Where Are Our Conversational Partners? 

“Humility is a rare virtue and an unfashionable one and one which is often hard to discern,” the novelist and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, wrote several decades ago. “Only rarely does one meet somebody in whom it positively shines, in whom one apprehends with amazement the absence of the avaricious tentacles of the self.”

Amid all the talk about generosity as the defining mark of the “good” giver, we want to offer two cheers for the rarely considered but important companion virtue of humility. Often the most gifted givers know the limit of their own knowledge and the consequent need to learn from others. They catch glimpses of their own parochialism by listening carefully to givers with quite different perspectives and priorities. These people are moving toward extricating themselves from the “avaricious tentacles of the self.”

Yet how can that happen apart from sustained conversations with other givers? Where does one find those companions and the occasions for learning with and from them?

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Rather Talk About Their Sex Lives Than Their Finances?

In one of his several books where he explores “giving as a private matter,” Robert Wuthnow, a Princeton sociologist, tells the story of a Mennonite pastor who was perplexed about the reticence of his parishioners to talk about money. “I don’t know if it is just Mennonites or everyone, but they’d rather talk about their sex lives than their finances.”

One of your hosts has heard that same statement – a half-joke masking a covert complaint – at diverse clergy conclaves across the country. The only change in the joke is the denominational affiliation. But the point is always the same: open explorations about giving and money seem to be as much an invasion of privacy as sex-oriented talk once was.

How do you explain this response? In the “Resource” section, we will suggest various readings that may help you answer that question. But right now, take a moment and think about the question.