On Strength and Giving
by Kent Nerburn • Minnesota

Excerpted with permission from Simple Truths: Clear & Gentle Guidance on the Big Issues in Life, 2005, New World Library, Novato, CA.

We each have different kinds of strength. Some of us are able to persevere against hopeless odds. Some are able to see light in a world of darkness. Some are able to give selflessly with no thought of return, while others are able to bring a sense of importance into the hearts of those around them.

But no matter how we exhibit strength, its truest measure is the calm and certain conviction with which it causes us to act. It is the ability to discern the path with heart, and follow it even at moments we might wish to be doing something else. True strength is not about force, but about conviction. It lives at the center of belief where fear and uncertainty cannot gain a foothold. Its opposite is not cowardice and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity and lack of sound intention.

True strength does not require an adversary and does not see itself as noble or heroic. It simply does what it must without praise or need of recognition.

A person who can quietly stay at home and care for an ailing parent is as strong as a person who can climb a mountain. A person who can stand up for a principle is as strong as a person who can fend off an army. They simply have quieter, less dramatic kinds of strength.

True strength does not magnify others’ weaknesses. It makes others stronger. If someone’s strength makes others feel weaker, it is merely domination, and that is no strength at all.

Take care to find your own true strength. Nurture it. Develop it. Share it with those around you. Let it become a light for those who are living in darkness. Remember, strength based in force is a strength people fear. Strength based in love is a strength people crave. And strength combined with giving is even greater.

Giving is a miracle that can transform the heaviest of hearts. Two people, who moments before lived in separate worlds of private concerns, suddenly meet each other over a simple act of sharing. The world expands, a moment of goodness is created, and something new comes into being where before there was nothing.

Too often we are blind to this everyday miracle. We build our lives around accumulation– of money, of possessions, of status– as a way of protecting ourselves and our families from the vagaries of the world. Without thinking, we begin to see giving as an economic exchange– a subtracting of something from who and what we are– and we weigh it on the scales of self-interest.

But true giving is not an economic exchange; it is a generative act. It does not subtract from what we have; it multiplies the effect we can have in the world.

Many people tend to think of giving only in terms of grand gestures. They miss the simple openings of the heart that can be practiced anywhere, with almost anyone.

We can say hello to someone everybody ignores. We can offer to help a neighbor. We can buy a bouquet of flowers and take it to a nursing home, or spend an extra minute talking to someone who needs our time.

We can take ten dollars out of our pocket and give it to someone on the street. No praise, no hushed tones of holy generosity. Just give, smile and walk away.

If you perform these simple acts, little by little you will start to understand the miracle of giving. You will begin to see the unprotected human heart and the honest smiles of human happiness. You will start to feel what is common among us, not what separates and differentiates us.

Before long you will discover that you have the power to create joy and happiness by your simplest gestures of caring and compassion. You will see that you have the power to unlock the goodness in other people’s hearts by sharing the goodness in yours.

And, most of all, you will find the other givers. No matter where you live or where you travel, whether you speak their language or know their names, you will know them by their small acts, and they will recognize you by yours. You will become part of the community of humanity that trusts and shares and dares to reveal the softness of its heart.

Once you become a giver, you will never be alone.

Kent Nerburn is an author, sculptor and educator who has been deeply involved in Native American issues and education. Nerburn is also the author of Letters to My Son, a book of essays written as a gift to his son and Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads, winner of the Minnesota Book Award for 1995. He lives with his wife, Louise, and their son Nik, in Northern Minnesota. His website is www.kentnerburn.com.