More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity by Jeff Shinabarger

Author:Jeff Shinabarger [Shinabarger, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: giving, generosity, experiments, practical, excess
Publisher: David C. Cook
Published: 2013-02-28T14:00:00+00:00

Visual Moment

Watch a reflection on our busy world:

www.moreorlessbook.com/#videos

DO YOU HAVE WANDERING EYES?

Let me paint you a picture. You attend a social gathering of some kind, and there are twenty-five people in the room. You connect with a friend, and the conversation is going great. You’re catching up beyond just the surface niceties. You’ve just begun to share something that you know your friend would love to hear when a new group of people enters the room. Your friend’s eyes wander to the new group, and you watch him both physically and mentally check out. How do you feel?

A moment before, you felt important and connected to this person. Suddenly you feel like you’ve moved down a couple of notches on the social-status totem pole. I’ve been the recipient of the wandering eyes before, but I’ve also been the person with wandering eyes—as I’m sure you have too. But I don’t want to be that person anymore.

Sometimes people are truly busy and need to focus on the task at hand. But if we are too busy to engage in relationships, we face a larger problem. When I respond and tell you I am too busy, too often I actually need your help. Often in those times when we most need a deep relationship, instead of pursuing that relationship, we embrace our task list and avoid the comfort and support that true friendship can offer. And the result of being extra busy, ironically, is loneliness and depression.

If you are one of the people who isn’t caught up in the “busy cycle,” please reach out to those who are caught in it. We need your example. We need your gentle insistence that community is good. That friendship is golden. That the things that need to get done can wait. And that you will love us no matter how much or how little we accomplish on our checklist. Most of all, we need you to teach us and remind us how to be fully present.

What does it mean to be present?

Presence is the gift my dad gave me when he attended every sports game I played, even when his schedule was busy. Presence is the friend who just sits next to you during a family funeral and doesn’t say a word. Presence is picking up the phone every time your close friend calls rather than letting it go to voice mail … again. Presence is not fast, big, or cheap. You cannot replace presence with someone or something else. Presence is an essential element that we all need and desire in our deepest relationships. It’s unspoken. It’s true. It’s the greatest encouragement anyone can ever receive or give. Presence is a physical expression of love in the midst of a culture that never stops—it is to stop and be with someone that matters.

Andre and our friend Allison Dudley talked at length about this one evening. It seems that the most interesting person in the room, and the person we often compete with for attention, isn’t a person at all—it’s a cell phone.

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