by Charlee, a Courage Member
A few weeks back, I caught up with a dear mentor and we had a conversation that touched me very deeply. With child-like impetuousness, I asked her “where do we find the love we’re so desperately searching for?”
She responded with a dutiful acknowledgement of the normalised mediums of love we typically encounter and then with an enigmatic twinkle in her eye, she followed on with an exposition of the place of charity in our lives.
She shared about how in charity, we experience a different tenor of love, one that perhaps does not promise instant gratification or worldly glorification as in other forms of love, but is still rich and life-giving all the same.
In charity, we’re invited to love by caring more and curing less. In the face of problems larger than ourselves lies an invitation to sit with another in their pain, to be silent in a moment of despair and confusion and to face with them reality of our powerlessness.
While charity might not always lead to networks of reciprocity, it is a chance to exercise faith in trusting that in giving gratuitously, we will receive gratuitously, but not necessarily from the person to whom we gave. Only when we know ourselves as unconditionally loved and fully received by God can we give gratuitously. Hence, the more we give in charity, the more we can claim ourselves as God’s beloved children.
I think it’s certainly by no chance that charity comes from the Latin word “caritas” which also means love.
My hope this advent season and beyond is that we can adopt a greater disposition of charity and experience the love that flows from it, that will fill our hearts and satisfy our deepest desires.
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Charlee has been with Courage for a little over than a year and has found renewed hope and conviction through the community.
The opinions and experiences expressed in each entry in the Reflections page belong solely to the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Courage Singapore. Some entries have been edited for length and clarity.