This week Canada's Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, stated
that the year's deficit will be $50 billion dollars: the government will spend
$50 billion more than it collects in taxes. Future generations must pay it back,
with interest, over and above their regular commitments, similar to mortgages
and student loans.
Some of the money will provide temporary relief to those suffering from loss of
income and employment. Some will go to corporations and shareholders in danger
of bankruptcy. Some will be used to build long term infrastructure and create
jobs. But in the light of justice, what is the correlation between those who
will pay the debt and those benefiting from it?
Individuals and families whose desires have driven them to bigger homes,
luxurious automobiles, fashionable clothes and unbridled consumerism, encouraged
by corporations and governments, are turning to money/credit card debt with high
interest rates to buy “happiness”. This temporary solution can only delay for a
short time the day of reckoning when simplicity, frugality and the intangible
will demand attention.
While we tend to equate wealth with money and material things, money is only a
medium of exchange. True wealth is found in Nature - pure water, clean air,
sunshine and rich earth on which life depends. Nature is the real source of the
economy, politics, education and spirituality. Nature is Life.
For our interconnection with other beings on land, below the surface, in the
air, and in the waters, human beings are a privileged part, and our debt is an
enormous one. We are part of the web of life, its magic and its mystery.
To our ancestors, heroes and teachers who have helped us to become individuals
by showing us how to conquer virtues by defeating faults, we owe more than we
can imagine. The legacies of Confucius, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Buddha and our
Native Shamans, among others, have left a body of Wisdom and ways of elevating
humanity so truth, beauty, generosity, elegance, respect and other sacred values
can be part of our relationships and communities.
New Acropolis is part of those legacies in more than 50 countries where Timeless
Values are learned and where stability, serenity, creativity and initiative are
developed in order to build a better world.
