flattered, fleeced and fished

Yes this happens most every week. It happens when you are the rich person in a poor society. People are always angling for your perceived resources. They flatter you hoping for some money to fall out of your pocket. They will fleece you mercilessly at the first possible opportunity. They will constantly fish you, trying to find out what you have and how accessible it might be. My great question is how to be a prudent generous person?

Prudence is required because money is power and power is generally a weapon. Yet generosity is a natural result of thankfulness and a healthy spiritual life. I am always wondering how the two mesh in any way. "You cannot have power for good without having power for evil. "Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heros." - Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

Most of the time, I just feel resentment that I am being FFFed rather than thankfulness that I have enough to be the recipient of such behavior. What a sad tale that reveals about the true condition of my heart. "In an ego-centered culture, wants become needs (maybe even duties), and self replaces the soul, and human life degenerates into the clamor of competing autobiographies." - Cornelius Plantinga. Madeleine L'Engle suggests that the very meaning of the word integrity is slowly starting to mean self-centeredness. In other words, half the time when someone suggests that they cannot do such and such and "keep their integrity" what they truly mean is that simply do not want to do whatever is under discussion.

These are deeper waters than I usually travel, but I think Plantinga and L'Engle have hit my nail on the head . . . I cannot be generous because I have spiritualized both the condition of my wallet, and the needs of the person asking, so that in the end, I feel fully justified in sending them on their way. That is no thankful heart.