sure that the relationships we are in allow us to continue to grow, to thrive, to be full? I don’t know if I can answer these questions but it is my hope that in these pages we can wrestle through some of this together and develop ways to gauge what it is that we are doing and why it is that we are doing it, with the hope that what it is that we are doing is with, and from a place of deep generosity and love. 

We will start by exploring why it is that we give, the motivation and impulse to share with others, and how to develop this impulse if you don’t already have it. Then we will look at what it is that we have to give from the perspective that generosity is not just about commerce and that sometimes, making ‘giving’ commercial actually creates unhealthy transactional relationships at both a human and divine level. We will explore a bit who we give to and how we give to them, thinking about how we engage in sharing in a way that does not create unhealthy power dynamics of self-righteous superiority, and we will think about how much we should be giving. Finally, I will offer seven weeks of exercises designed to build a foundation for generous living. I encourage you to be patient as your read, and patient with the work. There might be times when something doesn’t make sense, or feels like it is not connected to generosity, but trust the process – we are headed somewhere and the journey will help us find the right destination. 

The goal of the book is not to get you to give more, or to give less. The goal of the book is to get you to give well: to share because you recognize abundance in your life when it is there, to know how to live presently with joy and gratitude, and to be able to invite others to participate in this richness purely because you want them to receive what you are offering. 

I believe that good giving has no strings attached, either for the person receiving or for yourself, the person giving. I believe that good receiving is a joyful act of allowing the nurturance that we all deserve to feel. So, if you are like me and need to be careful about giving to prove something (to yourself or others), or giving to make up for something, or not wanting to receive because of feeling undeserving or unworthy, wrestling with these ideas might make you a little stronger and a little better. If you are someone who thinks giving anything should have an exchange element, or if you are someone who thinks giving at all creates unhealthy dependence, or if you are someone who thinks we should all be the tree and give everything we have, well this book might have something to change your perspective. In other words, I think we can all use the opportunity to reflect on who and how we are in the world with the people we are in relationship with, intentionally or not, and how we participate in those relationships.