Watching the 11 PM news on Christmas Days as the last minutes of the Christmas Spirit Season ticked away had me pondering the concept of generosity and what generosity truly incorporates and embodies.

In the 2 – 3 weeks before Christmas the news was full of reports of “generosity”. Christmas Day the television news had video and stories of the homeless and hungry being served their Christmas dinner. The front page of the local paper had a picture and story of Christmas dinner being served, with the local politicians et al photographed demonstrating their “generosity” by serving meals to the homeless and poor.

On Boxing Day bringing out cookies brought groans of “oh no – more food” from the homeless who have been so stuffed with food over the past few weeks, their stomachs are full to the point they have no room even for sweets.

The homeless have also faced the “generosity” of being given so many gifts that they need a pack mule to carry everything around with them.

Yet as we move into the New Year of 2009 the homeless and poor will be hungry and in need of gifts once again, but alas “out of luck”. Until the 2009 Christmas Spirit Season opens again and “generosity” is once more a required must do.

So what is generosity? Is serving Christmas dinner or donating a gift to a Christmas bureau generosity?

Or is true generosity something that lives within a person, practiced and reflected in that person’s behaviour 365 days a year – not something switched on for the three weeks before Christmas and put away on the day after Christmas – Boxing Day, the High Holiday of Greed.

Consider that the politicians photographed serving Christmas dinner to the homeless have the ability to take the lead in ending homelessness. Yet year after year they have chosen to make excuses, shuffle paper, point fingers – but not to bestir themselves to create a single bed for the homeless or to provide leadership to end homelessness.

Ponder the question of whether loading the homeless down with gifts to the point they cannot carry it all is generosity or thoughtless behaviour? Would it not be more beneficial to the homeless if this largess was spread out over time? Of course that is neither as publicly visible nor as easy, requiring time and effort beyond the Christmas season generosity window.

One of the casualties of having embraced greed as the economic, operational and philosophical base for our society is having lost the understanding of what generosity is; as we become more self-centred and significantly less generous, except where required or it is politically correct.

What type of society we want for ourselves, our children and our children’s children?

Do we want to continue to have the kind of society we have built with greed as the economic, operational and philosophical underpinnings?

Or do we want to nurture the flickering flame of generosity into an incandescence that lights and enlightens our society?

Generosity does exist, lived and practice by some members of our community.

One of the meals served on Christmas Day was on a small bit of parkland on Gladys Avenue. It was a little late being served because it was first necessary to bring in a front end loader to clear the snow in order to be able to set up the tables, chairs and serve the food.

While this meal was served on Christmas Day it was not served because it was Christmas Day but because it was Thursday and Christmas just happened to land on a Thursday this year. There is a group of individuals who have been serving dinner on Thursday nights come sun, rain or snow.

Ironically, in light of the season, they were serving food to the homeless in the snow and cold because none of the three organizations calling themselves Christian in the area are willing to allow them to use their premises, for the winter months only, to provide shelter from the weather to the people being served dinner.

Ironic that with all the cries about the need to keep Christ in Christmas it seems to have been forgotten, or the understanding lost, that it is not about one day or even a short-lived season but about keeping Christ and the spirit of generosity alive in our hearts and behaviour through the entire year.

As the blank pages of the New Year unfold, what will you choose to write upon those pages in 2009?