Part 6 of our winter “Staff Picks” series
When I was asked to write a book review, I had to pause and take a moment to think about which book would be good for me to read right now. I tend to choose informational, textbook-like screeds that are always super interesting, but can be difficult to read. Then I was gifted this little treat of a book by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s lighthearted, yet introspective, and just over 100 pages of easy text.
One indicator of a good book to me is whether I am compelled to continue reading regardless of my energy level. I found this to be the case with The Serviceberry—even as I was being challenged to rethink my patterns of consumption and the relationships around me. Robin Wall Kimmerer proposes the concept of a “Gift Economy,” which may sound off-the-wall (pun intended), but when put into perspective, really feels like commonsense behavior.
The book is centered around one question: What if we viewed the items we consumed as gifts instead of rights or merely transactions? For example, shifting from the convention of, “we have rights to this land use” to “we have responsibilities to respect and protect the offerings of this land.”
This is quite a seismic shift in the way we have been taught to think about our consumption, but it is never more critical than now.
The author had me reevaluating how I was interacting with my world, our world. What if we measured our “wealth” in terms of gifts we offered to our friends, family, and strangers—gifts that nurtured our relationships with each other and, in turn, our own spirits.
It reminds me about stories of random acts of kindness that are warming and spark hope and joy in us. The gift economy is about trying to live this mindset day to day.
To take a quote from the book, “In a serviceberry economy, I accept the gift from the tree and then spread that gift around, with a dish of berries to my neighbor, who makes a pie to share with his friend, who feels so wealthy in food and friendship that he volunteers at the food pantry.”
This is very different from the purely transactional relationship where I buy berries from a store clerk, and our relationship ends.
As Kimmerer notes, through these gift actions we are redistributing our abundance. The flow of “wealth” continues, lifting everyone involved. Imagine if we all felt so wealthy in friendship that every interaction we had was imbued with a deeper sense of connection. How much better could we all be?
All flourishing is mutual.
Max Gerke
Stewardship Specialist