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December 10th, 2008 | Filed under Uncategorized.
The economic collapse that accelerated this past summer stands vividly against the life values marginalized for years by much of American mainstream. On the positive side, is it possible now to say that this recession could shift awareness, could – for a brief time — lift . . .
Meaning higher than money
Caring over capitalism
Service to others that transcends ego?
If the scales measuring what is worthwhile are tilting now in the other direction (and the scales are falling from many eyes), is it inevitable that society must quickly jerk back and attempt to restore money to the highest alter? Or could we take a brief species-moment to consider the alternative, the experience of living as if lovingness were vastly more important than wealth?
What would it mean to flip our priorities so that compassion were foremost, that nurses were our heroes instead of the captains of industry? We are surrounded by good examples of givers, from priests of all faiths to wise teachers to kindly aunts. Recently, their importance faded in comparison to our material-minded side. It’s a balancing act and we have gotten way out of balance. That why this adjustment is such a shock.
If family and friends – kith and kin – pull closer together for these holidays and the cold winter months, that tenderness – gentle though it be – will restore for awhile our core human values, the place where life is real. Can this tenderness be so visible and heart-felt that it is not just for awhile, that it remains imbedded in our society? Will we remember?
How do we turn this crisis from focusing on loss of money towards finding a life where love matters more?
Walter Beebe
I think this current crisis and all accompanying crises are reminders to those of us in the US that we do not inhabit an ivory tower, and we have not attained some mythic social and spiritual evolution that has placed us beyond the troubling experienes of our fellows around the globe and throughout time. Catastrophic economic and social upheavals have woven through our human history and brought change and eliminated stasis. These current crises, while painful, serve the changing global tableau no less and in a very similar fashion as do death, decay, and fermentation which makes possible new growth, albeit in unforseeable forms and variations. The constant in this dance of cyclic change, is love, and the Divine Love that sets all this in motion. Only by truly tapping into that overarching Reality, may we expereince this dance, and our individual places within it, even when painful, as an expression of the will of Truth. If Mansur al-Hallaj could dance on the way to the gallows, we can at the very least strive to find a spark of what he found and use its Light to guide us through our own current trials. There may be much more to come for us to face and endure. Is not now the time to find the courage and the sobriety to embrace these hard changes and be changed for the better thereby, rather than to submit in fear to a chaos that can destroy us?