Balancing Act, 14

I will open, Gentle Reader, with the selection for 12 September from the daily devotional, God Calling: "The eye of the soul is the will. If your one desire is My Kingdom, to find that Kingdom, to serve that Kingdom, then truly shall your whole body be full of light. When you are told to seek first the Kingdom of God, the first step is to secure that your will is for that Kingdom. A single eye to God’s glory. Desiring nothing less than that His Kingdom come. Seeking in all things the advance of His Kingdom. Know no values but Spiritual values. No profit but that of Spiritual gain. Seek in all things His Kingdom first. Only seek material gain when that gain will mean a gain for My Kingdom. Get away from money values altogether. Walk with Me. Learn of Me. Talk to Me. Here lies your true happiness." First of all, I didn't know that that would be the text today. I simply, during my prayer-time this morning received a mental impression of page 177 in my copy of God Calling, which I read from every morning. I find this to be a more timely way of reading this book than day by day according to the dates, as this way I get much clearer and more specific guidance, confirming things, and at times correcting things in my life that need to be addressed, which is to say that, yes, I believe that God wants to communicate with us, with all of us, one to one, and I think this happens oftener than many of us realize, or will give credit to, and it needs to happen more. This particular passage addresses a small conundrum I found myself in yesterday. While I was out with a client, we stopped into the local No Frills, or, Food Dollarama, as I like to call it. Without going into details that would compromise my client's confidentiality, we were doing this to help him acclimatize to shopping independently. This is when I noticed a fabulous special on strawberries, just two bucks a box. So, I picked up two, not realizing that someone had set in the much more expensive (double the cost) organic strawberries with the ones on sale. I didn't trouble to carefully read the different labels, being in a hurry to be sure that my client was okay. When I paid for the strawberries, I noticed that I was given less change than I expected, and didn't have time to look at everything properly until I got home. Sure enough, I was charged two dollars for one box of regular strawberries, and three-ninety-seven for the other box of the organic berries. I did not know they were organic, otherwise, I would not have bought them, being as I am, on a tight budged and a low income, and organics is really a niched market for the well-heeled. I was wroth. Two dollars I had sacrificed for this mistake and when you are working poor, two dollars is still a lot of money. On the other hand, a coffee visit with some friends for that day after work had been cancelled, and therefore I would still be saving a few cents,. But I was still upset, feeling, as it were, cheated. I telephoned the store, talked to the representative (thanks Jason!) who was very understanding and tactful, and promised that they would see that from now on they keep the more expensive organics well apart, because it is likely I'm not the only shopper who fell for this little ruse. I was still upset, though. Then I switched on the radio to hear the concluding segment of an interview with someone mentioning that one out of ever five people who live in my city have to go without proper food because housing and other things are so expensive here. That was just the reality check that was needed. I have enough to eat. More than enough. One of my favourite sayings: "Never complain about a fridge that is too full." And in one of my dreams last night I was hosting a dinner party for a number of travellers staying in a hostel I was running, and there was a huge abundance of food to prepare for them, though things were kind of scattered and disorganized. What has come across loud and clear to me, Gentle Reader, is that I am rich. I have more than enough. However, there is something about our inherent acquisitive greed and selfishness that leaves us feeling poor and empty, no matter how much we already have. it's like this woman in Nova Scotia (Halifax, I think), who is on the news after winning 1.2 million dollars in the lottery. She wrote the name of her nephew, whom she says she raised, or helped to raise like her own son, on the ticket, for good luck. Now, said nephew wants his half of the pickings. Auntie says, "No, sweetie.) And now her beloved little darling is taking her to court over it. I am not about to take sides on this one, and I remain to this day dead-set against lotteries or any form of gambling for the simple reason that they summon forth that nastiest of human traits: GREED. We never seem to have enough: like those wealthy burghers in Shaughnessy and other well-off neighbourhoods who erect ugly and angry lawn signs in protest of the tiny extra tax on homes valued at over 3 million dollars. No doubt they can afford to pay that little extra, or they can defer payment till after the house is sold and the balance they will still be getting back from their equity will still be more than enough to set them up nicely for the rest of their lives. But too much is never enough. Hence this warning in today's reading from God Calling.