Chapter Nine: How Much Shall I Give?

Love that is hoarded molds at last,
   Until we know, some day,
The only thing we ever have
   Is what we give away.

And kindness that is never used,
   But is hidden all alone,
Will slowly harden till it is
   As hard as any stone.

It is the things we always hold
   That we shall lose some day;
The only things we ever keep
   Are what we give away.

    — Selected.

YOU MAY give as much or as little in life as you choose, and "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you." Give little and you receive little; give with the motive of getting something in return, and others will do the same to you; delay your giving, and the return will wait upon you; give spasmodically, and your affairs will take on the fluctuating character of the consciousness that you express. The law is definite and certain. Each individual determines by his consciousness, and his use of the law, what the law will do for him.

However, as your consciousness of abundance grows and you come more and more fully into the freedom of abundance, more is demanded of you. You are required to be as steadfast, as constant, and as generous in your obedience to the law of bounty as you expect that law to be steadfast, constant, and generous in its reaction in your life. In adversity men are often zealously obedient to the law of their good, only to relax their care when they find that conditions about them have

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improved. This is the height of folly. If you desire that your life be harmonious, if you want good to be followed by greater good in your life, then be even more scrupulous in your obedience to the laws of right thinking and right action in times of blessing than you are in times when the blessings seem withheld. Do not relax your faith, and devotion, or your expression of these qualities, if you would have blessings continue and increase in your life.

Perhaps it is seldom profitable to dwell very much upon negative experiences that come into our life. To dissolve them back into their native nothingness, by knowing the truth about them, oftentimes seems more practical than to question too much as to why they have come; just as to combat shadows in a room is less practical than to banish them by bringing in more light. Sometimes, however, shadows imply the presence of obstacles between oneself and the sun; and sometimes negative experiences indicate the same thing, and should be treated in much the same way. In such cases bringing in the light is not enough to do. The light will dissolve the shadows, but not the obstacles, and until the obstacles are removed there are likely to be more shadows from time to time.

So if some unpleasant experience is repeated several times in your affairs, find out if you can why it has come to you, and do whatever is necessary to prevent its recurrence.

For example, at one time the writer had just

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purchased a new car. He was feeling quite happy about it, and thought of it as a "demonstration" of prosperity, when, in the midst of his thanksgiving, he was shocked to find that a tire lock had been forced and that an expensive spare wire wheel and tire had been stolen. Why? he thought. Had he been more careless than usual in his mental attitude? Should he have gotten special insurance for the car's accessories? Should he have had a stronger lock put on the spare wheels and tires? Or was it contrary to the principles of Truth to use locks or insurance, either one? He recalled the argument that Truth students have no right to place temptations in the way of those who may be weak enough to steal. Was it right to leave an expensive possession, such as a motor car, in the street, and expect God to take care of it? In doing so, was he trying to make a kind of celestial police officer of almighty God? As he thought it over, it did seem to him a bit presumptuous to say, "Now, God, I place this car in Your care while I go to the movies."

These questions were not clearly answered in his mind before the second spare wheel and tire were stolen! By this time he was thoroughly alarmed, not so much at the theft of the property, for fortunately he could replace them without too greatly missing the money that they would cost; but what, he asked, was amiss in his inner world, that this experience had come to him with such emphasis?

Soon he was to receive an answer to that

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question, an answer that was very difficult for him to accept, but one that, right or wrong, has meant a great deal—for good—to him ever since.

Before I tell you of the way in which I got my answer to these questions, though, let me digress a moment to express a thought regarding that often asked question, "Why has this come upon me?"

Experiences come to us not so much because we have attracted them as because they are opportunities for us to clear our thoughts regarding the problems that they present. If our thought is quite clear, the experiences do not trouble us. They scarcely make any impression on us. It is as if, in a hotel lobby, a bell boy were paging some one. We listen a moment to ascertain whether it is our name that he is calling. If it is not, we dismiss the matter from mind, and scarcely hear his continued calling. There is nothing in his call to identify the experience as applying to us. Sometimes, apparently, we do "attract" certain problems, just as I possibly did the theft of my tires in a way that I shall explain in a moment; but many problems appear in our life neither attracted nor expected—merely presented for our consideration and judgment. Sometimes we claim the problems for our own, and thereby incur the responsibility of "seeing them through." Sometimes they suggest something that profitably we can do to bring our identification with them to an end; and sometimes simply our word of denial or our gesture of indifference dispels them from our

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life. Occasionally, too, problems come to us not for what they can do to us, by way of teaching us something that we need to know, but rather for what we can do for others if we are willing. For instance, Jesus did not attract the crucifixion, but He willingly accepted it as an experience that would help to free the race from the fear of death.

From a practical point of view, then, the important consideration in any problem is not so much why it has come, though that may be important too, as, "Now that you have come, what shall I do about you?"

This all has become clearer to me since my wheel-and-tire experience than ever it was before, in a way that you will see:

I was talking with a friend whom I had not seen for a long time. She, too, drove a car.

"Tell me what you do about your car," I said. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Do you ever have anything stolen?" I asked.

"N-n-o," she answered slowly. "Do you?"

"Well, I have had," I reluctantly admitted. "And I don't quite see why. I don't think I've been in any especially negative state of mind," I added.

"No, that wouldn't be the reason," she answered.

"Do you think it is because I didn't have the car insured?" I asked. "Perhaps it isn't fair to expect God to be a kind of policeman, watching my car every time I leave it."

"No, I don't think that's it, either," she said. "Perhaps I should have seen to it that the

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locks were stronger. They forced the metal guards with a crowbar or some similar instrument. Perhaps it is unfair to expose to temptation those who are not strong enough morally to resist."

My friend shook her head.

"Well, then, what do you think is the reason why my spare tires and wheels were taken?"

She paused quite a while before she answered.

Somehow that pause and her manner made me feel uncomfortable. (Probably she will smile when she reads this.) Her manner made me feel that she considered the matter a grave one.

When finally she answered, I decided that she did think it grave. "What have you taken from some one else?" she asked.

"Taken------! Why, surely you don't think I'm a thief?" I asked in hurt astonishment. We were old-time friends. It was hard to take.

"No, not exactly that, but it amounts to the same thing. What have you withheld that you could have given?"

"That I could have given? To whom?"

"To any one. Oh, of course, I know you're not a thief, and I don't mean that you're stingy" (she was trying to fix it up now, I thought), "but it's like this------" and then she went on to tell me her philosophy of giving.

"You see, it's like this, Ernest," she said in effect. "You and I are especially blessed. I've heard you acknowledge your own blessings by saying that you were a child of fortune. I am one, too. All my life I have been showered with blessings.

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[And you had the grace to realize it, I mentally added.] I have a wonderful husband. I am in love with him and he with me. We have a town house and a mountain house. We have two cars. We have enough of the world's goods to keep us comfortable and contented. My husband has a fascinating work, and I have mine too, of a kind.

"If I were to keep busy every moment I don't know how I could return to the Father as much as He has given me. All that I can do is to try not to miss any opportunity that He offers. Then if I pass on to some one else some of the good that He has shared with me, and those with whom I share my good do likewise, I can only hope that my little will be 'increased and multiplied,' as you say."

"And somewhere, then, you think I missed an opportunity?"

"Well, the channel was clogged somewhere," she answered kindly. "If some good thing is taken forcibly out of our life, that fact would seem to indicate that we are receiving faster than we are giving."

"I don't know just where I 'slipped up,'" I answered. "But I don't think that that experience will be repeated for me soon again."

And it has not. Nothing has since been taken from me by force.

Perhaps, you will say, my friend was an extremist. You can think of objections to her theory. So could I. I still can. But I think I have proved to my own satisfaction that her philosophy is

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sound and practical. I know that it has proved a great joy to me. To feel that each good thing that comes to us is a commission from on high, a kind of sacred trust, a mark of the Father's confidence in us; that our good is not our own, but His, and held in trust for His service; there is romance and adventure in this idea. It colors to brightness what often otherwise might be a dull and drab transaction of commerce and labor.

Moreover, it brings returns. The more we give, the more we have. Giving, rightly understood and practiced with good judgment, is an investment. It takes us out of the atmosphere of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," and puts us under Christ's law of grace, of free giving.

The loss of my tires has been repaid to me manyfold, to me and to others too, I trust. The experience, and what followed, helped to awaken in me a new consciousness of giving, a new consciousness with which I still experiment in joy; a consciousness that has not a thing to do with tires and wheels, or with protecting oneself from loss by a kind of prepayment plan—though it might seem to be that—but that, while apparently beginning with such mundane considerations, far outdistances them, and brings one into "a land of pure delight." That land is a consciousness that knows only abundance, that does not lose anything, because it fears the loss of nothing, that is So sure of constant supply that it views things, not as lost or acquired but simply as visible

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or invisible, everywhere present, everywhere abundant, to be used and shared and enjoyed; to be conserved and accounted for wisely and sensibly, but not to be hoarded or taken out of the stream of service.

Do I mean that we should not "save for a rainy day"? Save, if you wish, and if you attract greater abundance than you need to use immediately, but save in anticipation of an opportunity, not in fear of a rainy day. When supply comes to you in advance of your need, do not rush to spend it foolishly, but instead thank the Father that even before you have asked He has answered, and that He, in His love, has prepared beforehand for some joy or need that you cannot as yet even anticipate.

Saving, when by "saving" we mean "investing," is quite different from hoarding. To hoard is to take money or some other form of supply out of circulation—as a miser hoards gold, through fear. Putting money into a savings bank, or investing it in a business where it contributes to human welfare or happiness—and hence increases and multiplies by the divine law of abundance, which men have appropriated and sometimes call "profit"—is not only legitimate, but a spiritual duty. Not all men do all things equally well. You may be more adept at earning money than you are at creating ways to make money serve you and others. Then, let some one, who can make money serve well, put it into service for you, and share both in the good that it can do and in the return

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that it can bring. That is exactly what you do when you put your money into a well-managed bank or when you invest it in some legitimate and substantial enterprise.

Investments, too, are necessary but merely incidental as you become established in a giving consciousness; necessary because you will attract abundance that needs to be wisely stewarded, incidental because they are but a part of the mechanics of what is primarily an investment in spiritual riches. Your real investment, the substantial basis of your mundane wealth, is an investment in human kindness, in service, in such qualities as love and thoughtfulness and remembrance.

Your spiritual richness is seeking you. Consequently you need not worry about finding it. It presses against your consciousness many times a day. It takes queer forms, however, and you must train yourself not to miss it because it seems unimportant or fanciful. It is beckoning to you when you get the impulse to thank some one for something that he did that helped you. It signals to you when you think of some one's anniversary, and make a mental note to send a card or a gift, or otherwise lend your interest and joy to the occasion of another's joy or blessing. How often I have said—have not you, too?—"I thought of that, but I was busy and put off doing it, until it was too late"!

Take time. Take time to be courteous, to be thoughtful, to remember things that mean much

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to others, to do the simple little kindly things that most persons are "too busy to do."

Your spiritual richness presses against your consciousness in all these things, in these and more. As you grow in spiritual power and strength by exercising your dormant spiritual impulses, you will find that your sphere of helpfulness will grow. You will find a thousand channels through which you can bless others. You will find individual channels through which you can bless thousands of others.

Spiritual wealth is to be invested in human lives. It is essentially vital, alive, alert. Only remotely does it have to do with stocks and bonds and other possessions. It deals in friendliness, in love, in service, in good judgment, in generous unselfishness. No man can possess much of it by himself alone. It has to be shared to be enjoyed. It grows and increases and multiplies as it is given away. It attaches itself by invisible arms to the sharer, and manifests surprisingly and abundantly in his life.

Most of us think of pleasant, friendly, joyous things to do for others. For many reasons we do not always express them. Lack of time, fear lest another should misunderstand our motive, a sense of awkwardness in doing things that are "off the trail" of our usual activities—these are some of the insidious forms of procrastination that, delaying our conformance to the law of free giving, delay also the recompenses of joy, well-being, and abundance that ensue when we conform to it.

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Take as your watchword in this application of the law the following affirmations:

I give joyously. I recognize all that I possess as coming from the Father, given me to use and to share with others, in joyous recognition of His bounty.

I give freely. I recognize the illimitable abundance of Spirit, adequate to meet every human need.

I give promptly, as promptly as I wish Spirit to be prompt in blessing me.

I give generously, as generously as I wish Spirit to be generous in its response to my needs.