In addition to the articles that Joe features in his previous Journal piece, a number of other charity-related articles have been in the news recently: A-Rod’s troubled foundation; Mike Dikta disbanding his “charity”; Harvard raising the income level at which families pay no tuition.
I cannot think about the subject of charity without recollecting Albert Hobbs, my favorite professor from my undergraduate days at Penn, who pointed out to me that the word “charity” has its origin in the Vulgate “caritas” or “charitas” – to give out of a love for Christ. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary provides as the first three definitions for this “Christian love”: a) God’s love to man, b) man’s love of God and his neighbor, c) esp. The Christian love of our fellow-men; Christian benignity of disposition expressing itself in Christ-like conduct. For more, I found this overview online:
http://www.learningtogive.org/papers/index.asp?bpid=8&print=yes
One of the favorite things in Authenticity is our coining of the term, narcithrophy (p. 27) — so different in character it seems to me than the “benignity of disposition” cited above. Granted, giving might always come accompanied with some sense of self-satisfaction. But one means of safeguarding one’s giving from being done selfishly seems especially lost today, the old-fashioned idea of giving anonymously.
Loading ...