A few years go I heard a saying from Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan that continues to teach me - “Money, what do you like most? Changing hands.”
Those words came to mind as I found myself collecting the mail one evening, sifting through the envelopes. Most were from charities, soliciting donations. I often receive guests at my home - home remodeling companies asking if I need any repairs done on my house, pest removal experts, young men offering their tree and landscape services.
I hear so many stories of people feeling worried about money - businesses needing clients, people needing jobs, budgets that are short. And I've had so many money worries myself throughout the years.
Sometimes, when I see neighbor after neighbor on my city streets, asking for money, or when the envelopes come in the door, all needing funds, I feel overwhelmed. I feel my heart get tight and constrict. But this day, when I opened the envelopes, something in my heart completely turned around, and I saw it from another perspective: what a glorious thing, that there are so many people trying to help that I can't possibly say yes to every need. I tried to capture that feeling in this poem.
Today where I live it's a holiday, Labor Day, where we honor the many ways we labor. This poem felt like a fitting offering to lay at the table for all the ways we each work to make life better for each other.
New Math
“Money, what do you like most? Changing hands.” - Hazrat Inayat Khan
They arrive in the mail in white envelopes,
pleas for medicine and support for elephants,
requests from your alma mater and public radio.
You slice them open and read their stories –
the pregnant woman riding in the back of a truck
for hours, desperate to reach a hospital where
a surgery will save her life. The family from
Honduras, sleeping for months with their four
children on city streets, trekking north.
You want to feed every hungry envelope
with hundred dollar bills. When you can't
you're surprised by your delight: there are ten
million charities in the world! Ten million
people who saw a need and said, I can help.
There are so many places where people want
to help that you can't possibly fill every
envelope. It will take thousands and thousands
of you: I've got this one here. You take another.
You know today there are families fleeing
famine and flash floods, falling bombs and
wildfires. You see the horror. You also see the
ten million people lined up to help, millions
more who will send checks. As life continues
with its tragic loss, others are already planning:
this is how we'll help. This is how we'll take
care of each other.