Currency
Charity they say begins at home. But how do we understand charity? Most people believe that charity is something we give others, what we do to others and in this day and age it also seems to be what’s left over. It’s the small change.
The kind of charity I’m talking about is the sort that you give from your abundance. More like the cream off the top. And it’s given with an open and full heart, not some stingy insincere show or display to call attention to yourself for so called good deeds. Have you ever done that? Better to not give at all in that case.
Here’s the thing, no-one sees our real motives for doing a thing but over time our motives can become clear to those with more discerning spirits and trust me you don’t want to get sprung by those kind. Usually those kind know us and usually better than we think!
Why do you think they say that charity begins at home? Maybe it goes to how we treat ourselves. Maybe without experiencing how it feels to receive the very best from ourselves we couldn’t fully appreciate how it might feel to others or the recipients of our charity.
Perhaps it follows too that someone who has less might feel justified in giving out less because s/he believes that is sufficient, it’s what they have, they have nothing more. The trouble with that thinking is, it’s wonky. It’s wonky because such thinking is quite limiting.
Wonky thinking in this context means that there is a tendency to think only in terms of a currency that is purely financial YET there are other forms of currency available to us when we think about it. What currencies you ask?
What about emotional currency in the form of a bond, an ongoing friendship? What about spiritual currency where we commit ourselves to a continued prayerfulness for the person’s spiritual as well as physical health?
But to those who have been given more, much more is required. Charity begins at home I believe to enable us to understand and appreciate our wider responsibility outside our small worlds. It’s where we willingly apprentice ourselves to ourselves. Does that scare you? It scared me. But the burning question is this, not, what is charity, but how will we give it.
