I risk my reputation as the town’s oldest resident weirdo by admitting that I donate substantial sums of money to charitable organizations that I recognize as having both a worthy purpose and a worthy performance.
There are some registered charities, however, which I wouldn’t touch with the ten-foot backbone of a dead narwhal. One such group employs as spokespeople the human subspecies which I call Homo Celibrata, the female celebrity. I think of them in their palatial homes in warmer climes attempting to prevent the denizens of the True North Strong and Cold from eating the flesh of land animals and aquatic mammals and turning their hides into tents and clothing.
To the Homo Celibrata, in their ascent to the heights of morality, it appears perfectly logical that people who live where summers are short and winters long should live on non-meat items imported from the balmy south. The idea is asinine.
I picture the Homo Celibrata as persons whose vegan diet includes liberal amounts of truffles and champagne. I expect also that, when nobody is watching, they like to toss live lobsters into boiling water. I view such people – such charities – with contempt.
One truly effective charity in every field should be all that is necessary, but the money-extractors continue to proliferate. It would not surprise me to see glitzy advertising from a new group intending to provide exclusive swimming pools for people suffering from toenail fungus so these unfortunate people would not have to expose their feet on a public beach. This may sound ridiculous, but it could happen.
Some of the most successful fund-raising campaigns feature animals. Over centuries of evolution and selective breeding, dogs and cats have developed behaviours that captivate human beings. There is a powerful appeal in their eyes. I would like to own a pet again. Then I remember that Canadians spend more on their pets than they do for the aid of hungry, homeless, disease-ridden human beings.
There is a heart-wrenching appeal in the eyes of a homeless, starving, orphaned child. Along with untold numbers of others, I send money in an effort to help them. But charity is not enough.
There is a verse in the New Testament which reads “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.” These words are true if charity means being kind, or at least never unkind, to the people around us. It is not true in the hell-holes of human misery.
Charity can never be enough without justice. The greatest of all is justice.
