As some of you may know, I recently was privileged to present the 2008 Annual Thomas H. Lake Lecture on Faith & Giving. This lecture was sponsored by the Lake Family Institute on Faith & Giving at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

I am grateful to the Lake Family Institute for allowing me to provide you an opportunity to read the printed version of the lecture. I encourage you to visit the Lake Institute's website if you would like to purchase a bound copy of the lecture and to learn more about the Institute.

In the lecture I focus on giving as spiritual exercise. Spiritual exercise is the ascetical practice that deepens our souls and the ensuing way of life or spirituality that informs our daily thinking, feeling, and acting.

My purpose was to explore the spiritual path by which the interaction of receiving and giving, once enlivened in our soul, animates the care and compassion we carry out in our personal relationships and in the community. There is no boundary between inner life and outer life - each flows into the other at every moment. As I write at the beginning of the essay:

"More than at any occasion in the past, I delve explicitly into the territory of personal formation that guides us to fuller hearts, wiser insights, and more caring practices. I examine the inner life of receiving and giving as spiritual exercise in the realms of soul, relationships, and community."

I wish you blessings for the New Year and, as always, I welcome your comments and feedback.