Presence and Perspective

There’s this video of my daughters about 3 years ago to the day. They’re jumping happily on a pull-out couch mattress, one of them is holding an apple as she jumps, and after 7 bounces, and lots of giggles, they sit cross-legged after their final jump and each take a bite of the apple.

It was warmish fall November day in 2019.

There was not yet a global pandemic.

The economy had not risen and then fallen.

Grandpa was still alive.

Yes, on this warmish November day in 2019–I was full of hope.

How could I not be with their infectious joy bursting forth as they jump on a sleeper sofa I found that day? 

As these beams of light jumped and shared an apple? 

They didn’t need much. 

Just each other. 

A bed to jump on. 

An apple to share. 

There was lots of hope.

In 2019, Coram was just this one house. 

Barely enough room for that sleeper sofa to open…and the basis was this:

We don’t need much.

By minimizing space and stuff, we’d have greater capacity for reality, for love, for being.

Not that we can’t have those things without a lot of stuff—but the pathway to peace is far crowded without it.

I would rent it real cheap, and someone would have a place to lay their head. 

A place to figure out what mattered to them. 

The process of building it was a place of figuring out what mattered to me. 

It’s where the name Coram came from.

It was a place to be present to reality. 

Present to all that was shifting around me at the time. Shifting faith, shifting relationships, shifting responsibilities, shifting visions of the future and of justice.

Down there at the bottom of everything, I saw the capacity for love within simplicity. 

When the soul wasn’t crowded by want, there was so much space for love. 

In 2019, I was just starting my journey on how our systems are designed to make us want and want, and that path to getting is often a competitive, exploitative path, but we must get. And I strived to get…only to learn that the game is rigged. 

The path to getting (to build wealth, have a bunch of nice things, be financially free, etc.) is not just about hard work, but largely a combo of luck, timing, geography, and biology—none of which we create for ourselves.

Now, heading into 2023, I’m further recognizing reality is that there is an abundant world out there—and the work, my work, Coram’s work, and the work thankfully of many many others is unshackling that abundance, breaking the barriers to that abundance, and allowing it to flow to those who’ve not had access before. 

And for me, I have an insatiable curiosity for what a world looks like where the marginalized, oppressed, neglected peoples don’t have their backs against wall. 

What if we could collectively link the creative residue that runs through all of us, and envisioned a shared future together?

What is something or someone accumulating value didn’t have to come at the expense of another?

What if renters were able to build wealth at a rate similar to homeowners?

What if those with access to capital refused to build further wealth until the systems that build their wealth did so equitably?

It’s hard enough to see the brokenness for a system that benefits you, let alone to dismantle and change it.

Hmmmmm

The commercial material capitalistic high holy days of discounts and marketing are upon us—Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday—Coram wants millions to reinvest in people, in communities that have been overlooked and extracted from. 

We’re still working out what a sustainable fund looks like that invests specifically in those folks traditional financial institutions deem uninvestable, or too risky. 

The riskiest move from my vantage is to continue as we have. To continue to extract.

I’ll probably make a plea for money on giving Tuesday, actually, if you’re up for it, go to our website and give now (https://coramhouses.org/give:)

It’s not 2019, but I am still full of hope. 

Over the last few years I’ve met many many many people who see our separation crisis, our knowledge crisis, our exploitation crisis, our ecological crisis—and either are doing something or want to be.

The Spirit is moving. Bringing to pass the better world we know is possible. And until I die I’ll be gently walking toward that world with lots of hope.