Last evening I attended an Epiphany Star Walk and walked through a nighttime journey following a path of reflection on the course of the Magi. At one station on the path, we were asked to choose a Star Word, a word chosen at random on which we were to reflect over the coming year. My word was “Abundance”.
This word is not a stranger to my reflections. Years ago I was part of a team whose mission was to bring a Fair Funding Formula to Pennsylvania’s educational system. As part of our training, we were brought to the Scripture passage of Genesis 5, where the Pharaoh ordered withholding of raw material but demanding the output of bricks; creating scarcity in the land of abundance.
This Star Word caused me to reflect on my own thinking on abundance and the understandings I gained during that educational campaign. I have witnessed this nation’s mindset change. At one point we believed that we had enough wealth to put microscopes in the classrooms of even the poorest communities, to offer educational grants to those headed to college, to build the most advanced infrastructure in the world, and to provide money for the most advanced technological research. That was the culture of abundance. Then came the counterculture that taught that we were living in a land of scarcity, that only a few earned the life abundant, that unless we built silos to contain the excess that we would not have enough, that the bricks would be made from the gleanings that the wealthy left in the field, that we would be trickled upon.
Despite the fact that my family was poor, my mother had an attitude of abundance. There was always room at our table for drop in visitors, always time to visit some shut-in, always a small check sent to a woman in New York (whom I had never even met) because she needed it more than we did. Her faith was in a God of abundance and her attitude reflected it. I am hopeful that mine does also.
My Thoughts and the Thoughts of Others 