Generosity: a Christian Libertarian Perspective

Humans are endowed with intelligence and facilities to be able to adapt the world's resources to sustain humans on the earth (and more than that, have the blessings of being able to think, reason, socialize, love and derive pleasure beyond basic needs).
Humans are made in the image of God, and are simultaneously fragile, precious, and resilient.
Humans need food, water, clothing, and lodging to survive.
Humans are intended to work to provide for themselves.
The type and manner of work provides a varying degree of value to others and thus not all work is of equal benefit nor of equal pay.
Poverty (the inability to provide for one's own basic needs) exists and has a plethora of causes, some preventable or treatable and some incurable.
Autonomy is a right and carries both dignity and responsibility.
Social and financial transactions must occur through mutual consent and agreement
It is wrong to take something by force from one person and give it to another person, even if that other person is unable to procure it on their own. The spirit of generosity is stifled and twisted when someone possessing authority uses their authority to extract resources forcefully from one party and redistribute those resources to another party. This violates the concept of consent and personal autonomy.
Goodwill exists. Autonomy means that each person needs to individually come to the decision to practice generosity. Many people will choose not to be generous, however...Most moral people when presented with a legitimate need will do what they can to meet that need to the extent they are able.
The practice of generosity is good for both the giver and the receiver.
Generosity is not about exchanging trinkets that are unneeded (to the extent now that many will go into debt to appear generous as they feel obligated to do so for the holidays)
True generosity is the act of sacrificing your own resources to satisfy someone else's needs, with the consent of both the giver and the receiver.
People and organizations are needed who have the gift of discerning needs, making those needs known, and motivating/convicting others to see and take care of the need.
The act of generosity and carrying out mercy ministry exists for many reasons, including making the giver feel good, a sense of duty or moral/religious mandate, a desire to appear better in the eyes of other people, a desire to give back, social outlet (filling free time), networking, and genuine concern.
Receiving a needed gift may require a humbling of pride (overcoming the shame of not being able to produce the required goods and services yourself) but should not be undignified particularly when the giver is giving in love and without strings attached. Thankfulness, not shame, is the appropriate response, and should motivate the receiver to want to do the same for others.
Christians practice generosity and mercy because we believe everything we have is a gift and we are merely stewards of those gifts. We have many reasons to be grateful and want to reciprocate what Christ did for us. We believe Christ's perfect life and his death on the cross not only cancelled our incurable debt but gave us a priceless gift of dignity, forgiveness, and eternal life.

Eclipse Vacation - Tuesday

I felt rested enough to take over driving for the day. I woke early before 6 and began tidying the car, putting the carseat back in, and bringing things out to the car. I set out clothes for the kids and put their bags in the car. Julie and Thomas woke, joined soon by their older daughter Mercy. Eventually the other kids woke and everyone ate breakfast. 
Thomas left and Julie took pictures of everyone on their new couch once the car was completely loaded. It was all over too soon, and we herded all the children out the door and back into the car again by 8:30.
We said goodbye and started out. There were far too many stops as the needs of several bladders made it difficult to go far without needing to stop again. We first went to Aldi and loaded up on food for the trip. By the time we were done there it was around 11 so we went ahead and had sandwiches in the car for lunch. 
Another stop we had to drive a mile through the country to find the gas station, and it turned out had several large colorful animal statues in the front, which turned out to be, of course, a pokemon gym. Mike weakened it and I finished it off while he took the kids to the bathroom. Across the street was a church where we saw several longhorn steer hanging out (behind a fence, of course, but pretty close).
During the trip the kids mostly listened to music on the ipods and played on tablets. They were in better spirits than the last trip but they got tired of being cooped up so long. The trip from Columbia to College park was about 500 miles, still another 350 from our home in CT. The drive between Maryland and South Carolina took about 12 hours each way.
We picked up sushi about 15 minutes away from our destination. We ended up deciding to crash at Robin's apartment for the night. After eating sushi and pizza, everyone was tired and we wrangled the kids into their sleeping arrangements and fell asleep. This time Mike and I slept on the floor since Josh and Robin were around and in their own bed. It was tight but we were thankful to have a place to rest from the day's travels.
On Wednesday morning we took our time having breakfast, packed up the car, said our goodbyes, and left. We had a fairly uneventful trip back to CT (about 8 hours) and were glad to be back in our own beds. 

Eclipse Vacation - Monday

When Fiona woke we put her in the bath, washed the rest of the yogurt smell off her, then she occupied herself for quite some time.
The Russells being early risers, by the time I showered and made my way down to the kitchen, a tantalizing feast of oatmeal with raisins was laid out for our breakfast along with coffee for those who drink it.
I took apart the carseat and washed the cover along with some other soiled items. The Russells make their own detergent with baking soda, Fels-Naptha, Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda, and Borax. Even the panda came out fresh! We set up their drying rack in the sun and laid all the laundry out to dry. Soon other friends of the Russells began arriving, the children all ran around playing in and out of the house and the party was suddenly in full swing. 
Everyone gathered around the table for brunch - most of the kids at the kitchen table and everyone else in the dining room. The Russells had more friends over: a couple from church, a lovely woman with a precious little baby boy, and two other pretty southern belles, all in great spirits and enjoying the day. The table was piled high with french toast, fruit and bacon, thanks to our amazing and coordinated chef, Julie, with a little help from her friends. After her husband Thomas led a prayer of thanks, everyone dug in and enjoyed the feast and the company.
The kids played outside for a bit (there was a swings/playground and a sprinkler) but as it got warmer shifted mostly to playing inside.
The southerners stayed inside away from the heat, only slipping out briefly to check the eclipse's progress. Mike and I stayed outside for longer stretches, listening to a themed playlist and fiddling with filtered glasses on the porch as a dark sliver of sky encroached on the white ball of fire. A few light clouds came and went, outlined in glory, adding to the beauty of the sky. The sliver over time grew into a curve of its own as the sun passed behind the moon, turning the sun into a smaller and smaller crescent. The air started getting cooler and the glare of our surroundings died down. 
By the time the sun was down to a fingernail everyone had moved out to the front yard, chatting animatedly. A joke was made that a yard without fire ants would triple the house value as indeed these and other bugs were everywhere. We took off our shoes anyway. Although we all had filtered glasses, we made a pinhole in a piece of paper and focused the crescent of the sun on another piece of paper. Indeed, the eclipse made crescents everywhere the sun could slip through a tiny opening inside and out (leaves, blinds, etc).
As the eclipse was close to totality, we looked down as instructed and were delighted to see ripples of light and shadow chasing across the ground, called "shadow snakes" that we could see best on the sidewalk, pieces of paper, and a light colored sheet. As the shadow snakes disappeared, the music of the bugs intensified and everything faded around us as the last diamond glint of the sun shone and slipped behind the sky colored shape of the moon. We all cheered and squealed in ecstasy. The neighbor's dogs all went and laid down quietly. With the sun hidden, we felt a refreshingly cool breeze after the blazing summer heat of the midday we had been experiencing. Suddenly swathed in darkness, we took off the glasses and gazed at the sky, awestruck at the sight of the swirling corona surrounding a circle of sky that was the moon.
Too soon, the shadow became a glint and quickly the sun's warmth returned as the opposite crescent appeared, the shadow snakes reappeared for a short while, birds began to chatter as if it were morning, the dogs got back up and started moving around, and the trance was broken.
The rest of the day we rested for a bit from being in the sun, had pizza for dinner, and at dusk our family went for a walk down to a graveyard by a nearby church. In the neighborhood the houses were mostly ranches, with a few palms and other shrubs, and many very tall pine trees, under which no vegetation grows and the ground is covered in needles and pieces of pine cones. Once poke-stops were twirled and children were ready to go back, we turned and headed back home as the darkness of actual evening slowly covered us.

Eclipse Vacation - Sunday

Mike and I woke around 6, before the kids, and could see a sunrise out the sliding glass door spanning the back wall of the apartment.
Robin and Josh's apartment felt like a hotel room, clean and everything in just the right place to maximize space, and a balcony with a 3rd floor view. It was decorated with love, and the surfaces were covered with encouraging affirmations and verses. No television, but a desk, couch, table and chairs made it fully furnished and practical.
Mike and I set to work folding and packing. We had breakfast as people woke up, a mishmash of eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, and bananas. In a hurry to get out the door, I spoon-fed Fiona the rest of her yogurt (bad idea because she wasn't really that hungry) and we made several elevator trips to bring bedding and bags to the car. We locked up, got everyone in their seats, and started out around 8:30 a.m.
Less than 2 hours out, in Virginia, we decide to bypass the highway and take Route 1 to avoid some traffic. Before we knew it, Fiona's breakfast, mostly pink sweet flavored yogurt, had made its way back the way it came. (I seem to recall that happening to both Derek and Elinor at around the same age in the car.) It got all over her, the seat, and the stuffed panda. We pulled into a 7-Eleven and immediately began to wipe the contents of her stomach off the seat. Mike took Fiona into the icky-smelling bathroom to wipe her down, rinse her clothes, and replace them with clean ones.
When I had wiped the seat off as best I could with water and paper towels, I put a used cotton shirt on the seat to soak up the rest and a plastic bag to sit on. I went back in while Mike got the kids all back into the car, and bought the girls each a small bottle of bug juice, and bottled water for Derek since they had had nothing to drink since leaving Maryland. The next several hours of driving were then punctuated frequently with potty stops, and the trip stretched longer and longer.
At one point we ate lunch in the car, raisin bread with butter spread made soupy by the heat for the girls and butter-hummus-turkey sandwiches for Mike and I (surprisingly good).
One of the stops was a huge gaudy Mexican themed conglomeration of buildings called South of the Border. There were billboards for miles around advertising the place. It included a truck stop, restaurant, a defunct amusement park, mini golf, a conference center, and more. I found it rather creepy and dilapidated and was happy to move on from there.
Between stops I managed to watch the rest of the available episodes of Dr. Who and read half of a book. The kids occupied themselves with tablets, and gameboy, often resorting to whining or provoking everyone else in the car. For the last 3 hours of the trip the complaining escalated. We got a reprieve for about an hour while Derek fell asleep, but had to wake him for another bathroom stop.
We did not arrive in time for a church service, and found a trendy looking place called "Cook Out" where between us we ordered a variety of fast food, including BBQ Pork, a cajun chicken sandwich, fries, chicken nuggets, corn dog, cole slaw, and finally hush puppies. Mike decided they were basically the same batter as onion rings and everyone seemed to like them.
We brought what was left on to the Russells' house about 10 minutes away. We were met by delighted greetings and tromped in with all our things. Elinor played shy but as the two oldest Russell children were still up they immediately ingratiated themselves and began playing vigorously. We spent some time catching up and eating popcorn and hush puppies.
After some time we decided to scurry along to bed. Derek slept on the couch in the den. The rest of us shared the school room. Mike and I slept on a comfortable futon, while Elinor got to sleep on an air mattress. Fiona had a hard time staying put and I found myself sleeping for most of the night on the air mattress next to both girls. Early in the morning I snuck back to my husband for the last few moments before the girls woke up. 

Eclipse Vacation - Saturday

We woke at a normal time, but did not sleep long enough. We poured cereal before realizing there was no milk. My sister, Lydia, came home from work (she is a nurse and often works nights) as we went out to the car to get a change of clothes. Mike brought the clothes up and I left to find a grocery store to buy milk. Only a few yards from my turn I glanced at the gps to see what the next turn was. In the brief second I wasn't paying attention to the road, the car jumped the curb which shredded the tire. I pulled into a parking lot. All the parking was marked "reserved" so I went to the back of the lot. Turned out a tire place was a block away, so I drove the car on the rim to Mr. Tire.
After I parked, Mike met me at Mr. Tire in Lydia's car. The cashier looked up the information and showed us the available tires. We agreed on a tire and left to grab some groceries. At Safeway, we meandered around the store. Having missed breakfast, we loaded the cart with $50 of food. As we checked out I stepped on a squashed grape and got my shoe sticky. I took my shoes off and jogged to the back of the store to clean them, while the tire store left a message saying they did not have the model we selected in stock so they could not start installing yet. A more expensive tire was authorized. I ran to get more kombucha since we would have to wait longer.
(Derek had a runny nose for a couple days and my throat was starting to feel funny. The store had a nice ACV - turmeric - ginger - kombucha tonic, Kevita brand.)
I of course forgot to use the coupon. By then I did not feel like going back in. We stopped back at Target to get something for Lydia, then headed back to the tire place. As soon as they informed me the tire is installed, it turned out it also needs an alignment, another $100+, bringing the total well over $300. Total spent for a half gallon of milk, about $400. I hope I have learned the lesson about distracted driving!
Once the alignment was done we headed back home, had breakfast, and the kids returned from their walk with their aunt. The kids debated staying to swim but I had made plans to go to the MD Science Center in Baltimore with friends I met through a mutual friend on Facebook, a cousin of Tim, one of my friends from college and their family. Already running late, we finally packed everyone back in the car and headed north. The parking garage was easy to find. From there we walked a bit along the harbor in the glaring hot sun to the museum.
We had an excellent experience at the museum. In advance we had joined a local museum in order to get the reciprocal admission so we only had to pay for Fiona's admission. Once we found our friends (Cindi, Adam and their two little ones, Zoe and Keeva), we started going around to exhibits.
At the entrance, there was a weight attached to a rope that, when pulled and released, pushed a column of air through tubes vaulting a tennis ball high in the air. At the next exhibit, a seat was attached to a rope, which went up over a pulley and back so that you could raise yourself in the air. The kids were not quite strong enough to lift themselves but with help enjoyed going up and down. In the exhibit about the human body, there was a station where you would lay down flat on your back, and the assistant slowly raised a bed of spikes to lift you off the surface. Another station showed an imagine while you listened to normal noises, then asked you to notice what your biochemical reactions would be to a sudden alarming noise. My vision became unfocused and it made me want to look around to see what was going on. It was supposed to increase your heart rate too.
We then waited in line for a planetarium show. The show was about solar storms on the sun. The show included some really awesome supercomputer models visualizing how the solar flares happen and the role the electromagnetic fields play. Fiona had a hard time sitting still.
After the show we became a bit separated from each other. Some of the group went to the observatory on the roof and others either went to the bathroom or wandered around the dark outer space theme exhibit.
We explored a number of other exhibits. There were interactive activities about energy and power including a hand powered pump compared to an electric pump, and a hand powered generator providing energy to different uses. We watched a very interesting demonstration using liquid nitrogen and what happens when things get very cold, while the girls ate granola bars.
Eventually we made our way to an exhibit about various physics/engineering concepts: how gears work, a ping pong ball catapault with various angles, a tennis ball machine that you rotate the angle of a table to aim the bouncing balls, a paper airplane making activity and machine that launched the finished planes, and a bunch of hard foam building blocks. Derek had a cage constructed around him with blocks. We got it as tall as possible and then recorded a video of him breaking out of it. during the video, Fiona moved back towards him and the top of the tower narrowly missed her as it fell.
There was a demonstration about explosions (need ignition, air and fuel) where hydrogen filled balloons were exploded with a candle. Then we looked through the dinosaur exhibit, and wrangled the kids out the door back into the glaring sunlight. There was so much going on outside - a pirate ship, various food vendors, retail fronts, a granite ball held up by water jets in front if Ripley's Believe it or Not, street musicians and performers. The girls could not help but start dancing to the music as we moved through the crowds back to the garage.
We then drove to my sister Robin's apartment where we found many of my siblings and my parents - Becky, Robin, Josh, Russ and Ray all showed up. We enjoyed some tasty chili Robin made and corny cornbread from my mom. Then we spent the evening playing games and hanging out with my family.
After hanging out for a while, my extended family left Robin's, dinner was cleaned up, Josh and Robin took all the loaned chairs to their car and they left to spend the night at Josh's grandparents' house.
We set up sleeping places for all the kids in the small but homey apartment. Mike and I got to sleep in Josh and Robin's bed; there was a wall between the sleeping area and the rest of the apartment. The apartment is technically a studio. Derek slept on the couch, Fiona slept on the floor in front of the couch, and Elinor slept under the table.

Eclipse Vacation - Friday

I cooked up kale (fresh from a colleague's garden) with butter, raisins, and herbs for breakfast and packed most of the rest for lunch. My work day dragged on for what seemed like forever. My colleagues attempted to jovially express how much I would be missed next week, how could they survive without me? They do lean on me a good deal; it was hard all around to set aside the time for a vacation.
I floundered through my work; I was struggling through a challenging project, trying to put something together without having all the information I needed to paint the whole picture. I started taking the stress out on my fingernails as my confidence wavered. I kept at it until about 4:00 when I gave up the ghost and said my goodbyes.
I headed home and rounded up the rest of the things for the trip. Having packed my bag, there was also bedding and munchies to bring along. Leaving the house the way it was so we could get going, we began driving down 84 at about 5:45pm, Mike at the wheel.
The kids got tired of the tablet quickly (no wifi and they found out our 1-year subscription to the unlimited games and apps that came with the tablet had ended) and became silly, provoking each other to giggles and squeals. We set up the route on google maps, up over the Tappen Zee, circumventing NYC and skipping most of NJ by travelling through PA by way of Allentown, through York on 83, then as usual through MD.
Along the way, we stopped to pick up two medium handmade "pan" pizzas from Dominos in Bedford NY around 8 after we realized snacks wouldn't be enough. The sprinkle changed to a downpour while I paid for the food. A delivery guy ran in holding a pizza cover over his head. "Nice umbrella!" I quipped. I dashed to the car clutching our prize.
Doughy crusts, hot from the oven - one hamburger and pepperoni and one ham and pineapple. Wary about the ham and pineapple at first, the kids hungrily dove in. The pizza was enough for all with some left over.
We drove on, stopping briefly for bathroom stops and gas. The girls and I watched a few Dr. Who episodes. At the last stop about 2 hours from our destination we discovered Elinor had hives on her leg. Concerned, there was little I could do and the convenience store did not carry Benadryl so I slathered lavender oil on it and bundled everyone back in the car amidst dark, heavy fog laden with unidentifiable poisons.
The lovely smell of the essential oil and late hour soothed the children all into a deep slumber. I stayed mostly awake but drowsy the rest of the drive. We arrived at my sister Lydia's apartment about quarter to two in the night, swathed in fog. We all tumbled out of the car and brought our things up several flights of stairs. The door was left unlocked for us and with little fanfare we quietly settled in. Derek and Elinor slept on the couches and Mike, Fiona and I crashed on a blanket on the carpeted floor.

The Power of Negative Thinking

Doubting. It's in our nature. Do you ever stop to think about the impact fear and doubt have on your own life and the lives of others? Fear and doubt are powerful forces: crippling, overwhelming, blinding, and rarely leading to a positive outcome.

Ego teaches us the lie that self is the ultimate authority, both the means and the ends to meet our goal. Humanity teaches us that we're born into a community for a reason - we are not meant to do "it" alone. The inner spirit teaches us that relationships matter - that "how" you go about something matters as much as (sometimes more than) "what" the end result is.

I get it - it's hard to trust people. It's hard to admit that someone else's way might be as equally valid as the way that you feel personally comfortable with. If you might, for once, step back and consider that the person you are dealing with is a human being, that they are intelligent and credible, and that maybe you could give them a chance. 

Do you realize that what you do and say without considering how it impacts the other person(s) outside yourself could break someone's spirit? If you defeat someone and crush their confidence every. single. time. they came to you for feedback or worked on something with you, if you never tell them they do a good job, if you never come down to their level to learn together, if you always insist you are right, how can you expect that person then to reciprocate and value YOUR opinion, trust YOU? You will get in return FEAR and RESENTMENT, not RESPECT, and you will certainly not gain a friend. People will feel like they have to tiptoe around you. Everything you work on with others will be a fight and a struggle - and in reality there are no winners in a battleground.

None of us are completely independent of other humans. It can be intimidating to put yourself in a position where you are vulnerable, where you admit that you actually NEED the other people in your life, you embrace that the wellbeing, confidence, growth, and happiness of other people MATTER, that they are valuable and precious. It is worth it. The people around you will enjoy working with and being with you; they will speak well of you in and out of your presence. They will surprise you by how they live up to their potential and make you proud. Want a full, meaningful life? Give others around you a chance. Listen to them. Encourage them. Give someone else the benefit of the doubt. Let someone else be the hero - you'll both win.