This month's host, Susan, has asked us to reflect on the topic of Abundance. What a complicated word this is for me. I ask in advance for grace if you choose to read my thoughts -- it will soon become obvious that I have by no means figured this issue out!
Jesus said that He had come to give us abundant life, and there's a wonderful spiritual abundance that provides for our days no matter what our circumstances. But as I look around the world and think of abundance, I feel so conflicted when I observe the deep poverty in which such a large proportion of human beings live, including many beloved to me. "Blessed are the poor," Jesus said. I think it's tempting for us to romanticize that blessedness by saying things like, "They're much happier than the rich." It's true that money doesn't buy happiness, but living a life without clean water, without health care, without security, without basic amenities of life, doesn't buy happiness either. Although I moved away from Haiti at the end of last year, I read the news from there daily, and I feel great pain to watch what is happening there, and how society is falling apart more each day.
On a far different scale (and I hesitate to even add this point because I am so well provided for), I am living in a season of paring down, having just moved and sold or given away so many of my possessions. I've been thinking a lot about what I truly need, how many dishes, how many books.... (See how the examples I give are of non-necessities, compared with people who carry their water on their heads from a common tap down the street, or people who have to leave their homes due to gang violence, and own only what they can hang somehow on their bodies? Even my scarcity would be enormous abundance to so many in this world.)
When I was thinking about abundance, I remembered a podcast from 2017, an interview that musician Sandra McCracken did with A Rocha founder Peter Harris. (A Rocha is a Christian environmentalist organization - check out their website for amazing resources!) I went back and listened to it again. I couldn't find a transcript, and I didn't have time to do a complete one myself, but here's a link to the thirty-one minute podcast, which is well worth the time, and below I'll include some quotes from it.
Harris talks a bit about liturgies, and how so much about living in and caring for the world is about repetition and faithfulness. He refers to a liturgy of turning on the faucet, if you are fortunate enough to live in a home with running water, getting into the habit of a moment of thankfulness when you experience that abundance. After he makes this comment, Sandra asks him if he has any thoughts on the words abundance and scarcity. In response, he talks about reading Ellen Davis. Referring to the children of Israel leaving Egypt, he says, "Egypt was the place of abundance. You knew exactly when the Nile would flood....The Promised Land was this place of scarcity...a semi-arid land between two deserts [ancient Hebrews saw the sea as a place of scarcity and chaos], dependent for rainfall on your relationship with God." In his organization, he says, "we've asked ourselves, does God want us in a place of [material] scarcity or abundance, and I don't think there's an easy answer...but I do think there's a creative scarcity, and a very destructive scarcity." He discusses the "thinning of nature," due to climate change and habitat loss, and how this leads to scarcity, "the scarcity of misery...soil impoverishment, water scarcity." In the middle of this litany of the opposite of abundance, he adds, "God occasionally takes us into outrageous moments of abundance."
"You can't make sense of all of these things, can you, very easily? Gratitude is how we live, wherever we find ourselves, is what Paul says....I don't think our expectation should be for abundance. That's not the world we live in." He goes on to talk a bit about how physical abundance -- having riches, basically -- can put us in a position of temptation to rely on our own resources.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, there's a difference between physical abundance and spiritual abundance. We're physical creatures, though, and the older I get, the more aware I become of how much our physical and spiritual selves are connected. It's not as simple as having less materially making us more spiritual. But there's definitely a sense in which physical abundance can lead to spiritual poverty.
I am so curious to see Susan's roundup of what others have to say on this topic. I always gain much food for thought each month.
5 comments:
Ruth, your thoughtful response reflects the difficulty I had in owning this word, abundance. And yet, it kept returning to me. I do believe that as we grow in spiritual abundance, physical abundance matters less to us. However, you are correct -- there is a point of physical scarcity that is ultimately debilitating (echoed by Maslow's hierarchy). For me, this focus on abundance has helped me grow spiritually. I am more generous with my time, my energy, my words, my opinions, my patience...because I am not focused on how little of each of these I possess. I am looking at them without boundaries. For me, this is where abundance leads.
Abundance is a complicated, multifaceted topic as you illustrate, Ruth. The points from Harris on liturgies lying in repetition and faithfulness as we live in and care for this world especially speak to me. Gratitude, too - it's at the heart of spiritual abundance. Thank you for this deep reflection.
Thank you, Ruth. I appreciate your thoughts. The world offers us much to consider.
Carol, I grapple with the ideas of abundance and poverty, too. They have never been more apparent as of late, both in my personal life (waaay too much stuff) and my professional path, which has taken me from a very high SES school to a Title I campus. The disparity is such that I could hardly bear to go to the former the other day to drop off retirement cards for former colleagues, to be in that newer, bright building surrounded by people who have all of their basic needs met and then some. Thanks for echoing my thoughts in your post.
Ruth, please excuse the lateness of this post. I have to pace myself these days of my right eye still healing from cataract surgery. I am sure the process will continue but the left eye surgery will come on Tuesday. Your thoughts on abundance-physical and spiritual are insightful. I am grateful for this community and each writer's connection to a broad topic. I, too, have been drawn to communities of children who have little material needs as opposed to those with comfort. I am glad that I read this post tonight.
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