Insight from an Ordinary Dad: Teaching the Spirit of Giving

Here I am again, “writing” this column in my mind. This time I’m shouldering through my closet, scraping hangers across the bar while deciding which shirts to toss onto the pile.

By pile I mean the clothes we are getting ready to donate.

Have I worn this in the last year? If not, donate it. That’s my rule

I try to be a simple person. I don’t mean simple-minded.  (Although my closest friends and family might argue that point.) I mean I try to live simply.

As in not having too many possessions. And trying not to be a person who values possessions to the point I measure my self-worth on the amount of “toys” and shiny things and fancy devices I’ve accumulated.

And thanks be to God, I’m seeing that attitude rubbing off ever so slightly on our boys.

My wife came up with this idea while the boys were still young that each year before Christmas we clean out the toyboxes, game closets, and yes, clothes closets to make room for the new things we’re about to get under the tree. New things in, unused things out.

Sometimes we do the same thing throughout the year at random times too. We went a little hog wild buying souvenirs at Universal Studios and finding deals at outlet stores last fall break, which means it’s time for a purging now that we’re back home. Which is also why I’m digging through my closet.

Thankfully, our boys have embraced the idea and have come to expect the clean-out-to-donate-what-we-don’t-use-anymore routine. They’ve even gotten creative with it.  Beau (8) decided to donate some old character costumes to our former preschool for kids to play dress up with. Which the director was more than thrilled to get and gave us a thank you card with photos of the kids dressed as the characters. It was Luke’s idea (10) to donate all the Toy Story characters and toys to our friends’ son, Phillip, who is three and obsessed with Buzz and Woody right now. Phillip’s mom says he didn’t let go of Buzz Lightyear for three days.

Once they got used to the idea of donating things to people we do know (and can see the result of their giving), we got them used to donating to people they don’t know (and therefore will not see the recipients). Because most of the time we donate to St. Vincent DePaul and Goodwill. Now, if you ask our boys why, they’ll tell you it’s because the money the store makes from selling our stuff goes to help other boys and girls who don’t have the amount of toys and clothes we do. And it also allows those who can’t afford to pay full price a chance to buy cool stuff. Win-win.

Going through our toyboxes and closets sometimes hurts too (not physically, but emotionally, except for the time I stepped on a Lego, but that’s neither here nor there), which is a great teaching lesson as well. Sometimes it hurts to give. It’s called sacrifice.

But usually a blessing comes back around because of that sacrifice. And that’s the lesson I have a hard time verbalizing because I don’t want to insinuate that the reason we give is to receive. That gets a little tricky.  We don’t give in order to get. We donate because it’s a better use of our unwanted stuff than just throwing it away.

Not to get too carried away or over complicate things, but we don’t give because it makes us feel good, either. Giving to others does feel good, but that’s a result; it should not be our motivation. Because again, if we’re giving because of what we get, the focus is back on ourselves, not the receiver.

These are hard concepts for an 8 and 10-year-old to fully understand, but the core concept – we give because it’s the right thing to do – is there.

Some of the sting of giving away and letting go of things we used to love a lot can also be softened when seen through the perspective of stewardship. When seen from a faith perspective, if we believe everything comes from God, that means all our stuff is really His in the first place. And since we can’t take it with us, it goes back to Him in the end. We’re just borrowing these things while we’re here.

If it was a blessing to me, it can be a blessing to someone else.

And the same can be said of time as well. As in donating and giving our time to others. As far as donating money goes, another one of our family traditions is taking a gift tag off the “angel tree” at church during Advent. Each little tag has a child’s age, gender, and toy suggestion. We take one for each of our boys and let them shop for the gift, wrap it, and bring it back to church the next week so the gifts can be delivered right before Christmas.

In my humble opinion, the spirit of giving should permeate our whole lives. The best explanation I’ve heard of stewardship, or giving of our gifts, is the three T’s: time, talent, and treasure.  We do it in small ways as a family. But now that I’m thinking about it, since our boys are growing up, it’s probably time for our giving to increase a bit too.

But for now, I’ve got a pile of clothes to take to St. Vincent’s and it’s time to check on the box of toys collecting in the living room as the boys are making room for their Harry Potter stuff.