Blog Action Day: Poverty

Today is Blog Catalogue’s annual bloganza and this year’s subject is poverty. I want to address it from the place I return to over and over again in my life experience: the mirror.

It is a basic principle of metaphysics that whatever I perceive, I do so because that whatever is in my consciousness. Another way to say this is: everything is our mirror. Everything. No exceptions.

This means that the hate video I saw on a friend’s blog this morning showed me my own inner hate. (Ouch!) This also means that the meeting I had at noon which turned out so well showed me my own inner gladness. It’s ALL a mirror. All, all, all, all, all. (Do I need to be clearer?)

When Blog Catalogue proposed poverty as a subject, I groaned a little. Of course what they wanted was to bring poverty to the foreground of consciousness, to have us all remember that we see poverty. There was a homeless man outside the restaurant where we went for my birthday dinner on Sunday night asking for leftovers. Yet another mirror.

So what are you and I to do about poverty when we see it?

First, acknowledge it. Ignoring it isn’t going to make it disappear.

Second, know that it’s reflecting some sort of poverty in yourself. Your poverty doesn’t have to LOOK LIKE the next person’s. It is, however, still poverty.

Third, ask within yourself if there is some action that you are to take in the face of this particular poverty. You will be guided. Sometimes, there’s action and sometimes there’s not. Ask, be still, listen. If it’s yours to do something about, it will be made clear. For the homeless man asking for leftovers, we stopped, really looked at him and apologized. It was what we were guided to do, and he thanked us.

Fourth, add the poverty in the world, all over the world, into your everyday prayers. The metaphysicians of old would have said, “If there is any one who is poor, then all are poor.” On varying levels, it’s true.

Give of your abundance, whatever form it may take, and that abundance will grow. The fastest cure for poverty on earth is a consciousness of abundant supply for everyone—no exceptions.