Comment: Sharing Stone Soup
I think I've been wrestling for perhaps three days now with news I heard that a lightworker had committed suicide. It's as if it rippled through my being. At last I became so depressed and lifeless that I felt I needed to get to the bottom of it and share what I found – or succumb to it.
I really don't want to go into the details of the suicide very much because, for me anyways, they aren't really important. What was important was that a lightworker had committed suicide.
I'm pretty sure financial matters were involved. And I think her situation is common, which is why I share what I'm about to.
I'm a monk – by nature and proclivity. I can't say a word about how to create abundance because I know nothing about it. It troubles me. But one can only speak about what one knows.
I can make my contribution in another way. But before that, I need to share a story because it's material to the point I want to make. It's the story of stone soup.
Making Stone Soup
Two soldiers returning from the war had no money. They knocked on doors in the village and asked for food but they were told that there was none to spare, none to give.
So they took themselves apart and talked the situation over. One had an idea. He put stones into water in a large kettle and lit a fire under it.
The villagers came out to see what they might be eating. And the soldier told them stone soup. He explained that each villager put into the pot whatever he or she could or wished to and they would make a wonderful soup together.
They had never heard of it. Some were wary. But at last one brought carrots and put them in. And then another brought potatoes. And another brought beef. And pretty soon people were contributing the best they had to offer.
In the end, the whole village ate the most wonderful soup. And they never forgot. Regularly they would come together after that and make a wonderful stone soup.
Matthew Ward warned us that a time would come when we'd need to share, to be creative, even to barter. (1) The manner in which people share is not important, I say. What's important is that there's a common birth of the desire to share. And if the time is right, perhaps it will spread.
I know nothing about abundance but day by day I'm learning more about sharing and the birth of community among us.
At the End of My Tether
We as lightworkers need to go first. And so I will go first in saying, or admitting, that I feel that I have done all I can.
I often feel like the villagers. I feel as if I've shared all I had and even taken on significant debt to share more. And now I feel as if I have no more to share.
It feels like I'm nearing my end. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Sharing what's true for us is sometimes all we can do in a situation.
I'm at the end of my tether in three ways: financially, intellectually and energetically. I have no more to give, no more ideas, and no more energy to draw on. And all of this is common right now, I think. I don't think I'm alone in this or that financial distress is rare.
The Commonwealth
I feel led to the conclusion that, whoever it is, whatever circumstances cause it, there needs to be the birth of sharing in us as a community. We need to go first. That's what we signed on for as lightworkers. That's what we're here for. This is our mission.
If we each bring something to the common soup (and I don't mean just the soup of the Hope Chest. I mean any soup, all soups), I know that we can make a beautiful soup together. We need to make more soups as a community, but not just the eating kind.
A true community draws from the common soup. That's why some societies call themselves a "commonwealth." They hold the idea of sharing wealth in common. They have social capital, lots of it. They have many reasons to stay together and pull together.
I know – somehow – that it's time to birth community and communal sharing. I don't know how to do it. But I don't need more suicides to convince me. As a sovereign citizen of planet Earth, I assert the need for communal sharing on my own authority.
I've decided to orient towards these privations as if they're here to kickstart in us the rise of communal sharing. That seems to me the most useful thing to do. To "come from," as Werner Erhard would say, that these events are here to cause the birth of communal sharing in us as a world society.
Not Sharing Leads to Privation, Sharing to Prosperity,
Sharing is as sharing does. Sharing yields its own insights. We've swallowed a lot of nonsense about sharing – like that it leads to privation. Sharing doesn't lead to privation. Not sharing leads to privation. Sharing leads to prosperity. It's the path to prosperity, I'm almost sure of it.
We've also been told that, if we want to see a new world, we need to build it – or at least participate in the building of it.
I think we stand on this side of taking the lead in that. We haven't started yet – save for HopeGirl and other wayshowers – yes, Graham, Stephen, Geoff, Linda, etc. The first step in building a new world is to learn how to share as a community.
Not sharing is killing us. We're not "there" yet. And as long as we aren't, in this day and age, I think our thoughts manifest privation. I know this shows up like an untested hypothesis in some people's eyes. But I consider the possibility plausible and I'm testing it out in my own life for the good it produces.
Until and unless we begin to share, I say we won't function as a community and we won't prosper.
Once we begin to share, once we begin to cooperate together and function as a community, then we'll begin to prosper. And our prosperity will be built on solid ground.
My hunch is that situations like the one we face as a world are here to cause the birth of the communal impulse in us to share. To share and share alike.
That is as much as I (as a monk) can say. That has to be my contribution to our wonderful stone soup, my song for my supper.
May we be blessed with the birth of compassionate sharing among us as a world society and community. It has to happen and it is time.
Footnotes
(1) "Trading, or bartering, foodstuffs, talents and skills, equipment and tools — whatever one has that someone else needs and vice versa — can serve you well until the new system of economy and commerce is firmly established, and even then it can be a most satisfying exchange of goods and services." (Matthew's Message, May 21, 2008, at http://www.matthewbooks.com/mattsmessage.htm.)
"In Earth's Golden Age, the trend will be away from money and toward systems of sharing and bartering—the light intensity in souls will let those means of remuneration for services and conduct of commerce become as satisfying between nations as between individuals." (Matthew's Message, Feb. 14, 2010.)
"Instead of dwelling on fearful feelings, many people are being stalwart, innovative and ingenious as they deal with difficult circumstances; they are bartering goods and services, sharing resources and residences, or receiving other types of assistance. The caring of the helpers and the gratitude of the receivers is generating brilliant light." (Matthew's Message, Sept. 9, 2011.)
"Eventually, it will be seen by people that money is an artificial construct of the old paradigm, one that was devised to keep control over people. Money is not necessary. People will eventually create systems of barter and sharing that will work around the problems that have been created by the outmoded banking system." ("Metaphorosis – All is in a State of Flux," 26 Feb 2013, by Tazjima at http://aquariusparadigm.com/2013/02/26/tazjima-message-from-the-angels-metaphorosis-all-is-in-a-state-of-flux/)
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