Here’s a look at how standing inside of sufficiency can look: I like to call it our deconstructionist decorated Christmas tree. We are an interreligious family – we light Hanukah candles and spend Christmas with family. Having a Christmas tree doesn’t really flow with our small home and active child. However, we love the feeling of Christmas, the spirit of it, stringing berries and popcorn, singing carols … So, we got a table sized Rosemary plant from Trader Joe’s. It was inexpensive, and we’ll use the Rosemary for cooking. The little bush sat around for a bit, eventually being relegated to the top of the TV. I was feeling sorry for it because we barely have a flat surface on which to place it and it was so … bare. So, my daughter and I got out the few ornaments and decorations we have from past years and made a go of it. We strung our berries and popcorn, wrapping the little tree with that and a red ribbon. I sewed a star years ago and that somehow fit on top without toppling it. While she worked on the tree – carols being fed in from free Internet – I strung silver beads across the room from which we hung our ornaments. The two strands of lights we garlanded over a bunch of empty shelves looked lonely, so I tried the tree up there and wrapped some parts of the lights around it. Finally, it all came together.

To a traditional celebrant, this might be ridiculous, but to a family that is constantly experimenting with what is enough and accepting our limitations, this was a wild success. We created the experience of joy that Christmas so boldly offers in its promise. We used materials we already had and reinvented them so the look was fresh and interesting. We made a small investment in an herb bush that will live on beyond the season and contribute to our culinary life. And we had fun problem solving various moments of uncertainty about how something could or would work.

This was an entirely emergent process. And that is what sufficiency promises us. If we are not going to solve the problems of today with today’s tools, what are we going to use? We can only rely on our inner resources, on collaboration, on the creative principal – that as we define our desire and engage in the process of generating a desired future – tools – in the form of ideas, resources, support – will and do arise. It is not magic. It just is the truth of it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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