Tuesday morning sermon

I was thinking, falling asleep last night, that generosity is a curious thing. It's difficult to be generous if you go through life convinced that you're getting a poor deal, watching for all the ways in which other people are doing better than you, dwelling on the injustices you've had to suffer, justifying your bitterness and your little pettinesses on the grounds that it's easy for those who've had all that stuff you never had...

These are bad habits, I suggest, and should be watched for and gently eased out of one's repertoire.

They're also self-fulfilling. It stands to reason that if you are consistently generous to people, you'll experience more in the way of generosity in return - "payback", both positive and negative, seems to be a fairly entrenched trope in our society. And if you go around with a big chip on your shoulder, you'll find plenty of reason to keep it there. You can't really hide a thing like that. People will know, and treat you accordingly.

This may be the basis of the belief expressed in various ways but paraphrasable as "you get back what you send out". I don't mean that in a mystical way, but in terms of human interaction I can see how it often works just like that. (And even if it didn't, it's not a bad principle on which to base your actions, since it means you're more likely to be good to people than nasty. Can't be bad, say the architects of civil society.)

I know this must sound insufferably preachy, so apologies for that. It's the thought I went to sleep with, and it was still there when I woke up, so I decided to inflict it on you.

And now, to work.