Definition of Charity?

We live in such a wealthy society. I watched some little thing on the computer the other day about what the middle class expects to be able to afford now compared to what the middle class expected to afford 30 years ago and it underscored our wealth. The narrator of this program was addressing the constant reporting in the news of the middle class "squeeze"--i.e. that the middle class is making less money, etc. He disagreed with this complaint. And then he went on to point out that today's middle class buys bigger homes with air conditioning and many expensive appliances. Unheard of for the middle class 30 years ago. Today's middle class buys boats and expensive cars and goes on regular vacations--often overseas. Not so 30 years ago. We are a much more entitled middle class today, aren't we?

Anyway, we're comparatively wealthy. And I was reading in the scriptures about the consequences of wealth. This is the pattern that we've all read about and discussed in sunday school: a righteous society is blessed with prosperity. Prosperity is followed by pride. This prideful group then begins persecuting the less prosperous. They taste vice and soon become immersed. Then they are troubled by dissention among themselves. Then they are humbled by war (or sometimes famine or drought). Then they remember God and call upon him again and slowly they become righteous again. And the cycle then repeats itself. Sometimes it takes just a few generations to go through the whole cycle and sometimes it takes more than that--hundreds of years, perhaps.

So I read about this and I try to compare these ripe-for-destruction societies to our society. We are in the wealthy part of the cycle now, generally. And one of the biggest indicators of a society that is soon to be destroyed is that they ignore and then persecute the poor. And most of the time I comfort myself with the assurance that our society does NOT ignore our poor. There are so many organizations that exist now, and even that are currently being created, that assist the poor in our own nation and in many other poverty-stricken nations. Our own government welfare program is such a monster--it bleeds us all and takes very good care of our nation's "poor". So I think we are still not "ripe for destruction".

But...

I was talking to a girlfriend the other day. Her mother is ill and needs constant attendance. She works full time and cannot afford to quit in order to stay at home and take care of her mother. Her mother cannot pay for constant care. The extended family cannot provide this care. My friend was in tears. I thought: THIS is what caring for our people should be about. Our congregation should be taking care of this. The ladies should be rotating days at her house, to take care of her mother. They should be regularly finding opportunities to bring dinner, to give a call, to check in. This is not financial poverty, it's emotional poverty, as my friend's emotional resources are slowly being drained by her stress and worry and by the heavy load on her shoulders. This is the poverty we are meant to relieve personally, I think.

I thought of how easy it is to write that check to that trusted charitable institution and feel you've contributed. Or to give a dollar to the beggar and consider yourself generous (after all, the bum should be working hard like you do and after all, he'/she will most likely spend the money on drugs or alcohol or maybe he/she is just a con artist and you've been taken. Like it's our job to examine a supplicant for worthiness. I never saw that in the scriptures). Anyway, my point is that it seems that most of our charitable efforts have become so institutionalized. So write-a-check-and-forget-it.

But perhaps true charity was meant to be more personal. And perhaps it was meant to involve more sacrifice. Like giving up a day a week for my friend's mother. Or making dinner for the lady I am assigned to visit once a month (that's not much, but it feels hard to me cuz I dislike cooking and am self-conscious about many of my efforts), or giving money anonymously to someone that I know is struggling. Someone once--not related to me--actually gave me thousands of dollars in cash because he knew I was in trouble. I have NEVER forgotten it and the effect it had on my feelings, not to mention on my bills at that time.

Many people hide their need too, because in America we have somehow come to believe that it is shameful to need to ask for help. We are proud of our independence and our hard work ethics. And, in fact, these are traits that made this nation strong. But are they becoming perverted? We have wealth and ease now and are the younger generations as hard-working as were the earlier generations? I know my work ethic is a pale shadow of that of my grandmother's or even my mother's. Is our comfortable middle class raising lazy children who expect to have many possessions and who are unwilling to bodily help another? And has our proud independence made us ashamed to be interdependent, to ask for or accept help from others? And to look down on people who do as for help? And if help is not requested, are we out of the habit of offering? Are we too busy to notice?

I don't feel able to draw any hard and fast conclusions about this. I've just been thinking of it lately. I feel a call to be more useful to the Lord and the most obvious way to do this, it seems to me, is to be more available to meet the needs of His children. And I don't mean writing a check. For one thing, my checks are needed at home right now and what I can give financially cannot possibly be as useful as what I can give physically, in my efforts with my neighbors and my church congregation. But I am woefully inadequate in this meeting needs thing. I have trouble noticing. And then when I notice I have trouble remembering. And then when I remember I have trouble knowing what to do.

Of course I know the answer to all these troubles is to pray. Pray for the awareness and the remembrance and the inspiration of what to do. I know this. And I'm working on it. And thinking about it......