Godly Goods or Fools Gold

This will not, until the last, seem like a holiday column. Most assuredly it is.

It’s true what they say. Don’t give up running when you are two feet from the finish line. Drag that sorry fanny across the line if you have to.

From the perspective of eternity, twenty one years is the blink of an eye. On November 23rd, it was twenty one years since I took a vow embodied in the song, ‘Here Am I, Lord’.  Those are vows that can never be dissolved. “I will hold your people in my heart....”.

It is ironic that my first day of freedom, delivery into the Promised Land, happened 21 years to the day I took those vows.

However, the week before this 21st anniversary of my ordination vows, I threw in the towel. Like Job in the second to the last chapter of his story, I told God it was simply too hard. There were tears. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth. The emptiness inside them that caused me harm through mean spirited, haughty and devious manipulations of their own story was greater than any kindness or encouragements to authenticity or turning of the other cheek I could muster. I was done.

For the first time thoughts of revenge and pleasurable retribution and my own demise crept into a dark place in my heart. Here was the worst part, I didn’t even care. For years I had been trying to understand what lay at their core that they could commit perjury, embezzlement, adultery, exploit those who support them, drown themselves in all manner of addictions... the list was endless. Over and over I would enter into a relationship with them to understand or think myself at fault and so disregard any red flags in my vision. Now..I just didn’t care. I just wanted them punished and to have my pound of flesh. I wasn’t going to hold them in my heart any longer. No wishes for some appearance of remorse and repentance, a change of heart and mind that would lead to a change in their lives for the good.

Like all good rock bottom moments that do not end in death, there was one strong thread of new life coursing it’s way through my narrative that week: the confluence of a study group around a book called “Money and the Meaning of Life” and simultaneously finishing “The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd, and continuing “The Grand Adventure” --- which I promise to tell you about anon. In that week when I thought flesh was overcoming Spirit, these three events were as sure a catalytic as baking soda was to vinegar in those volcanoes children build in elementary school projects.
With my heart distracted and set on destruction, the answer popped into my mind in the form of a single word.

Greed.

Inside them was greed. It was the driving force in their lives. Everything made sense.

Greed is born of want. Want comes from emptiness. Emptiness comes from pain. Pain comes from injury. Injury comes when healing is refused. Healing is refused from fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown leads to a desire for comfort. Desire for comfort leads to doing things the easy, deceptive way. That all leads to greed, and a concern and preoccupation with power and status.

Greedy people are chasing their own tails. The opposite of freedom is greed. Greed will have you chasing yourself and sniffing yourself and seeing only what something can cost you or give you. Others are just means to an end involving the self. Someone recently pointed out to me that crows are the only birds that use people as a tool. Greedy people are crows.

Now I could love them again. Now I could offer them mercy. Anyone empty of all but greed and fear is to be pitied, to be prayed for. Being poor financially is one thing. Being empty in your spirit is quite another. Lord, fill them. Let my light so shine. Greed is unquenchable. No sorrier state than that. Yes, I could wish for them more.

This season, the driving force in all marketing is fear and greed. Avoid it like the plague. --oh yea...I also finished “Year of Wonder” that week. The plague...fear is rosy boils and greed just drives the life from you and will not be sated. Avoid this. If you must shop, big or small, buy at stores where the owners are not greedy. Buy where the owners are not undermined by fear of not enough. Black Friday...really? That transparent? Black Death? Greed. Emptiness. Not life.
You will have a choice for the next six weeks: greed or freedom, faith or fear, consciousness or comfort.

As an ambassador for living in the Light, let me put a plug in for free, faithful and conscious. If you choose that, no matter what you wrap up for Hanukkah or Christmas or Kwanzaa, the gift you will give the world, and your loved ones, and your enemies, is your best self – You!  All your talents and skills and the purest heart will add life to those around you and by reflection, beyond.

Whether you are shopping, or wrapping or baking or crafting, ask this question, “Does this feed freedom or fear? Am I supporting greed or benevolence?

Wishing you a blessed, life nurturing holiday.

Love,
Deborah