Thinking About Charity

September has arrived. The schools have reopened for the fall term. The children have disappeared from the parks and streets. Sunrise arrives a little later each morning, but remains just as beautiful and inspiring.

Ideas, like emergency vehicle sirens make loud distracting noises for a couple of seconds and then disappear.

Looking down at the empty playground, completely almost completely covered in shadows, is that how a heart without charity looks? Abandoned, lonely, dangerous, intimidating?

Creating typographical and grammatical errors at seven forty-five in the morning is a difficult skill to develop. The brain and the fingers are rarely thinking about the same word. The eyes are constantly looking at the horizon, thinking, imagining, remembering.

Feeling the morning sun, warm against my face, my mind decides to be defiant as I try and remember something specific from my youth. My mind struggles to uncover distinct lessons where charity, and charity alone was spotlighted. Of course my brain rebels. The flutter of wings of a black bird taking off from a nearby building teases my ears.

My left hand scratches my face. The honking horns, sunlight reflecting from the still damp concrete roof of a building capture my imagination. The grinding and whirring sounds from a nearby construction site invades my brain. I hear the deep guttural rumblings of a diesel motor, probably a shiny heavy smoke belching truck with a hundred wheels blocking traffic on a narrow street with a slight incline.

Lessons about charity are not often isolated but incorporated within daily living. Sadly modern colloquial definitions sometimes add derogatory meaning to charity. Of the virtues and as a basis for having a life of social justice and fairness, charity is essential. Without charity love can not exist.

Lucky are those who can live with charity influencing their hearts and lives, who think of the welfare of others and are always willing to lend assistance. Our lives are improved when we move through each days using the different virtues as needed.

All the virtues are equal. All are necessary.

During a quiet moment, allow your mind to return to the past, to a memory filled with love and goodness, allow yourself to feel and hear all of the sensations of that moment, and allow yourself to say thank you for the memory, then and now.

Always be looking for new ways to create and to live a life filled with the virtues. Never forget the beauty of living with charity in your heart and soul. Charity creates the awe inspiring sunrise within us.