What better story of abundance than the loaves and the fishes? Faced with a hungry crowd, thousands of people who had spent the whole day listening to him teach, Jesus took the only food available five loaves of bread and two fish – said the blessing and shared it round. Everyone ate as much as they wanted and still there were twelve baskets of scraps. Everyone! Five loaves, two fish, thousands of people, plenty left over!
Sometimes we believe we don’t have enough for ourselves, let alone anything to share. Our lives are cramped and crowded – work, illness, debts, responsibilities. Toss a disability into the mix and the boat begins to founder and then to sink.
The secret is the point of view.
Seen one way, life with a disability is a burden, a curse, a prison. Seen in another, it is a liberation, a discovery, a chance to change all the rules and start from scratch.
How did Jesus manage to feed that crowd of hungry people? Some say he simply multiplied the loaves and the fishes through magic or a miracle. Others think it had more to do with his expectation of abundance. His simple belief that all would be fed helped each one present to bring out whatever they had been hiding and share it with those around them.
Because the answer always lies within. Whatever we need, we already have. Abundance is about recognizing that truth.
Disability challenges our confidence in profound ways. It compels us to look deeper inside ourselves for power and strength and miracles yet simultaneously enables us to reach out to others on the journey, sharing our weaknesses and transforming them into gifts.
We have seen this again and again with our parents, with our companions in the field and with the people around us who are drawn in by the excitement and the vividness of the struggle. Thee is nothing complacent or ensconced about a life with disability .It is a life cut down to essentials and there is a vigor and a joy in its unfolding.
This year, the Karuna Vihar calendar celebrates abundance- recognizing that we really are blessed and fortunate and lucky- right now, just as we are, exactly in this moment. We are blessed by our challenges. –they help us to grow. We are fortunate in our talents and our gifts- they are the resources we use to change the world.. And we are lucky to have been born now, with these particular circumstances, in this particular community. In fact, you might even say we are the luckiest people on earth. And so are you. Abundance!
-–Jo Chopra
