Article May 21, 2001 Issue

Helping people help themselves

The noblest charity

By Dorothy Maubane

There's A Story about a boy who finds a beautiful butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. Trying to be of help, the boy tears the silken covering. But instead of flying away, the butterfly waves its wings a few times and falls to the ground.

Later, the boy learns that the cocoon had offered just enough resistance to the butterfly so that it could strengthen its wings. Only after the butterfly had gained enough strength to break through the silken covering would it have been ready to fly. Freeing the butterfly prematurely had deprived it of its chance for lasting freedom.

Sometimes the same thing happens to people. When we offer charity that deprives someone of the opportunity to fly free of poverty—through a stronger reliance on God—we act like the boy in that story. Instead, we would do well to follow this counsel from the Hebrew Talmud: "The noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting charity; and the best alms are to show and to enable a man to dispense with alms" (quoted in Miscellaneous Writings, Mary Baker Eddy, p. ix).

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