by Rev. Terry Davis
Delivered at The Mountain Retreat and Learning Center on October 6, 2013
I remember the first time I encountered the story The Giving Tree. It was years ago during a service at the UU Congregation of Atlanta. Pat Kahn, the director of religious education then, read it to a group of children gathered in the Sanctuary just like we did this morning.
I must admit, I wasn’t sure I liked the story of the giving tree the first time I heard it. It seemed to me that the boy had problems. As he grew older, I thought he became self-centered and greedy and that he asked too much of the tree. And, the tree – well, she seemed to have problems, too. I thought she suffered from what we might refer to as poor self-esteem and the inability to set healthy boundaries. To give up parts of herself until she had nothing but a stump left seemed like the ultimate sacrifice to me . . . and perhaps more than she should have agreed to do.
Reading The Giving Tree myself years later, I still wish the boy hadn’t asked the tree to give up so much, and I still wish the tree had learned to stop trying to fix the boy’s sad feelings. However, I also recognize that The Giving Tree a story about selfless love . . . and encountering it again has caused me to wonder about the nature of such love.
Selfless love can seem superhuman, irrational, and exhausting when we are examining it from the outside. “How does she do it?” we may wonder of the young mother who has multiple small children in tow that require her constant and undivided attention. “He has a heart of gold,” we may say of the husband who is caring for his wife whose health is in serious decline.
These instances of giving are likely not the times when we are keeping score and expecting a favor in return. Rather, when we give from the heart and in a self-sacrificing way as the Giving Tree did to the little boy, it seems that we’re giving from a primal place within – one that may not be easily explained by human kindness or a sense of duty.
Physicists, neurologists and psychologists are just a few of the scientists who have attempted to explain selflessness, or what we understand as altruistic behavior.
Albert Einstein, for example, argued that selflessness is a dynamic found in existence itself. Selfless acts of integration had to occur for the universe to evolve from chaos into stars, planets and galaxies and atoms to merge into molecules, molecules into compounds and compounds into organisms. Jeremy Griffith, “What is Love?” accessed October 6, 2013.[/ref]
Some social psychologists believe that selflessness is a prosocial behavior, meaning that it is a behavior that is intended to help other people. And, some neurologists explain that altruistic behavior activates pleasure centers in the brain. Kendra Cherry, “What is Altruism?” accessed October 6, 2013.[/ref]
Whatever the underlying reasons are for selfless love, it seems to me that the central message in Shel Silverstein’s story is that those who give love selflessly do so from a place of abundance.
While the Giving Tree may have once had an abundance of apples, branches and wood to share with the boy, her heart it seems was abundantly full of cherished memories . . . memories the tree had of loving a boy who visited her, played with her, and slept peacefully at her side. It seems that the boy gave the tree an abundance of joy she had never known before or since, and that this abundant joy was the wellspring from which the tree acted so selflessly.
What are we to make of such a story? Perhaps we can start by asking ourselves, What in our lives gives us abundant joy? And, how might this abundance enable us to give to others with humility and a sense of gratitude?
One person we might look towards for answers is the 13th century Italian monk Giovanni Bernardone, better known as St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis was a person who cared deeply for animals and the environment, and his life is celebrated by some Christians on October 4 every year.
St. Francis is also someone whom many persons know from a prayer that is widely – although mistakenly –attributed to him. It’s a prayer about giving . . . one that’s offered with the understanding that the giver receives in the act of giving.
A version of it goes:
Make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, forgiveness.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console.
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
It seems to me this prayer of selfless giving is contained within the story of the Giving Tree. While there may be limits to what we are able to give (as there were even for the Giving Tree) there are never limits to living lives characterized by a spirit of humility and gratitude.
As we go from this place this morning, may your hearts be full of the gifts you have received this weekend – the gifts of friendship, Nature’s beauty, children’s laughter and the peace of the mountains.
May you live your lives with the courage to give selflessly, trusting that you can do so from a place of abundance deep within. And may you find happiness as you bring a spirit of gratitude to your days. May it be so. Amen.