Goodness Gracious Sakes Alive

"If it isn't good, let it die.  If it doesn't die, make it good."
Ajahn Chah

"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons."  
Alfred E. Neuman


The goodness factor: moral excellence; virtue; kindness; generosity; excellence of quality.  What is goodness?  While the attributes listed above touch on it, none of them nail it down.  Yet, we somehow intuitively know when something is good because it makes us feel happier and lighter inside.  It is sort of like the difference between having to take the bitterness of life's lemons straight and being able to add some sweetener.  The sweetener makes all the difference turning the unpleasant acrid taste of pure lemons into refreshing lemonade.  So how do we apply this sweetener to our culture to mitigate the acridness of our current situation?

In the simple wisdom of Ajahn Chah, we need to assess whether there is any inherent goodness.  If we think not, then we need to be prepared to rid ourselves of it and move on.  But if in that moving on, it doesn't die; then, we need to make it good.  And herein is the real nubbins of the issue.  To make something good that previously may not have been requires effort on our part.  It calls us to new thinking and new ways of doing things.  In the end, I think it all gets down to intention.  Is our intention to make it good for all of us or for just a select few?  That subtle shift makes all the difference and determines the goodness quotient of our results - the quality of the lemonade we make.

We have the potential to be so much more than what we have achieved so far.  The last few blogs have dealt with our dark sides and how that path is not sustainable for any of us.  Today, I wish to celebrate the resourceful cleverness that resides within each of us just waiting to get out.  As I write this blog, several hundred creative, resourceful entrepreneurs and business owners are converging on Buffalo, New York for the annual convention of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).  Their mission is a lofty one - "PROSPERITY FOR ALL."  I am not sure about you but I want to gather under that banner.  Even more idealistic is this statement: "Within a generation, we envision a global system of human-scale, interconnected local economies that function in harmony with local ecosystems to meet the basic needs of all people, support just and democratic societies, and foster joyful community life."  I say AMEN!  By shifting their focus from all-about-me-and-my-endeavor-in-isolation-and-competition-with- everyone-else to hey-let's-pool-our-resources-and-work-together-for-the-common-good, they are impacting communities and bringing about a social revolution from the ground up.  They are not waiting for the "big boys" to get involved; they have rolled up their sleeves and are figuring it out for themselves and luckily for the rest of us as well.  My money is on them.

In case you are still waiting for a great leader to emerge and lead us out of this quagmire, here is something to think about: social scientists have observed that once a complex system becomes corrupted, it cannot re-energize itself for self-correction.  The best bet is to find a safe creative space outside of the dominant system from which something new can be created from the ground up.  Sounds as if BALLE is just such a crucible for birthing an economy that brings true prosperity.  Has it ever made any sense that a "healthy" economy is one that is predicated upon people's ability to consume (greed) and is constantly growing with no discernable reason for that growth (cancer)?  To paraphrase what Michelle Long, Executive Director of BALLE, said at last year's convention, it's about living life as an experiment, making it up as we go along at the grass roots.  Adding my commentary, that really means that in order to do so, we have to be present in each moment and free to respond to what that moment has to offer.  Isn't that what the gurus have been preaching all along as the path to happiness and peace?   

Here are BALLE's guiding principles: 

• Think Local First - this improves the health of the environment, strengthens community, contributes to functional democracy
• Increase Self-Reliance - this increases local resilience, saves energy and creates a foundation for world peace.
• Share Prosperity - provides living wage jobs, creates opportunities for broad-based business ownership, engages in fair trade, and expects living returns from our capital
• Build Community - collaboration, cooperation, and fair trade between communities for a sustainable global society
• Work with Nature - every decision affects the vitality of our ecosystem
• Celebrate Diversity - increases resilience, propels innovation, cultivates peace and fosters beauty and joy
• Measure What Matters - success by what brings us knowledge, creativity, relationships, health, consciousness and happiness. 

After these principles, there really is not much else to add.  I recently made a trip to northwestern Pennsylvania where oil was discovered in the mid 1800s.  The prosperity of that time is reflected in the fading structures that remain.  I could not help but wonder what this landscape would be like today if those early tycoons had used the natural resources for the good of all and not just to build huge financial empires and line their own deep pockets.  It is a question that we no longer have the luxury of postponing the answer to.  We already know that our economy and way of life is not sustainable if left to its own over toxic inertia.  It is time to let it die and that part that doesn't, it is time to make it good.  

Hurrah for visionary thinkers and doers who are already hard at work birthing a new paradigm.  It is time for all of us to join the movement to support local sustainable communities.  And while we are at it, let's put real lemons back into the lemonade as well as in the furniture polish.