HAPPY ST. STEPHEN'S DAY

HAPPY ST. STEVEN'S DAY! It was boxing day in England past. The day after Christmas the Haves boxed up their excess and gave it to the Have-nots. Wouldn't that be nice if that was truly a tradition with some substance. The well to do could raise the poor out of their poverty. Heck, the super rich could pay for the education of all those wanting to attend college and have money left over to underwrite medical care for those that need it. Well, someday, keep your mind on what should be rather than what is. We should all spend some time each day imagining a sane world.

Stop and picture how isolated we are. I don't know any poor people personally. At least I don't know how poor they really are. I have children who are saddled by mountainous student loans, which is debt slavery and should be against the law, but their everyday lives are okay, they have good housing and nutritious food.

When Jamie and I were in the midst of our sabbatical, wresting a living from the land, we met all kinds of people from that economical world we don't see now. I spent the last ten years of my life not knowing anybody that didn't have at least a master's degree. They were not rich but if they ever knew poverty it was far behind them. I knew poverty. When I was going to college we lived off the crumbs of those receiving some kind of assistance. My brother had a neighbor who didn't want the cornmeal and other things they received. My brother passed them on to me and I had cornmeal bread in the lunch I took everyday to school. Some of those crumbs were great they included honey, butter etc., surplus commodities the government would have to store. The government bought up farm goods to keep the prices stabilized. Do they still do that?

Back to my theme, there seems to be an invisible wall between groups in our supposed classless society. Once I graduated from college my life changed. It isn't that I ever knew any desperately poor people but I knew of their existence. But even as a Social Worker, I may have worked with desperately poor people. But they weren't an intimate part of my life. We seem to identify with our social group to the point of not seeing the whole.

When Jamie and I lived without money we seemed to attract others in similar circumstances. Some were like us, a temporary, perhaps even a voluntary situation, but others had known little else but a hand to mouth existence. Some of the folks had marketable skills but they worked only enough to survive. What was so amazing is, as a group, how rich they were in experience, wisdom and general intelligence. I had some of the most profound philosophical discussions with folks that never saw an ivy hall; folks who always were dealing with the most earthy aspects of life.

When I decided to rejoin the salaried society. These folks stopped coming around. Our world changed. People were accustomed to stopping by when it occurred to them. We had no telephone and our garden and animals created our schedule. If we were doing chores when they dropped in they often pitched in and gave us news of the world they encountered. All of a sudden we were in a different rhythm. Some of the folks would drop in on weekends, but the world changed.

We always attracted the intellectual, educated folk. They would come up from the cities and have coffee and discuss the world situation with whoever was there. It was a truly egalitarian group of equals.

But why did that curtain have to be redrawn between the social groups? How much of that energy emanated from me? Did I no longer want to associate with them? I don't think that is true. Was it just because the rhythm of our lives changed so much? My first salaried position demanded that I drive 70 miles one way, five days a week. I only had weekends for most of the chores and I would be wrung out.

Is the separation primarily economic? I see people in the grocery store who are probably struggling in a true hand to mouth existence. Could we be friends?

I have always seen class as the peak in which we view the world. Some can only see the hustle and bustle of survival. At every level we see humanity at a different level. We get to the level of ideas and finally we get to see 'wholeness'.

During the short time Jamie and I were living off the land, I knew several people who could see at the highest level even though they seemed to be at the hustle/bustle level. They could have exchanged ideas with any intellectual giant on Earth.

Is this separation and isolation all a product of our craziness? Our judgement? I know we are all ONE do you?

Love and Peace, Gregg