Visions of Giving: Our Intent

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"Those who think they 'know' from the beginning will never, in fact, come to know anything. We do not want to begin as beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life."

Father Thomas Merton wrote these words in 1969 about prayer. What he said about prayer applies equally well, we believe, to the art of giving. At least the hosts for this conversation - Robert Wood Lynn and D. Susan Wisely - know that "we will never be anything else but beginners." The more we know about the mysteries of giving, the more we come to understand how little we know about it.

Here are some of the convictions that will inform our work as hosts in this conversation about giving:

	This great human art offers all of us occasions to examine the depth of whatever faith we confess, the reach of our hopes and our capacity to love. It may also reveal what it is that we see or don't see.
	Sometimes we learn the most from those with whom we differ. John Stuart Mills once suggested an unusual prayer: "Lord, enlighten thou our enemies; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions...and clearness to their reasoning powers; We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom: their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength." Although Mills was not given to prayer, he believed that everyone of a settled persuasion needed the pressure of criticism if they were ever to face up to the weakness and complacency inherent in their own position.
	So it is with us and so it is - we venture to guess - with those joining in this conversation. Few of us can fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of our own perspectives on giving without encountering others with sharply different views.
	Those encounters can occur in two ways: You can also explore the Resources. These Resources will introduce you to some of the continuities of conflict so evident in the story of American thinking about giving. You can convene your own Study Group for conversations about giving.
	Our contributions, such as they are, will come mostly in the form of questions and puzzles that strike us as suggestive and evocative of good conversations. In the past the topic of giving has often aroused deeply buried anxiety and therefore the need for certitude and the comfort of knowing that one is right. We hope this conversation will be different. In the words of theologian David Tracy, "A conversation is a rare phenomenon. It is not a confrontation. It is not a debate. It is not an exam. It is questioning itself.