Last night this below from George Mac Donald reassured my belief that a person appreciates charity most when it gives him self-worth that is when he feels loved. It is best for each of us to earn our keep. Or as scripture tells us rather than giving giving a man a fish, we should teach the man to fish. When we earn a wage we then have to opportunity to be charitable ourselves.
This became evident to me in my dental practice. For a short period of time my office accepted medicaid patients. They paid nothing. Their dental treatment was free, a gift. It soon became evident to me that they didn’t appreciate their free dental care. They routinely missed appointments. It was a waste of our time and theirs too. Charity was best dispensed by doing procedures for nothing or charging less than normal. Usually without them knowing it.
It is after all about compassion and love.
On social welfare:
“When compassion itself is precious to a man,” she answered, “it must be because he loves you, and believes you love him. When that is the case, you may give him any thing you like, and it will do neither you nor him harm. But the man of independent feeling, except he be thus your friend, will not unlikely resent your compassion, while the beggar will accept it chiefly as a pledge for something more to be got from you; and so it will tend to keep him in beggary.”
“Would you never, then, give money, or any of the necessaries of life, except in extreme, and, on the part of the receiver, unavoidable necessity?” I asked.
“I would not,” she answered; “but in the case where a man cannot help himself, the very suffering makes a way for the love which is more than compassion to manifest itself. In every other case, the true way is to provide them with work, which is itself a good thing, besides what they gain by it. If a man will not work, neither should he eat. It must be work with an object in it, however: it must not be mere labor, such as digging a hole and filling it up again, of which I have heard. Would you never, then, give money, or any of the necessaries of life, except in extreme, and, on the part of the receiver, unavoidable necessity?” I asked.
“I would not,” she answered; “but in the case where a man cannot help himself, the very suffering makes a way for the love which is more than compassion to manifest itself. In every other case, the true way is to provide them with work, which is itself a good thing, besides what they gain by it. If a man will not work, neither should he eat. It must be work with an object in it, however: it must not be mere labor, such as digging a hole and filling it up again, of which I have heard.”
Excerpt From
The Vicar’s Daughter
by George MacDonald