Charity & Compassion

Our gold standard for charity: is this all?

• Feed the hungry, and keep feeding.

• Visit those in prison, and keep visiting.

• Cloth the naked, and keep giving clothes.

• Be nice.

• Do not misappropriate funds.

• Get Charity Navigator 4-star rating.

• Get Candid Platinum Transparency seal.

Inspired by Catholic missionary works, Chen Yen founded Tzu Chi. Yet Tzu Chi’s ecological records-having started decades before green movements became en vogue-far dwarf Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’. Chen Yen’s name is little known, unlike Thich Nhat Hanh’s. Yet Tzu Chi’s outreach to the grassroots covers every corner of the earth. Down to earth.

What do we mean by charity? If that is an expression of compassion, what then do we mean by compassion? I don’t think it is about feeling sorry for others. I don’t think we are meant to be feeling sorry for each other.

I believe the call to compassion is to be less calculative about who’s giving and who’s receiving, be less calculative about who’s healthy and who’s ill, be less calculative about who has and who hasn’t, be less calculative about who’s in a wheelchair and who’s not. We embrace all as a universal payload.

Until the distinction and the polarization are dissolved, we owe to the people we “serve” the dignity that belonged to them.