The genecrite, first cousin to the hypocrite, is a problem I’ve seen in myself and all around the world lately.

It’s a fascinating development in this last decade and gathering steam going into the second decade of this millenia.  You see, we’ve always had had a problem in the world with hypocrites, those that say they represent one leader or belief or group, and actually live out something completely different, but recent developments have brought a frenzied wave of a new cousin.

Around the turn of the century, a firestorm of love and service began to blaze throughout the world.  People began to start organizations to help and serve people in record numbers.  The world appeared optimistic and things looked great!  You can read all about this in Gregg Easterbrook’s amazing book, written in 2004, called “The Progress Paradox”.

But in the last year, with the downward spiral of our economy and the overarching pessimism appearing everywhere, people still believe in giving, but it’s a different kind of giving.

Here’s how I do it.

I love to give and be generous, so I’ll invite someone out to eat for lunch, and I’ll pay for their lunch.  But what I wonder is whether or not I would be so generous if I were geting nothing out of it.  That is, would I just give that person $15 for lunch without me?  Or am I a genecrite?

A genecrite is a person who says they are generous (as I did above) and then will only give when they get something out of it?  A conditional generosity.

I will give money or gifts to my family if they come and visit me?  Genecrite.

I will share what I have with people I like?  Genecrite.

I will give to my church as long as they are making me happy?  Genecrite.

I will take someone to lunch, only if I get to do some of the eating?  Genecrite.

What about you?  Are you a Genecrite?

Sometime in 2005 I took a test to find out what my strengths were.  I found that my top 5 were as follows: 1.  Ideator, 2.  Positivity, 3.  Connectedness, 4.  Competition, 5.  Developer

I noticed as several of my friends took the same test that several of us had one of those in common.  Out of the 7 people I know that took the test, 5 of them had connectedness as a strength.
Some qualitites of someone with this strength – “That I gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it;  I am part of a larger picture, and I must not harm others because I will harm myself;  and I am a bridge builder between people of different cultures.”

Enter the beauty of web 2.0 to people like me. 
I’m not a fan of compartmentalizing my life.  I like things, whether it’s people in my life or web sites I go to, to all be connected to one another.  This makes my mom and google both very happy.

How does this affect me?
I like it when my family and my friends and all the people in my life meet.  What makes this interesting is when they don’t get along.  I think everyone should get along.  Not like each other, just get along.

I like using google and itunes.  My friend Clay swears against itunes, and probably rightfully so, but I like when things connect together easily, so I use it.  I know, I know Clay, I sacrifice things to use itunes.  Google connects a lot of things in my web life, like my Calendar, my way to find where I might be going, my blog reader, my connect with Fellowship Church podcasts, and even my weather, not to mention my documents (I don’t have to pay for Microsoft office again!)

Weather

Holden, MA

58°F
Cloudy
Wind: N at 0 mph
Humidity: 84%

Today

74° | 54
Fri

74° | 58°

Sat

79° | 61°

Sun

76° | 61°

I like learning from anything or anyone.  Whether it’s a great pastor, a marketing expert,
or a book that gets me thinking.  This is probably why I fare better in New England than I
might have in the midwest.

I don’t like to keep people that are an important part of my life apart from each other. 

I think that there is a terrific connection between Don Miller’s “Blue like Jazz”, Vince Antonucci’s
“I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt“, and Gregg Easterbrook’s “The
Progress Paradox”

What can I say, I like being connected.  Do you?

This has been a cultural post with Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesday in mind.