July/August 2002 Editor's Viewpoint
On Milestones and Values

by Miriam Knight

Miriam Knight
Whenever you reach one of those birthdays with a zero in it, you tend to pause and reflect on the last decade. If someone had told me ten years ago that I would be running an alternative newspaper today, I would have questioned their sanity. Now, I occasionally question mine, but wouldn't have it otherwise. I am one of those people who made a fairly dramatic mid-life shift looking for something more meaningful to do. My husband is another, and, judging from the numbers of people I have met who are on the same path, I believe we are the tip of a very large iceberg.

Many of us find ourselves out of step with the consumer society that cares more about possessions than about people. We've had our turn at power and position and now feel that we want to give back, to help others, to create something. We have gone into healing, intuitive work or the arts or joined communities and gone back to the land. We reach out and try to connect with each other and with the earth. Our values center on home, family, friends and community.

When you watch the news, you see the world spinning into a downward spiral of violence, corruption and callousness. I sit in wonderment at the endless cycle of politicians, CEOs, stock market manipulators, terrorists and counter-terrorists, with their arrogant disregard for other people's lives and welfare. So intent are they on winning their power games and increasing their "net worth" that the "old" values of integrity and truth are trampled under. One wonders how they value themselves as human beings.

Happily there is a growing consciousness emerging that sees every individual as an expression of the creative source, and thus priceless. It is a person's deeds that count--expressed in kindness and compassion--and the impact he/she has on the evolutionary spiral of others. Take the example of Dignity Village.

I recently attended a meeting of the City Spiritual Club, and heard Ibrahim Mubarak and Jack Trafari, residents of Dignity Village, speak eloquently about the struggle to preserve that community, and find a piece of land to live on when their current arrangement with the city runs out. They had found a number of affordable plots to buy. In each case, however, the neighbors objected strongly, fearing for the value of their property. However enlightened we might think we are, we live in a society that equates value with money. A person's "net worth" is a dollar figure.

It is interesting to note that the word "dignity" comes from the Latin dignus, meaning worth. It relates both to the value that society places upon an individual and to the value that person places upon him/herself. Those who have witnessed the transformation of those individuals into a self-respecting and mutually supportive community stand in awe, and it may be fair to say that the percent gain in their net worth rivals the crooked CEOs.

Now I would venture that New Connexion readers are more likely than most to empathize with the humans behind the usual stereotype of street people; but, when weighing their needs against the impact of a tent city next door on the equity in our house, would we have reacted differently? We work hard for our money and earn less than we used to. We all try to do our best within our means, and each of us will have a different comfort zone. One will buy organic food, another will plant a vegetable garden; another will give money to charity while another will volunteer his/her time.

It is deeds that mark the worth of a person, and the most important thing is our worth in our own eyes. We should be able to look back during our 10-yearly introspections and take satisfaction from things that we have created. It doesn't matter what form these creations take: children, artwork, material structures, social structures, gardens, healings or acts of kindness. They are all acts of creation and have turned the spiral of human evolution upwards--and isn't that what it's all about?