Last summer I was invited to go with a group of Christian Science youth on a service trip to Costa Rica. I had been praying about, and researching, opportunities to volunteer abroad, as I love to travel and learn about new cultures. I feel as though I get more out of travel when I go with a purpose in mind. Here was an answer to prayer.
At times I have felt that community service, or volunteering, has become more of a trend, rather than the consequence of a sincere desire to give. So as I prayed about the trip, I asked myself, “What do I truly have to give? What exactly did Christ Jesus mean to love our neighbor as ourselves?” (see Mark 12:31).
Part of the curriculum for the trip was to read “The Greatest Thing in the World” by Henry Drummond, based on one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians (see I Corinthians, chap. 13), in which Drummond draws a contrast between the giving that is impelled by divine Love and the human giving we call charity. I decided to get a jump on things and read it before I went. Drummond says: “Love is greater than charity because the whole is greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the innumerable avenues of Love, and there may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the copper’s cost. It is too cheap—too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do more for him, or less” (pp. 16–17).
As I pondered this idea, I agreed. If I am accepting a downtrodden, poor man as the reality and toss him some money, how is that helping him? Not much. I would hope I could do more. What is the doing more? What would I want someone to do for me?
Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan came to mind (see Luke 10:30–35). A man was robbed, beaten, and left to die on the side of the road. Two men—a Levite and a priest—passed by on the other side, ignoring him. But then a Samaritan came along and dressed his wounds pouring in oil and wine. He set him on his donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. When the Samaritan had to leave, he gave the innkeeper money with which to take care of the man, and told him if he spent more he would reimburse him.
As I considered Mary Baker Eddy’s spiritual definitions of oil and wine, which include the qualities of consecration, charity, gentleness, prayer, heavenly inspiration and understanding (see Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 592, 598), I realized that these were the real curative agents. Allowing these to be manifested in our lives blesses everyone.
Our gift and service to the community was to love as Christ Jesus loved.
All of this brought to mind an experience I had two or three years ago. There was a young woman holding up a sign outside the entrance to a supermarket where I do my shopping. I went into the store to pick up a few things and felt compelled to purchase a store gift card for her. As I drove out of the shopping center, I handed it out the window to her. But as I continued driving, I knew that wasn’t enough. I needed to do more.
It was clear to me that I needed to love this woman as my neighbor, not by feeling pity for her, or by simply throwing her some money. To really love her was to see her as spiritual—to see her as God, divine Love, sees His beloved child. I knew that this would in some way lift her up. This was genuine charity, gently healing the wounds of fear and ignorance with the heavenly inspiration and understanding of Love, and of Love’s tender relationship with its idea.
I was there to bear witness to the fact that this woman’s relationship to Love was a permanent one that could never be severed, so she was never outside of, or cut off from, Love’s infinite and continuous supply of good that meets every human need. She was governed by this law of Love. She wasn’t a victim of so-called laws of chance, or of a bad economy. Under divine Love’s economy, each of us is blessed at every moment.
The “inn” I was to take the woman to was the affirmation that she lived, and moved, and had her being in Love (see Acts 17:28). She couldn’t be without a home, neither could she be hurt. She forever dwelt in the house, or consciousness, of Love. In this house she was being fed with spiritual ideas that would continue to maintain and sustain her.
During the next few months, I endeavored to see everyone who crossed my path in this spiritual light.
One day when I was at the supermarket, I saw the woman talking to a barista at a nearby coffee shop. When I later inquired about her, much to my surprise and gratitude, the barista told me she had a job interview that very day. I never again saw the woman standing outside that shopping center. While I don’t know if she got the job, I do know that each one of our prayers for mankind is effective and meets the human need.
Our real gift and service to our community is to love as Christ Jesus loved—to look beyond a mortal sense of love with its limitations, fears, losses, to the infinitude of divine Love. And to acknowledge that the same divine Love that provides for one, provides for all.
As I thought about my upcoming trip to Costa Rica, I realized that we weren’t going to give the people there anything they didn’t already have. We were going to bear witness to the good that divine Love, the Great Giver, was bestowing on people everywhere.
Renee Alton is a Christian Science practitioner in Seattle, Washington.
