By Pamela Haines

For one lunch at the FGC Gathering, we were served rice and beans. The beans were gone when I went through the line so I got rice with bean juice. At each table there was information about Right Sharing of the World’s Resources, to which FGC donated the savings from that meal. I had remembered Right Sharing from the past, but was pleased to get this update.

I was impressed with both the total adequacy of my meal-it even tasted good-and the range of incredibly modest-sized programs that Right Sharing supports. The small amount of money-nickels and dimes even-that can make a big difference in the lives of very poor people really caught my attention.

How could I bring this experience back home? The plan sprang into my brain full born. We would put a jar for Right Sharing in some central place in our house, and we would agree on a system of donations. The variations are endless: maybe a nickel for a soda or a half-hour of TV, a quarter for a local car ride when a bike would have worked, a dollar for an air conditioned room, a penny for using clean water or flushing the toilet, ten dollars for a chance to go to the Gathering-a real privilege! Then we would put money in the jar as we took advantage of those luxuries.

This provides a way of noticing some of the gifts in our lives that we so often take for granted, and an opportunity to say thank you in a tangible way that binds us with others in our human family. At first I thought of doing this with my family alone, then I thought of my extended family, then I thought of the meeting. If this would be a gift in my life, perhaps it would be a gift in yours.

I invite you to join in a Right Sharing project. (If the donation jar doesn’t appeal, people in other meetings have also tried yard sales, where they consider which of their possessions they don’t really need, put them in the sale and donate the proceeds. I’m sure there are many other ways as well.) I invite you to think about how you or your family would be enriched by some variation of this project.