Radical Abundance Part III

What is real wealth, do you think?

Is it money?

I bet you would say no. Money is money. It's one thing, and its not necessarily bad, but real wealth, if you were to ask me, is access to health care and education and green space and good food. Even more, wealth is family and friends and a place to call home. A thriving community. A healthy relationship with the earth. and, however it irons out, a sense of spirituality-- that there is more than me. Majora Carter says that people need three things in order to be healthy, happy humans:

• someone to love,
• something to do,
• and something to look forward to.

If we believe, (and I think that we do) that everyone should have those things-- that everyone should be wealthy in love and health and the good things of the earth, and that no one is truly wealthy until everyone is-- then I think we have to do some drastic changing of the system. I'm no economist, and I really can't claim to know the smallest thing about how the market works, but it seems to me that our money system isn't designed to work towards wealth at all.

So what?

I think one of the great tragedies of our era is the death of community. It still lives in some places, but despite my family's good intentions and best efforts, I hardly know any of my neighbors. I certainly don't feel like our neighborhood could be a center of support in a crisis, or that there's any real sense of pride in where we come from. Timothy Gorringes and David Korten, two of the speakers at the conference, both suggested that the best way to save ourselves from all kinds of ecological, social, and economic doom is to pull together in community. Regions should be able to support themselves agriculturally. The big money from Minnesota shouldn't head straight into the pockets of some guy in New York who's already rich-- instead we should keep the economy local. We should do away with agri-business, with big corporations, with over-seas sweatshops, and the attitude that junk somehow is worth our money and energy.

Gorringes talked about the "transition town" movement, a grass-roots sustainability revolution that's changing communities in the UK by getting people talking. That's what I want to do-- start a conversation. Get to know someone. As one speaker put it, "join the choir". Ask how we can creatively come together to change systems that none of us like.

I think its really possible that we are the ones that we've been waiting for.