More Than Enough
Category: Spirituality
What do you do when you have more than enough? Have you ever been apple picking? Apple Orchards relatively close to where I live, for example, have an abundance of apples for human consumption throughout the autumn season. Many visit the orchards and buy apples, apple pies, apple cider, and much more throughout the autumn season. Then at the end of the season, as winter approaches, a strange thing happens. If you visit these orchards, there is still an abundance of apples that never were used laying there on the ground.
Is it a waste that the trees bore so much fruit no one ate? Not really. The earth receives the decomposed food and many spiritualists even believe the earth’s consumption of natural foods/elements is like an offering given up to the ancestors before us.
There’s an article on npr.com (National Public Radio) entitled, “The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And Power.” This article details how the Romans used a display of purposeful gluttony as a strategy to appear powerful. Traditionally, however, displays of abundance can be traced back to the fruitfulness of our earth’s natural resources and the belief that the earth receives its own decayed natural resources as an offering.
Think of human life, for example. The Bible states in Genesis 3:19, “For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” This tells us that, ideally, the human body decomposes into dirt as a preferred cycle and natural process that gives back to the earth what the earth first created. This process acts as an offering to Mother Nature, just like the never-consumed fruit and vegetables from trees decompose back into the earth’s soil.
If life has blessed you with abundance, remember this concept: Your overflow serves better as an “honor to your ancestors” than it does as a “display of debauchery and power.” What are some things you have in abundance? Do you have an abundance of food? Breathe in your lungs? Money? Friends? Good health? Love in your heart? Ask yourself today: How can I incorporate into my spiritual practice a ritual to use my abundance as an honor to the earth and the ancestors before me.