Community Spirit and the Gift Economy

While interviewing Heather and Mike for a research project that aims to gain insight into how Thames, a small coastal town at the base of the Coromandel Peninsula, works as a place to live and work, we discovered how important a healthy gift economy is for community spirit. As we investigated further, we began to see how the generosity of locals could be exploited by extractive corporate practices that they may not be aware of.

Value of Generosity

What is the value of generosity in bringing a community to life?

I once heard that the foundation of an authentic spiritual community is generosity. To be given to, like someone cared or even thought about you, lifts the spirit and opens the heart to love. To give because you care and think this will help someone also lifts the spirit and allows the heart to express its love. The value of generosity is not in the transaction but in the very foundations of relationships based on love. A community that can give and receive love is wonderful to be among and be part of.

Healthy Relating

There are many different types of relationships and ways of relating in a community. What makes them healthy? Why is a sense of care important?

Friendship is based on two generous spirits taking great pleasure in giving and receiving. A good friend knows you well, and with a bit of thought and reflection, knows what to give to help cheer you up, get you excited, and bring out your best. Good friends are rare and often hide in plain sight. It is silly to take them for granted. Shower them regularly with appreciation or gifts, whatever their love language is.

Good friendships among a few or many, along with healthy families, are the basis for a generous and spirited community. Being part of a friendship group around an activity that brings greater value not just to its members' lives but to the life of the wider community is the key to living a meaningful life.

Awesome Opportunities

What are examples of opportunities that facilitate giving? How do you find out which ones have the greatest effect locally?

Casting an eye over the activities happening in your town or neighbourhood, many opportunities present themselves for both giving and receiving. Both giving and receiving are necessary; to do otherwise stops the nutrient flow of love and care circulating around the community and going to places where it may be most needed at times. This means it is worth consciously considering where to give and where to receive. Often, for the sake of convenience, we will ring the Sallies to pick up some of our old furniture. It’s a free service, and they probably do some good in the community, like addiction recovery, but they also send some of that ‘gifted’ money elsewhere. There might be an alternative, like a recycle centre, that also sells furniture to raise money for protecting the local environment and sponsoring local projects. What you support is up to you, and it will have an effect on the community and the local economy over time. Just think about who you are giving to and whether it is in the best interests of what you truly value.

Great Spirit

What is a great community spirit, and why is it attractive to both locals and visitors?

Great spirit comes from great challenges. Towns with a great community spirit are those that have faced some form of adversity, like a natural disaster. Flooding, earthquakes, fires, and cyclones regularly come to mind in New Zealand. What is not seen are some of the great challenges all communities face, like local drug dealing activity that has led to a recent spate of burglaries by meth addicts, unstable economic conditions like rising petrol and diesel prices at the pumps, or a lack of good-quality food and the loss of the ability to grow your own, leading to a high level of dependence on external supply chains. A sense of helplessness and hopelessness arises in me around some of these issues. I just don’t know what to do or how to help. So I ask, would a great community spirit help with these unseen bits? It could, but I have never been part of such a community. I believe it would need to highly value self-sufficiency and self-determination.

Summary

New Zealand’s communities were built upon a pioneering culture where we had to rely on each other and the spirit of our fellows' generosity to get things done, survive, and grow. As local services are substituted for more efficient, convenient, and cost-effective alternatives, most often provided by external sources, our way of healthy relating has also been substituted, predominantly valuing the transaction i.e the bargain. This has led to many communities losing a sense of community spirit and neighbourly love.

Call to Action

What is the call to action? Practice generosity through your friendships and friendship groups. This is an indirect way of working on the challenges and issues communities face that will rebuild their spirit over time. Working indirectly by evolving the culture of the community is about working systemically, and you may just find some of these issues and challenges get quite unexpectedly and naturally dissolved.