May Sarton on Generosity

“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” Annie Dillard wrote in her beautiful essay on generosity. “You open your safe and find ashes.” I feel this truth deeply, daily — for nearly two decades of offering these writings freely, I have lived by the generosity of strangers.

It is especially gratifying to perpetuate the spirit of generosity if you have arrived at the ability to do so by way of struggle and privation. No one takes more joy in giving than those who come ...