Energy Required - NOT Money!

I saw an interview on Fox News the other day between a "hard nosed" presenter and some kind of religious guy - a Reverend of sorts, of which the US has plenty.

The religious guy said that more had to be done for the poor in America; the hard nosed presenter said, "We're spending BILLIONS already - how much more do you want?! This poor spending is crippling the economy! And it's not working! No matter how much we spend, it doesn't seem to get ANY better!"

The Reverend guy did the goldfish impression and had nothing to say for about 30 seconds, until he rallied around enough to squawk his original demand again for more money because "SOMETHING has to be done about the situation ..."

It came to me that what was missing wasn't money at all.

What was missing was ENERGY.

I think that the "poor spending" is just something the politicians aren't really that interested in, as they aren't being elected by the poor, but by the majority which is working and middle class.

So sure, the poor are annoying and highly unsightly and so money is being voted that way with the idea that "that'll do the trick" and the problem goes away.

And of course, should someone turn up and complain about the state of the poor again, you can always say, "What the hell do you want? We already spend BILLIONS ..."

It is interesting to see that the lack of what I call "energy" there creates and perpetuates the problem - even though folk often think that those are the same, or that they are interchangeable.

That's not the case.

To spend "energy" on "the poor", which wouldn't actually cost anything, would be to pay attention to their issues, the systems they are battling with, and to bring energy into EVERYONE who has to deal with all of that, from all the various angles, so that everyone works together and achieves different outcomes, works a bit harder, thinks forward towards a different vision, overcomes apathy and belief, reversals and doubts, past failures and general negativity.

It would take for the leadership, the politicians I guess, to turn their attention towards this arena of issues and actively seek solutions to the problems that exist there.

These solutions might well NOT consist of chucking more money at the problems at all. *If* there was a general debate and any kind of REAL WILL to sort something out, things might well change in many different ways; different solutions and approaches might be tried out and all sorts of people who were previously not involved might be drawn into making a contribution to what was going on.

It's fascinating to muse that this is really "the spirit" of the idea of religious teachings about conduct towards the poor.

And it's rather a shame that this Reverend guy on the news show clearly didn't have a CLUE about the actual practical value of spiritual, aka energy based approaches, so he could argue that corner as I just did.

In the Enchanted World it says that you can only change that which you love. It also says that if you can't manage love as yet, you can start on the way to that by paying attention to get the process started.

By paying attention to the issues of "the poor" (and that's a complete metaphor, just so we're clear on that!) the first connection arises that will eventually lead to the very real possibility of transformation.

Or, of course, you can chuck more money over your shoulder at them and hope that'll keep them quiet and they'll just go away.

Wonder where that principle is in action inside people's own lives and ecologies as well.

As above, so below.



Silvia Hartmann