Charity…

I want to share a talk on charity that some one I know gave at church, it is very good and insightful. I asked permission to include it here, he just doesn't want to be named the author of it and remain anonymous. The first part is a letter of explanation written by the author for his family. 

Hi all,

I gave a talk in church today, so I thought that you may be interested to read it. Some of the content may not come across well to sensitive parties in the family so I have added a qualifying section at the end. Please forgive any mechanical errors, it was only meant for me to read and I have an exceptional tolerance for errors.

To be fair, in order to make the story of our family's adoption read clearly in the short space of this talk, many details have been left out which may falsely color the our family dynamic. I have portrayed a version of these events that focused on an emotional truth. Such situations occasion a multiplicity of complex, and often contradicting, feelings. Naturally, there have been both good and bad experiences that came with the adoption, and while the struggles mentioned here did (and continue to) happen, there has indeed been a lot of love exchanged both ways. But in the end, it was the times of struggle that test the limits of Charity which interested me here. And in these times, it was impossible to know if things would ever be different.

I feel that the way I have written here, I may be in danger here of drawing an artificial distance between my adopted siblings and the rest of our family, and this would unfair. Their struggles have become our struggles and we truly are one family now. While there may always be an unresolvable emotional distance between us, such things are not uncommon in families that experience traumatic events. Who can honestly say that they have paid back the love that their parents gave to them. I would also like to explain that as my mother personified Charity in my account here, credit must also be given to my father who was in fact active in the decision making process. However, I feel that it was acceptable to make this omission because the brunt of the emotional burden was ultimately carried by my mother, who can't help but love and nurture those in need.

I hope all is well with all of you.

Best,

[Anonymous]

Note to those reading this talk: In order to recreate the full effect of my initial presentation, please imagine that it is being read all too quickly by a nervous person with a dry mouth.

Partaking of the Second Fruit

[Anonymous]

I should come out and say that I don't feel especially qualified to give a talk on "Charity." I think that Charity has to be the hardest attribute to cultivate, and certainly the least conventionally profitable. There is a reason that there are not a lot of self-help books promoting the selfless love of others. Charity does not seem to offer a good return on your investment. It does not incentivize good deeds. It is not like Karma and it is not transactive, you do not receive in kind for what you give. It is simply not an economically sound practice.

When we imagine the creed "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" we imagine a world in which we are helped by others as often as we help them. But showing Charity means giving our love without any expectation that it will be paid back. I was struck by Spencer's father's day talk when he explained that this is the way that parents love and provide for their children. Part of the reason parenting is so difficult is because it is often impossible for our children to comprehend how loving and patient we actually are to them. But Charity is also extending this same love to our enemies. If we really treated our enemies with the same love as we do our children, it is hard to imagine how we would have many enemies. And I am sure that whatever enemies remained would be sufficiently freaked out.

Even the scriptural promises of Charity seem ominous, we read in 1st Corinthians:

"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."

Suffering, Bearing, and Enduring are tasks that I personally try to avoid. The question that we have to answer then is: if conducting ourselves with "the pure love of Christ" is so much work, why would anyone want to cultivate the attribute of Charity?

When Nephi prayed to know the meaning of his father's vision, the spirit confirmed to him that the Tree of Life which Lehi saw represented the love of god, and that partaking of the fruit of that tree was the most desirable of all things. It seems fitting that the love of god would manifest itself as a tree bearing fruit, giving of itself freely for the nourishment of others. But what does it mean for us to eat the fruit of this tree? Is it simply a tasty snack for those that have held to the Iron rod and obeyed the commandments? If the story of Adam and Eve has taught us anything, it is that we should be very wary of eating mysteriously desirable divine fruit.

Dallin H Oaks taught that the conditions of the final judgment will not be based on a tally of our individual actions. There is no heavenly excel sheet that declares whether we are righteous or not. Rather, final judgment will be based on what we have become. In order to inherit the kingdom of god we must be converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, a conversion that is manifest through a might change in our hearts. 

He explained:

"We are challenged to move through a process of conversion toward that status and condition called eternal life. This is achieved not just by doing what is right, but by doing it for the right reason—for the pure love of Christ. The reason charity never fails is that charity is not an act but a condition or state of being. Charity is something one becomes."

Charity may not be the only component of spiritual worthiness, but it is essential. In 1 Corinthians again we read: "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."

The fruit of the Tree in Eden changed not only the nature of Adam and Eve, but the very world that they inhabited. In Genesis we learn that God cursed the ground for their sake, promising that in sorrow they would eat all the days of they life. We cannot opt out of the trials of living in this post-Eden world just as much as we cannot prevent physical death. But we do have a choice as to whether we partake of this second fruit and grow Charity in our hearts, and it is abundantly clear that doing so comes with an additional set of challenges. The call to "love our neighbor as ourselves" is a curse, but it is a curse that is likewise "for our sake."

The best example of Charity that comes to my mind is that of my own mother. Growing up my mother opened the doors of our home to many strangers who were struggling with various aspects of their lives. A girl named Sarah came to stay with us after she ran away from home to escape an abusive situation. She lived with us for over a year in her own room while many of the rest of us shared. She even went with us on a two month trip across the country in which all 9 of us crammed in a motorhome which was only meant to sleep 5. When I was a little older, I shared my room for a couple of years with a young man who called himself "Squiggy" after he had fallen on hard times. After these people moved on with their lives and out of our home, I would often wonder about what became of my temporary siblings. Brothers and Sisters in the spiritual sense, these people were transformed, however briefly, into active members of our family unit. My father and the rest of us had simply been drafted to her cause.

Eventually my mother, who had had nine children of her own decided, with an infant fresh in the cradle, that she needed to adopt a child from Russia. After looking through the candidates, she was struck by a picture of a sweet little girl. She immediately felt responsible for this poor daughter suffering in an impoverished orphanage. She knew that once this girl became 16 she would be forced to leave and fend for herself in a world with very little prospects for a good life. So after prayerful consideration, she decided that she had to adopt her. But it just so happened that this sweet little girl also had an older sister. How could she part these two sisters and extend her hand to rescue one and not the other. Eventually, she decided that they would both need to be adopted. But it just so happened that these sisters also had an older brother. And that is how we all found ourselves with three new Russian siblings, who didn't speak any English, sitting at our kitchen table a few months later.

But none of what I have just said shows my mother's true Charity. It turns out that adopting a set of older siblings from Russian does not magically fix whatever emotional, social, and cultural trauma they endured along the way. While my mother thought that they would learn to feel the transformative power of that love that had prompted her to adopt them, that is not how it played out. In the years since, there have been yelling matches, innumerable lies, fist fights, perilous joyrides, compulsive thefts, illicit drugs, teen pregnancies, and a smattering of incarcerations, but most of all there was a constant spirit of contention in our home. At many times, these new children saw my mother as the enemy of their happiness. This has been the defining trial of my mother's life. She has indeed suffered long and endured all things. And yet, through it all she has strived to show a continuing outpouring of love. Stepping up to care for some other mother's children as if they were her own, as if they could learn how to love her back.

I know that my mother seems crazy, and perhaps she is. But Charity is a type of crazy.

Gandhi taught that if a robber comes to your house, you should sit them down, find out the reason for their actions, and then allow them to leave with whatever they want. It was then your responsibility to take action and to do everything you could to alleviate their motive for stealing. While this may sound like a difficult challenge, Gandhi goes one step further to explain that, even after all of this, if the robber persists in their thievery, then you should keep your doors and windows open, go sleep somewhere else, and place the things the that the thief might desire most in a manner will make them easily accessible.

Let me be clear, I am not advocating these security measures for your homes. Gandhi's counsel is meant to be shocking in order to make a point. Charity is not a specific set of actions that can be prescribed in this way. It is about getting to a place in our own hearts where such shocking examples begin to make sense. Were we begin to experience the hurt of others to the point that it outweighs our own self-interests. Were we will champion the well-being of our enemies even at the expense of our own.

Christ could have treated all sinners as his enemies, as each of our sins was a stripe that he bore. Yet he bore them gladly. Through his infinite love, he has strove from the foundation of this world to make up for our shortcomings and allow us the opportunity to grow to fulfill the nature of our eternal destinies. If the atonement is the highest act of Christ's love, how better to qualify for it than by cultivating that love for others, to treat the problems of our brothers and sisters as if they were our own.

If Charity seems impossible, that is because attaining it is one of the miracles of our divine heritage.

Joseph B. Wirthlin taught:

"We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever. Although we might settle for less, Heavenly Father won't, for He sees us as the glorious beings we are capable of becoming. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation. It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities. The means of this refinement is our Christ like love. There is no pain it cannot soften, no bitterness it cannot remove, no hatred it cannot alter. [A Greek playwright] wrote: 'One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.' The most cherished and sacred moments of our lives are those filled with the spirit of love. The greater the measure of our love, the greater is our joy. In the end, the development of such love is the true measure of success in life."

The benefits of Charity are not given through the blessings of an easy life. We are not paid back for the energies that we exert in its cause. The paradox of Charity is that in order to understand the benefit, we must change our initial question. To paraphrase JFK, we must ask not what Charity can do for ourselves, but what Charity can do for others. It is not the way we naturally inclined to think. Even with my mother's powerful example of charity, I struggle with its precepts. The counter call of self-interest is quite persuasive, generally accepted, and much more loud. The difficulty we will experience in the pursuit of Charity is the cost of living celestial principles in an imperfect world. Charity is the definition of "being in the world but not of the world."

President Monson explained:

"We need a more peaceful world, growing out of more peaceful families and neighborhoods and communities. To secure and cultivate such peace, "we must love others, even our enemies as well as our friends." The world needs the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who are filled with the love of Christ do not seek to force others to do better; they inspire others to do better, indeed inspire them to the pursuit of God. We need to extend the hand of friendship. We need to be kinder, more gentle, more forgiving, and slower to anger. We need to love one another with the pure love of Christ. May this be our course and our desire."

We can begin becoming Charitable through exercising Charity. There are many extreme example of Charity in the scriptures that sketch out the infiniteness of its depth. But this is not where we learn to swim. All of us can increase the love that we show our families, our friends, and our neighbors. We can strive to better serve others through our callings and show an increased tendency to forgive the failings of others. But we must remember that these actions may not be reciprocated.

If the fruit of the Tree of Life seems like a curse, remember that it is cursed for our sake. That through it we can become who we were meant to be, even if we are still living in an imperfect world. I testify that despite its peculiar appearance, Charity is indeed most desirable, and with it comes the promise of a type of joy than cannot be attained through serving ourselves. Brothers and Sister I encourage you to accept the curse of Charity. After all, it is not Eden that we are after, but Zion. And Zion is not something that is found, it is something that must be made. The building of the kingdom of Heaven is not a work reserved for the eternities. By partake of the fruit of the pure love of Christ, we can become the people of Zion and prepare the foundation now, for a kinder, more loving world.