Charity is Most Harsh

While I lay in my labors as a young salesman not too many years ago, I delighted in fast money and freedom to choose if I should work one day to another without worry of financial obliteration. If I was in need of a day without the drudgery of conferring with people about their probable demise or impending probability of disfigurement or a day at the pub devouring my favorite spirits and a precision crafted imported Cigar, I choose. If I was in need of a good romp in the delectable world of selling, I sold. Those times were and are some of the most meaningless and stressful times I have ever encountered in my short existence on this infested rock hurling through the emptiness of space.

These times are also the period that I spent watching the modern man at his best and worst, mostly the worst. I watched as men lied to other men and then lied about the lie itself. More than one time did I see my collaborator twinkle at the prospect of squeezing one last dime out of a poor pauper that is in greater need of insurance against a calamity than even the most heroic of soldiers. When asked about this gross voracity of money and wealth all that came to me was the answer “I gotta make a living”.

I detested my colleague at that moment with the resolution of a lioness after her prey. I looked into his blue eyes and discovered that the only thing inside his heart is selfishness. Even though he made grandiose claims of being diligent to the lord and the cause of humanity he still only served himself. His lone aspiration was to provide fodder for his increasingly extended habits of spending on frivolous trappings such as gambling and other distasteful excesses.

The same is true of another man who has become to me as a brother. He is a good man. He is a smart man. However, his mind plays hoaxes on him, hoaxes that could fool any man. Seeing through the miasma that has surrounded him is his only unconquered obstacle in his long line of accomplishments. This miasma, or fog, that socks in his soul is of his own creation. Brought from the depths of his soul with the intention of an honest and worthy man only to cloud the oncoming sight of the one thing that he believes his painstaking accomplishments will bring him. In his travels for the divine judgment of the almighty he has mistaken his selfishness for unmitigated selflessness. I would gather this is also an infliction that cursed the earlier generations of humanity. It seems that this is an oddity of the human race, an ugly, distasteful and grossly malevolent peculiarity at that.

Back to my brotherly man; He attends church and does his civic duties according to his stated beliefs. His deeds do deserve merit and to his praise I lean to say that his deeds do affect others positively and even though his reasoning for performing might be at question, his actions are not. Yet, as I mentioned, his reasoning is of questionable content. With my long conversations with him I have discovered that he does not do things for the glory of Jesus. He does them because he believes his interpretation of the truth is the final and obligatory statement of morality. My brotherly friend believes his translations of the Holy text are so pure and good that it causes his nose gets a little water in it now and again. Not that he might notice in any case.
It is the disease of our time; this disease of selfishness masquerading as selflessness. It is a subterfuge to perform deeds that help people in order to make ones self feel superior about doing the good deed. For helping someone to make us feel superior is still selfishness, is it not? If in answering this question you say that reaping a little reward for oneself by helping another achieve happiness or giving assist to those of lesser means is tolerable I say, Hypocrisy! Helping someone in order to receive a reward for your own happiness is not charity it is egotism!

Now I am not one to say that egotism is not a sin, it is in all probability a minor sin at least or even at most! I am also the first to admit that Egotism is something that challenges me to strive for higher status at work and in almost all social obligations. It definitely has usefulness for advancement of mine and most everyone else’s lives. The difference between someone of my level of egotism and a person that possesses the often invisible egotism that haunts the majority of persons I have met is in the admission of the thing itself. It is a fault in ones self that allows for such things to come to pass. To do a charitable thing for pure egotistical and selfish returns is pure and unadulterated immorality. An affront to all our generations of astute and great leaders is this affliction.

As I return to this subject from a short hiatus I find that my indignation has twisted itself into vast despair. I find that my writings will inevitably and unavoidably fall onto no ears at all. For there is no such forum to vent this outrage in this time we live in and proclaim “Modern Civility”. And so, my expectation of this finding someone and changing their existence because of these words is low. For it seems that none of our fellow man can be bothered with such things. They cannot be troubled with such visions of truth for it would impede their grossly and repulsive addiction they have of self indulgence. The very thing that I speak of is indeed the obstacle that impedes my definite intention of this essay. I dare say that I am disheartened in the function of man as the reflection of the supreme image he was fashioned to emulate.

I do not have a promise of fulfillment that will cause all mankind to correct his actions. I do not even begin to comprehend why a people of so much unfathomable intelligence have determined to hide in dishonesty their uncaring and selfish goals when it would be much more modern to humble oneself to the task of helping another, forsaking ones accumulated wealth or power.

This is my calculation behind the conveyance of this essay to a few people that may actually desire to propel this thrashing of our fellow man to those who may need it most. And to those who do, I admire and hope to emulate your sense of humanity and compassion for those who may not even realize that they themselves suffer from this affliction of their essence and morality.

This is an essay I wrote in the late 90's. At the time, I literally had no place to publish it. I did have a web site of my own (and still do) but I never put forth the effort to advertise its existence. Now, with this Forum, I feel that it might actually get an audience of likeminded peoples.

This essay, I believe, is even more relevant today than ever before. Shelby Steele a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institute recently stated in an interview with Peter Robinson that Obama was elected because of an overwhelming feeling of white guilt. He pointed out in the interview that whites voted for Obama in order to make themselves feel like they have proven, by voting and electing him, that they are not racist. The elitists in the Democrat party and in the media concede that they don’t know what Obama stands for but voted for him any way. Mr. Steele asserts that the votes were cast because we needed to show that we Americans are not racists, which in fact did just the opposite. By voting for a man because he is "black" we have confirmed that we are still a racist country. This fact also brings forth the reality that we are even more entrenched in the focus of the essay. We are more now than ever letting selfishness masquerade as selflessness.