Abundance living

I have deleted my Angels Unaware(s) Facebook page. All it was bringing in was hatemongering comments, and after having to read and respond or mostly just delete 5 or 6 of them every day, I decided it wasn't worth it. It was a good insight into how much ignorance there is out there about world events, and how self-protective many people are. Clearly our culture is founded on a belief in scarcity, so whatever one person or group gets means less for everyone else. I've been practicing a cosmology/theology of abundance for a couple of decades now and still frequently catch myself in scarcity mode. Capitalism is based on scarcity thinking, so it's really hard to free yourself from it if you've grown up in a capitalist society.

Scarcity thinking leads to feelings of fear, competition, and insularity--I must protect what I have, so I will fight off anyone who might take it away from me and push them outside my home boundary. And if you're near the bottom of the heap already, you'll fight all that much harder to keep what you have. Xenophobia, racism, bigotry are all results of scarcity thinking. "Why don't you take care of our own before throwing your money at refugees?" "If they'd stood up and fought for their country, they wouldn't be running away now! Why should we help them?" "I'm tired of my tax dollars being thrown away on people who aren't even from here." Those are the refrains I've heard repeated on every comment but one since I made my page public.

Abundance thinking allows generosity, compassion, and radical hospitality. You can share what you have with others because there is always more. It's a tough sell in these hard times, but I believe that it's true and that it's the only way to live fully. Living out of abundance requires community and trust--you have to share with each other, so you can't be a rugged individualist and live abundantly. You can't win and live abundantly. You can't be fearful and live abundantly.

When you think about it, abundance living should be easier than scarcity living. So much less stress and anxiety! Why do we choose anxiety over joy? Why is joy so hard to remember? Note to self: Remember joy. There is always more.