“There is something powerful in genuine giving. And there is something powerful in truly receiving. Genuine giving calls for genuine receiving. And genuine receiving requires a willingness to be humble. To truly receive means we place a greater focus on the other than on self.” -Walter LeFlore
When have you practiced genuine receiving?
“We can understand the abundance of the universe in two ways: as an invitation to complacency, or as an invitation to generosity. Much depends upon that choice. For if we respond with complacency—if we merely accept all the creative energy and all the love and sacrifice that have made our own lives possible, then the abundance of the universe comes to a stop in us…. It is when we respond to the abundance of life with gratitude and generosity that we become a part of that universal creativity. When we contribute our own energy to the flowing stream then it fills us and pours out of us to others, so that the stream is enhanced.” -Kendyl Gibbons
How do you choose to respond to abundance?
“Here is a summertime truth: abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community doesn’t just create abundance—community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.” -Parker Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak
When have you experienced a community creating–or being–abundance?
Too often, I experience the great fullness of life as overwhelming. How will I do everything I have to get done today? Dog hair, unread magazines, kids’ dirty socks, etc., all seem to have little tiny faces to taunt me about ever keeping my environment anything close to… restfulness…. And that’s not even mentioning the paper piles, each beckoning me to spend time with them. -Meg Riley (CLF)
When have you been overwhelmed by abundance?
“In India recently someone asked my spiritual teacher a question: ‘What is the worst karma a person can undergo here on earth? What is the greatest difficulty? The harshest circumstances?’ I was astonished by my teacher’s reply. He answered (and I paraphrase), ‘The worst karma is to be ungrateful. If you suffer from ingratitude then it won’t matter what blessings and goodness are in your life, you won’t be capable of receiving it. In contrast, if you are grateful, then even in the most challenging of circumstances, you will be able to recognize the many gifts that you are receiving.'” -Barbara Merritt
When have you been able to feel gratitude in the midst of challenging circumstances?
