Giving

Max and I make most of our donations at the end of the year, to coincide with Hanukkah. More and more it seems that the places we really feel need our money do not count as "charitable," for example, the ACLU. Or Digby, who needs some cash to keep his blogging flowing. I read this article recently on giving, and hope the quotes I'm sharing here, from a gay episcopalian bishop, will help Biscuit readers with their own giving:

Guilt is a terrible reason for giving, but gratitude is an extraordinary reason for giving. I don't care what religion you are or if you have no religion at all. The spiritual health of your soul is measured by how blessed you feel.

There are two kinds of giving, but I like to think of it as downstream giving and upstream giving. It's not enough to pull the drowning victims out of the river, you need to walk back upstream and find out who's throwing them in. So there's both downstream-giving that actually takes care of victims of oppression. And then there's upstream-giving -- walking back upstream to do justice and to promote systemic change to find the underlying causes that are causing all this.

When you're wondering if you're giving enough, I have this theory. You have to give enough to get your soul's attention. So my rule of thumb is when you're writing out the check, if you don't get a lump in your throat, it's not big enough. You have to put enough zeros down to get your soul's attention, to remind yourself how really blessed you are and how you really don't need all this money.