Charity Begins at Home

This was one of my Mum’s expressions which didn’t concern me as a child but as I reflect on it now it throws up many ideas, some quite profound. Some 7 years ago, when I started piecing together the cause of my illness I adopted the rationale that my role as manager of my health was to ensure that every cell in my body was healthy. When every cell was healthy then the whole body must surely be healthy. Charity started at cellular level. With basic health restored I found myself thinking more clearly. Events in my life gave me pause for reflection and the opportunity to examine habitual ways of thinking and working. I’d started to think for myself and not simply to follow cultural tramlines. It was a period of critical reflection during which I recalibrated and then honoured my inner compass. In this case charity required that I gave myself the freedom to think and patience while I adjusted. Now having regained physical and mental independence I had the opportunity to examine what I wanted to do and why. What is my vocation and how best can I live it? Various experiences had shown me that when I seek only personal gain I manage only temporary results. In the spiritual domain charity that stays at home, self-serving charity, is of little value. Only independent people can form interdependent relationships so we can now expand our idea of home to include the community in which we live. Building community is a true act of charity but in a sense is still self-serving as when life’s trials strike we fall back on the community to support us. Too narrow a definition for community can lead to nepotism or worse and so our guiding principle expands to consider what is best for mankind overall. And finally, to play the environmental card, it’s clear that if we trash the planet on which we live then none of us will even have a home. So whether it’s muscle cells, brain cells, whole communities, countries or continents, charity really does begin at home!