I have felt it an important obligation, no matter what my financial state, to practise a radical generosity in terms of what I will support joyfully, helping to birth it into our common experience.
I want to support the development of services, talent, and expertise that are not typically valued in our culture. Because of this support, I have always gladly shared my abilities, encouragement, energy and money with the ideas, people and causes that strive to move us beyond our limitations and into our excellence. Though it varies from year to year, I challenge myself to disperse up to 60 percent of my income, after taxes, to benefit areas other than my own personal gain, primarily humanitarian endeavours. I am aware this constitutes a radical generosity, yet it seems my income expands so exponentially as a result of my commitment that my personal wealth continues to grow rapidly.
One of the greatest thinkers of our time was Buckminster Fuller, scientist, writer, philosopher. He held that there was enough to go around. He believed that we had enough resources, for instance, to feed the whole planet right now, today. It is true. Our deficits are not about lack. They are about how we perceive and how we act on our perceptions. So much is possible when we realize what is available to us right now, when we see what we have. Stepping outside of the idea that ‘nothing can be done', we begin to see that much can happen incredibly differently, with great speed, and with preternatural ease.
Becky's House
One morning, a woman called a local San Diego talk radio show, with DJs Jeff and Jer. She spoke of an abusive situation she was in, without the means to get out of it. A female police officer called to offer help and a conversation developed about the need for a shelter for women in such situations. Jeff and Jer suggested that enough money might be raised to at least help ‘Becky’ (not her real name) to get a couple of months' rent. They suggested that anyone who wanted to give a few dollars could drop it off at a downtown location the following morning and the station would see that it was given to Becky. The following morning, in just an hour-and-a-half's time, $42,000 was dropped off by people on their way to work!
When Jeff and Jer shared the exciting news on the air that day it galvanized the audience. Almost immediately Becky had a new apartment, counselling and support, and volunteers who helped her relocate, even moving her belongings. But the on-air conversation continued about a facility that could help others in similar situations. A city employee called to say that their office had land set aside for a shelter for abused women, but no resources to develop it. A contractor called in offering to oversee the construction, an architect offered to design it, and many people donated plumbing, electrical, and other labour for building it - all volunteering their services free of charge. Funds began to come together and in a matter of days Becky's House, as it came to be called, was well under way.
For years the City of San Diego had been trying to set up such a facility. Yet, in a very short time, generous individuals pooled their powerful and nearly boundless group resources, achieving what government agencies could not. Within seven months the ribbon was cut at the opening ceremony and Becky's House was a reality.
There is enough
Switching through television channels one Sunday morning, I observed a dynamic black preacher interact with his congregation. It was a large group; thousands were in attendance. He called out, ‘How many of you need jobs? All of you stand up!' Hundreds of his parishioners stood.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘how many of you own businesses that need employees?'
An even larger group stood up. ‘You see, it is all provided for us, if we only ask. I want all of you who are standing to leave before the sermon; we are going to do something about this right here and now. We have people that will take you into our conference rooms and help you find each other. God doesn't mean for these wonderful resources to go to waste. God makes everything ready but it's up to us to see what's in front of our face!’
Many people got jobs that day, even some who had been searching for months.
There is enough. Even in those passages in our life that seem to be barren, everything we need is there – all the resources, all the gifts. It is easier than we have come to believe. The power to demonstrate this is not franchised solely to the wealthy, or government, or the large corporations. That power is housed most fully, most limitlessly, within. And that power quite literally can move mountains.
From The Architecture of All Abundance, copyright 2001 by Lenedra J Carroll, published in the UK in 2005 by Piatkus Books.
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