4 minute read
Time to Recalibrate the Moral Compass
Filip de Sagher
When the hot August sun is halfway to its descent toward the dark blue Pacific Ocean, a fading yellow-blueish haze seems to settle over the Georgia Straight.
The deep green of the Douglas firs on its edges starts to mix with the shadowy outline of Vancouver Island in the distance and often a late afternoon sailing boat right in the middle, its white sails neatly trimmed, emphasizes that coalescence of colours. The sun slowly becomes a dark orange dot on the horizon.
No wonder I then often reflect on the paintings of Claude Monet (b.1850 – d.1926), the French painter who founded Impressionism with his painting “Impression, soleil levant” or “Impression, sunrise.” He painted no real landscapes, but what he thought he saw when looking at them: The changing of light, the passing of seasons.
My view of the Straight at these times feels like a so-called milliondollar view while I am attending to my dry-rubbed spatchcock chicken on the barbeque, chilled BC brew in hand.
Many such famous paintings were and are “charitably given” to musea all over the world, more often than not gifted/loaned/rented/entrusted/ leased via complex corporate-fiscal structures. It is tax-driven monetary charitable giving, frequently, however, unrelated to a painting’s artistic value.
©iStockphoto.com/Teraphim
Oscar Wilde (b. 1854 – d. 1900), the famous Irish poet and playwright, defined a cynic as a person knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. The expression “a milliondollar view” refers to the value, not the price, in the eye of the beholder. Value vs. price: I sometimes wonder if the distance between these two has not increased when it comes to charitable giving.
After all, why wait until death when one believes in a worthy cause? And why formulate a bequest in monetary terms?
Charity originally comes from the Latin carus, dear, (think, e.g., “carefully”) and quickly took on religious overtones as in “Christian love for one another.” The word philanthropy is often used interchangeably, literally referring to man’s love for one another (philos, love, and antrophos, man, both Greek terms, with man of course referring to both genders).
The concept expresses a desire to help realize an ideal, to support a person or persons in need or to contribute to a principle one values. Somehow, however, over time, a tunnel vision seems to have set in and mankind appears to have arrived at narrowly defining charitable giving as donating money. Rather than volunteering or contributing in kind or even just providing a human touch to the person in need, such as listening.
Additionally, donations apparently have to wait until death. Are we too busy to love one another while alive? Or, to express it in Biblical terms, can the salvation of our souls be postponed until we are about to check out? Has a Will become a purchase agreement to buy love on the completion date? To paraphrase a well-known expression—love delayed is love denied. Is time not of the essence?
The chicken has 15 minutes to go so it is time to brush it thoroughly with the molasses-based smoky sauce I prepared the day before. The use of chipotle, a smoked hot chilli pepper from Mexico, is for me key to its intense flavour. I open another bottle of hoppy BC beer and contemplate the painting in front of me. The sailing boat is long gone but the sun is neatly hovering on the horizon, about to disappear.
The pandemic has been messing around with our minds for quite a while now and its long-term consequences on our mental health are not yet clear. But one thing I know for sure: Charitable giving in its original and old-fashioned sense, love and kindness and understanding, will be needed more than ever.
The Black Eyed Peas expressed it well in their 2003 hit Where is the Love, composed around the time of the 9/11 terror attacks. It has lost nothing of its message; on the contrary, it was prophetic.
So next time charitable giving is on your mind . . . give. s Filip de Sagher is a BC Notary practising at Deprez & Associates in Vancouver.
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