Transformation
Learning to listen
The Giving Gifts started out by seeing a need that was not being met and a deep desire to listen & value the voices that are not being heard.
The Giving Gifts Podcast is really a reflection of just that. To really hear a story and a perspective that may not be heard or considered otherwise. I say this often, there are so many voices in this world that sometimes it is difficult to really know which ones to listen to. With all of the noise, it is challenging to hear the voices that are not competing to be heard and in reality, it is those voices and those stories that I truly believe need to be shared and heard. J Kameron Carter said this at a conference and I couldn’t tell you anything else I remember from the whole conference but this one quote has really stuck with me.
“You do not change your mind from someone arguing, yelling, or telling you that you’re wrong, you change your mind when you learn to really listen and hear a perspective that you had not yet considered.”
Learning to give & receive
If the Giving Gifts is going to be a movement that values transformation than we must become people who value both giving and receiving.
It is so common in nonprofit/ministry culture to be on one side or the other. To give time, money, resources, etc. without any expectation of receiving, or learning, or changing….or to be the receiver, to accept a handout, to feel the weight of charity, to be a poster child of neediness and have nothing really to give.
Transformation looks like learning to give AND receive, it’s that BOTH/AND mentality. It’s recognizing that we really do need one another and that giving is not greater than receiving or vice versa, transformation happens when both are experienced and valued.
Remaining open & Curious
There is just so much about one another and the gifts we each have that have yet to be explored or discovered. Just imagine all of the possibilities that have yet to be considered. Transformation happens when we remain open and curious about one another.
In hopes that we may be people who…
Who learn to value transformation. It is transformation that calls out of our comfort zone, out of our little safe spaces, out of our go-to behaviors. The reason transformation is a value for The Giving Gifts is because it really is a reflection of every other value coming together.
The hope is that we may be people who are transformed by diversity, seeing the beauty in all of the differences throughout this world.
Transformed by relationships, by each other, by story, by impact.
Transformed by connection, in a world that feels so disconnected that we actually have the gift to create connection.
Transformed in a way that is sustainable. You know, it’s one thing to change your mind once and then never change it again…it’s another thing to be constantly in a state of transformation that sustains…that equips us as humans to care for one another and for really for this world.
SOMETHING TO CONSIDER…
In what areas of your own life right now are you open to transformation? Are you open to really learning to listen? Are you open to giving AND receiving? Do you find yourself remaining open & curious? What’s challenging about this for you?