CREEDE HINSHAW: How do you rank your giving and receiving this season?

Hanukkah is here and Christmas is around the corner, both occasions for gift giving, although a lesser emphasis of the eight-day Hanukkah festival. Even so the Internet advises not to wrap Hanukkah gifts in Christmas paper and a radio show asks, “Is it better to give eight small Hanukkah gifts or one large gift?” (I never heard the answer.)

The complexities of gift giving remind me of the 12th century Jewish physician and scholar Miamonides who ranked 8 levels of charitable giving. Miamonides’ scale had nothing to do with Hanukkah or Christmas gifts; his hierarchy describes giving to persons in need. The lowest level is a gift given grudgingly while the highest level enables a person to stand without need for further gifts.

Miamonides’ second highest level is when the giver and receiver do not know each other. While this will not apply to most Christmas/Hanukkah gifts, opportunities abound this season and year for anonymous generosity, though one must overcome the urge to gain adulation, praise or influence by gift giving.

Two examples: My brother in Michigan arrived at a tennis facility early to pay the cashier in advance for his tennis buddies. He secretly hoped the cashier would tell his friends that he was the giver. To my brother’s puzzlement not a single friend thanked him and he wondered whether the cashier had just waved his friends through without fanfare. Next he wondered whether to tell his friends himself and finally he remembered the words of another wise Jew – Jesus – that when it comes to giving we shouldn’t let the right hand know what the left is doing.

I recently had a similar experience. I had dragged an excessive amount of branches to the curb for the city workers to haul off, a chore that took strenuous effort on their part. Wanting to give these faceless, nameless public servants a gift I called the solid waste office for some advice, a conversation they’ve apparently rarely had. After some deliberation and eventual approval from a higher authority we agreed that I would bring a couple of platters of deli cookies (from a local grocery bakery) that would then be given to the workers.

I felt good about this plan, but almost immediately wanted credit – from almost anybody. It was all I could do to resist telling the grocery cashier why I was buying the cookies. Then it was all I could do to resist affixing my name and address to each platter to get in good with the department. I successfully resisted both temptations. And now I’ve written about it in the newspaper and wondered if I did the whole thing so I could write a column, a clear sign I was over-analyzing my motives.

Can we out-think ourselves about generosity? Of course. Do our gifts come with (major or minor) strings attached or expectations anticipated? Probably. Should this stop us from practicing generosity? Surely not. How do you rank your giving and receiving this season? Would your put your impulses at the lower or higher end of the generosity scale?

Creede Hinshaw is a retired Methodist minister living in Macon.