Who was it, Aquinas maybe, who (channeling Aristotle, no doubt) first deduced that charity begins at home (on balance, one of your better cliches). With home as its epicenter, charity moves concentrically outward, depending on how much discretionary cash you have on hand, and your inclination to be charitable. Is that not self evident?

Have a family? Take care of them, make sure they don’t need for anything. Friends in need, friends in bad health, dire financial straits? Show them you’re a real friend. Everything good in your neighborhood? How about the family with the old beater in the driveway and cardboarded windows? The old guy in the wheelchair bringing home dog food from the store when he doesn’t own a dog? Maybe go see how they’re doing. Surrounded by health and happiness and still have money to burn? Maybe cut a check to the community food bank, the one run by the hard-headed pragmatist, the guy who knows who truly can’t help his homelessness and the one who‘s essentially healthy and more or less would rather be on an endless campout than working on the loading dock (you laugh, but we have our share of that species in our city, verified). And so on.

And there’s nothing virtuous about feeling charitable at the voting booth, when you’re doling out other people’s money. But you knew that.