Cap'n Trade

I am so thankful for my life experiences. My childhood and the examples my parents set for me, my ever-evolving relationship with my wife and children, my prayer life, yoga and mediation, coaching, chiropractic, births, deaths, disruptive events... as I embrace these, I become gentler, humbler, wiser, more tuned to God's will for me, more tuned to a consistent and verifiable worldview.

Tim recently commented that capping wages at "something outrageous, say $80,000 per year" would be a good thing. Steve commented that deadbeats dads are a primary cause of economic woe and the decay of our social structure. To my way of thinking, God's love for us, the evidence of His concern for us, His wishes for our lives to be rich and full, stands in often mute testimony to the fallacious nature of those ideas.

For those of my readers who struggle with an idea of a big guy in a long white beard pulling strings, rest assured that's not what I'm talking about. Consider the Universe began in an instant and created vast energy and abundance from nothing, and that 13 billion years later this energy is scarcely begun in its work; we are part of it, imbued with it, and this driving force of abundance is built into every bit of us. So think of that when I use the words God's Spirit or Mind or Will.

Going against the Will of God is a sin. He wants to shower us with His Divine Grace, Abundance, and Sufficiency (recall Jesus' words about toil and the lilies of the field, among other biblical references concerning God as our abundant provider). Therefore, to limit what we will accept from God is a sin. If God blesses us with vast income, that's great! The downfall then becomes if we curtail others' opportunities, in order to preserve our abundance. Humans love the temporary to become permanent, and we often lose sight of how our choices decay into expediency in order to preserve our status quo. There is no sin in making money. Rather, there is much grace in making money in a way that increases the opportunities for other people to live well, and grow in grace themselves.

Steve's views about fatherhood are informed by a sincere belief that the nuclear family is the best kind of family. I got to go to a party this Sunday celebrating an unmarried white woman's adoption of a black baby. Her extended, "by choice," family attended: people she has surrounded herself with to substitute for her abusive birth family. I saw more love and care and Spirit of God shared and displayed among this assembled group of athiests, trans-genders, alternatively oriented, multi-classed family than sometimes I see when I go to Church. Love is compounded in its sharing.

Again, God's support for us is infinite; whether it's income or love for a child, limiting Divine Abundance is selfish, sinful, antagonistic, contrary, and non-harmonious. When we use our free will to align our lives with generosity and abundance, instead of "rightness" and forced redistribution of wealth, we are living truly sustainably.