My 3-year-old grandson walks over to his 1-month-old sister, picks up her hand, wraps her tiny fingers into a fist and reaches out his clenched hand to give her a little fist bump. Then he kisses her on the head and runs off to play Spiderman. She does not yet know his name or who he is and yet his small acts of love are shaping her life already. Psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas says “We learn the grammar of our being before we learn language.”
Neuroscientists tell us that during the first year of life, an infant forms 10 million new synaptic connections per second. Then the brain begins a pruning process that lasts throughout childhood. Though we are each born with a genetic code, the experiences we have in life also shape the development of our minds and impact this process of synapse connections and synapse pruning. That is why it is easier for you to become fluent in a foreign language if you are exposed to it as a toddler. If I learn Chinese now, I will always speak it with an accent. Too much pruning has happened in my brain already!
One foreign language I learned early on was generosity. I call it that because 44.8 percent of Americans give no money to any charitable cause and 79 percent give no time (Generosity Survey). And less than 30 percent of American Christians contribute more than two percent. As a toddler I watched my parents place money in the offering plate and serve on church committees and service projects. And here at 61st and Ward Parkway, I have been immersed in a community of folks who sort food at Harvesters food bank, rehab houses for homeless single moms, write large checks to support the church’s mission, teach toddlers Sunday school teachers, mentor teens, and serve bread and wine to elderly members.
I am immensely grateful to have lived my life inside the church which has always felt to me like an ocean of generosity. Here we learn to share the gifts of life that God has lavished upon us. Here we learn the joy of giving. Here we have the privilege to pass on this legacy of love.
-Carla
