Advocacy and Charity

Definition: In Christian theology charity, or love (agapē), means an unlimited loving-kindness towards all others.
The term should not be confused with the more restricted modern use of the word charity to mean benevolent giving.
- Via Wikipedia

During Holy Week, I've been exploring some of the spiritual sides of advocacy work. I've dealt with the aspect of humililty and forgiveness. This post deals with charity. I couldn't find an article by anyone else on this subject so I'll do my best here to address this virtue and I'll ask you to show some charity toward my attempt to do so!

In our world, the word charity evokes images of fundraising, solicitors at the door and TV ads and mailings asking us to donate money. This is a limited definition of the word charity for those of us who are Christians. Charity is considered to be a virtue (a phrase I recall being told by nuns over and over again as a chld often as they deal with a difficult child). There are two parts, love of God, and love of man - loving one's neighbor as oneself.

Wikipedia refers to Paul's Letter to the Corinthians (chapter 13 (KJV)):

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

But what does that really mean? Charity is about how we are in the world - as a virtue, it is concerned with how we treat others and whether we act from love. This may seem like a difficult thing to understand at first, but the truth is that it's easy to understand - and difficult to practice.

For example, yesterday I advocated for someone who was pretty hostile to me. That can be tough. Every time I tried to convey a message to him, he argued with me over the small details and refused to listen. At some point I realized that he needed to vent about what was going on so I gave him space to do that. Meanwhile, the establishment that lacked access was owned by a man who refused to cooperate at first. Eventually he did.

I could have saved time by cutting both of these people off (being unkind), reminding them that I was the expert (puffing myself up) and thinking of my bottom line. Their behavior would have provoked some into this (and me on certain days I admit). Instead I took the time to listen to both. I let them air their concerns- which really didn't take that long once they felt "heard" and I tried to get at the truth.

The truth was that the business owner's wife died two months ago. Although the customer was promised that accessible repairs would be done, the owner has been so bereft that he failed to live up to his promise. He contacted a contractor and signed papers for the work to be done, but kept cancelling when the contractor came to do the work. Why? Because he had not worked a full day at his business since his wife died and could not bear to.

This very human situation called for charity, yet I also felt it was only fair to place a time table on this so that the customer would have access. We not only set up a timetable - I was able to convince the owner to place the responsibility for being there for the contractor on a relative. It worked out so well that the minor amount of work required for accessibility was finished by 10 p.m. last night.

This was an easy situation in which to be charitable, however. Some are much tougher. Yet it's good spiritual practice to be mindful of the lessons learned by practicing charity in these small ways. It builds spiritual muscle up. One thing I've learned is that practicing any virtue necessarily involves touching on other virtues. Being charitable requires faith and hope as well.

"13:13{7} And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity."