Supposin': Bridge Back

Note: “Thank you” to everyone who took time to read and comment on the fourteen recent Supposin’ postings. I was encouraged by your responses to the positive approach of looking into the future. Just maybe, some of the material will make it to the final book edit and not just end up on the floor of the editing room. Our readership on the different digital sites continues to grow. This is a great time in history to be alive! JWJ

While we were in the midst of learning about Cultural Economics, I took the prerogative to amble on a bird walk through the subjects of scarcity, choice, and cost. Based on my years of observation, my hunch has been that by making the predisposition of scarcity and shortage our lodestar of life we end up with an attitudinal blood type of B Negative.

On our little walk, I was eager for us to discover that the birds of hope are everywhere, and we desperately need to listen to them sing. That goes equally for the new generation coming on as for the passing generation headed out. I agree with Mark Twain when he said, “There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.” On the other hand, there is nothing so refreshing and stabilizing as a maturing generation of optimists.

I admit, while I was writing about all the hope and excitement resulting from the exponential growth of knowledge and information and the astounding miracles of new technology, I did receive some comments accompanied by raised eyebrows: “Don’t you see the mess our country is in?”

I am reminded of what Walt Disney used to say while he was attempting to build his dream of Disneyland: “I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.” The simple answer is, “Yes, I understand that the world of ours is in a mess and that civility is very fragile.” Of my own volition I chose to spend time in over 150 countries of the world. I chose not to travel as a tourist, but travel to the political and cultural hotspots staying in villages, and so many times in personal homes in Africa, India, the old Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, China, northern Pakistan, and the rest.

I tried to closely observe the personal and tribal customs, the local conflicts, the historic traditions, the economic practices, and to ask lots of questions of not only the government leaders, but also of the common people. Many of them became my personal friends who would confide in me when I pushed for hard answers.

I spent a lot of time in Russia and the old Soviet Federation as it was unraveling militarily, politically, economically, and culturally. I was there when the citizens of Ukraine stormed the poorly guarded armories and took weapons for themselves for their own protection. I also was made aware that really no one was successfully overseeing the watch care of the Soviet strategic weapons or military institutions of defense.

I learned that practically any military items could be purchased with the correct amount of currency and the right contact. I have also discovered that no one knows where all those rockets, bombs, missiles, and warheads have ended up.

I am not naïve regarding the possibility of losing all the exponential knowledge and information we have so marvelously stored on our incomparable computer systems and in the clouds. Nor am I blind to the fact that within the next thirty seconds we all could be jolted back into the dark ages without access to electrical grid systems, food delivery systems, information systems, communication systems, healthcare, transportation, or government services. None has a free hall pass or an exemption certificate tucked away anywhere for this one.

The U.S. Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, and several additional governmental entities have established that a direct nuclear attack on the U.S. is not necessary to wreak untold havoc on our entire population. All that is necessary is to detonate one nuclear warhead high above any part of our country. It would not be mandatory to even aim it in our direction . . . just straight up.

As the warhead detonates, the powerful electromagnetic pulse would generate the gigantic catastrophe. The nuclear warhead would not necessarily have to kill anyone immediately, because it would not need to explode on the earth’s surface. The concept behind the plan reminds me of what I heard the Marxist groups in Africa explain as the refugees were being herded to the refugee camps: “you don’t need to kill them all, simply force the fish to the lake and then drain the lake.”

An Electromagnetic Pulse attack would simply render as useless anything that used an electronic circuit or chip. Everything from a simple car part, to a pacemaker for your heart, to the complicated infrastructure running world banking and financing systems, to all the necessities that it takes to serve 300 million Americans, would likely be knocked out.

Our nation’s extreme vulnerability in this area makes the U.S. a very tempting target for this kind of attack. It would only take a small terrorist group or rogue nation to successfully carry out such an attack. It is estimated that it would take fewer people to carry out such an endeavor than it did for the hellish 9-11 mission. An innocent ship at sea carrying a forty-foot cargo container on the top deck would peel back a false top and become a one-time launch pad to send a small ICBM missile up with a stolen warhead to detonate somewhere between only thirty to three hundred miles above the earth. If the plan was to put the whole world back into the dark ages, it would take only four such innocent-looking ships strategically located at sea.

Mr. R. James Woolsey, former director of CIA is the chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Peter Vincent Pry is the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and served on the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse commission. These men are so concerned about the devastating possibilities of such an attack that they finally went public with their concern in an article in Wall Street Journal in May, 2013. (1) (Recommended reading:One Second After, by William R. Forstchen, Ph.D., specializing in military history and history of technology)

The time that it would take to recover from a nuclear EMP attack has generally been estimated to be at least three years if the trauma were large enough to destroy large power grid transformers. Other estimates use twelve years for recovery time. With no money system intact, there would be a time of great economic failure. Whether this time of economic hardship is of short or long duration will depend upon the reaction of the people after the event. If the recovery period were long, civilization in the United States could reach a tipping point where recovery would become difficult or impossible.

In my opinion, the reason this destructive contrivance has not been utilized before now has to do with the character of our enemies. Those who would seek the demise of America want to not only capture the golden eggs of its wealthy civilization, but also inherit unscathed the goose that continually lays the golden eggs. If they are not careful, their greed could completely obliterate the goose in the process. And they know nothing as to how to create or restore the magic goose. They would rather wait and take it over from the inside and inherit the wealth-generating goose in good health.

Yet, another cast of rogues lusts not so much for the wealth of this nation, as for the introduction of a new era of world history, where with the timely aid of the EMP they could cripple America and allow for the marshaling of a major invasion of Israel and the grand and imminent ushering in of the 12th Imam, the Islamic messiah. I am certain that I have left out other viable options.

Yes, I understand that “this world of ours is in a mess, and that civility is very fragile.” I am aware that we extol and celebrate our history’s splendid periods ofenlightenment, maybe not realizing that every enlightenment period has been preceded by an era of the dark ages. But where does that leave those of us who were born into this enigmatic era?

When the stakes are high and the matter of character of the players is in question, anything can happen. I have discovered that in times like this if you will feed your faith, your fears will starve to death. So, don’t let your fears choose your destiny by default. Get your own personal house and your valued relationships in order. Do what is possible, and then relax and get back to seeing how many other people you can help become better off. Seneca, the Greek philosopher observed, “Where fear is, happiness is not.” If my mind is focused on fear and angst, it is almost impossible to focus on my journey to fulfillment. I choose to keep on being happy!

With all that having been explored, I think it is time we get back to working on the exciting subject of Cultural Economics.

Next Week: Exploring Cultural Economics

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 5

I must admit, I am having an absolute hoot researching the prodigious discoveries and inventions that are taking place right before our eyes. The doom and gloom folks have almost blinded our vision from seeing this astounding progress in motion. We are not aware of what is happening, therefore, we are subtly being stripped of the joy and excitement of the remarkable adventure.

We have discussed how technology is breathlessly trying to keep up with the exponential growth of information and knowledge that now increases by the minute. Additionally, the progress is accompanied by affordability, because the price of the technology pieces keeps coming down through new concepts of mass production. Integrated circuits with super star chips that communicate by radio frequencies instead of electricity, smart phones that can perform from the palm of your hand what it took a building full of equipment to accomplish just months ago . . . all that, plus biofuels not dug from earth but harvested from the oil created by designer algae.

All things we have been discussing have everything to do with cultural economics. We are being able not only to observe the scientific breakthroughs— the effect of the exponential information and knowledge on our culture— but also, the behavior of the world citizens as the progress and adventures move forward. What an exciting time to be alive!

I hope you have been greatly encouraged through reviewing this litany of recent progress. There is presently so much going on that it is difficult to decide just what extraordinary examples should be included in our Supposin’series. It sometimes helps, however, to put things into proper perspective. But, before we finish our little detour, I feel that I must share with you two additional examples of recent progress.

Since my first hearing of the 3-D printer, I was hooked. “How in the world can they do that?” Carl Bass, Autodesk software’s creator, has successfully produced the latest generation of digital fabrication. In the past few years, while traveling through India and some countries of Asia, I marveled at the exquisite pieces of art produced with the precise aid of computer controlled lasers, cutters, and shapers. They were trimming away unwanted parts of the material, be it wood, steel, glass, jade, precious metals, ice, or coconut shells to create a breath-taking masterpiece of art.

The new generation of software, however, makes another aspect of fabrication available. Today, they don’t just whittle away what is not wanted; they also add to the project what is needed. The additive aspect of the manufacturing process includes the computer telling the printer to lay down successive layers of materials, such as steel, glass, plastic, or some new and unique composite into a precise computer designed shape.

Soon, the new 3-D printers will be as readily found in the shop, office, or home as the standard inkjet printers of today. When that happens, fabrication and manufacturing will change forever. Whenever something breaks you will be able to fabricate the spare part on your own 3-D printer. Either, you can design your replacement part or go to the internet and download the digital instructions to your own computer and it will instruct your 3-D printer to produce the desired product.

I am an antique car buff, and I can hardly wait to get my hands on my first 3-D printer. Can you imagine being able to simply make your own missing carburetor part or missing piece of trim with your computer and 3-D printer? You can let your creativity run wild. I suppose an astronaut could even remake a broken part of his spaceship while in mid- flight. And prototypes for yet-to-be-invented technologies will be made in a fraction of the time it now takes.

It is my understanding that the medical industry is not only presently designing and fabricating life-like prosthetic pieces with the 3-D printers, but also designing vital body organs for replacement parts. I recently watched a television presentation where they completed on their 3-D printer a complete human skull to be used as a replacement for a person’s crushed skull. Remarkable!

One unique function of the 3D printer is the ability to create new types of materials never before available by weaving and embedding unique substances into the fabrics to give them less weight but increased strength, flexibility, and resistance to outside elements.

I have saved my last example of astounding displays of progress to honor one of my childhood heroes, former president General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Atoms for Peace initiative of the 1950s. One of the most effective contemporary organizations dedicated to carrying out the Atoms for Peace dream is TerraPower. On TerraPower’s web page it speaks of one of the brightest minds in today’s world of exponential knowledge and information.

“Dr. Myhrvold shares the views of his peers at TerraPower that nuclear energy is the only proven generation source that can provide the large-scale, base load electricity needed to meet the world’s growing energy demands while combating global warming.”

Nathan Myhrvold and his Generation IV technologies are committed to offering carbon free energy to everyone in the world. Nuclear energy as an option of choice has never been stronger in preference than now. The energy industry is now seeing the error in our ways for having been led down a path away from the safe development of nuclear power. Forty years of continual bashing of the nuclear resource’s reputation and potential has also exponentially put us behind in the development of safe nuclear power. Hopefully, that bit of jaundiced manipulation has ended.

Nathan Myhrvold’s TerraPower teamed up with Bill and Melinda Gates and developed the Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR) that Myhrvold claims is the world’s most simplified passive fast breeder reactor. The TWR cannot melt down, has no moving parts, and can shut down its own reactors without human help or interference, The TWR does not require any nuclear enrichment operations, it requires absolutely no spent fuel handling, and requires no dangerous waste storage facilities.

The small scale nuclear reactor (SMR), about the size of a refrigerator, can be manufactured, assembled, and sealed at a safely controlled assembly plant. It is designed to run safely for fifty or more years, and then use its sealed case as its own safe burial casket. TerraPower and the Gates Foundation want to supply a build, bury, and forget, safe, and convenient power supply. This supply would not only be for cities and locales in America, but for the people in all the developing world who otherwise could never wait for dams, windmills, and electric distribution grids to be erected around the world to supply the energy needs.

The hotter burning Generation IV technologies make a whole lot of sense. It is possible to design the TWR’s small reactors to burn liquid fluoride thorium that is four times more available than uranium and does not produce any long- lived nuclear waste. Additionally, you could solve two problems at the same time, should you so desire. You could meet the fuel needs of the TWR, and at the same time, design it to burn up all the existing supply of old problematic spent fuel rods. “We could power the world for the next one thousand years just burning and disposing of the depleted uranium and spent fuel rods on today’s stockpiles.”

When the peddlers of doom, gloom, and fear are hawking their wares at the top of their lungs, it is prime time for the brave, forward- thinking, and creative folks to kick in and begin to articulate the message of hope, possibility, and abundance. Thanks, President Eisenhower for your dream to harness the power of the atom for peaceful purposes, I still like Ike.

And thanks to the thousands of brilliant inventors and scientist who are working hard to harness the mass of exponential knowledge and information now available to show us that things on this old world are not always as bad as we are led to believe. I cast my vote on the side of the exciting possibilities of the future.

Next Week: Bridge Back

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 4

Exponential information and knowledge, and even remarkable new technologies, are certainly not going to cure all the cultural, economic, or moral ills of our present world. The awareness updating, however, of our phenomenal and almost unbelievable current progress is stark testimony to the fact that things are not all as bad as we are sometimes led to believe. It is actually quite a wonderful and exciting time to be alive.

Earlier, I briefly mentioned my frustration with our problem of oil dependence . . . notice; I did not say oil scarcity. Deutsche Bank’s Joe La Vorgna points out that every $0.01 change in gasoline prices is worth $1 billion in the economy, and since the 2011 highs, there has been a decline in gas prices of more than $0.50.(1) Let’s take the next few paragraphs and look at our fuel and energy situation.

There are a number of factors playing out right now that could be major game changers. The US is awash in oil and gas. There is no scarcity. The political availability to the resources is a road with many potholes and devious curves. There is no universal plan of equality here for the government to make everybody better off. As history and economics would bear out, however, with a little time, potholes get filled and noisome curves get straightened out. My bet here is on change.

People are beginning to whisper about “Saudi America” because of our recent validations of oil and gas reserves. Even Maury Harris, a chief US economist was recently remarking that North Dakota could join OPEC. (2) The Williston, North Dakota oil fields are producing over one million barrels of oil a day and headed for two million. Even the US Energy Information Administration claims the boom will remain mostly steady into 2020 for oil and well beyond for natural gas. Employment of the US oil and gas operations has gained 64% vs. overall payroll growth since 2009.

Rob Wile, www. businessinsider.com/us-energy-boom-continues-to-surprise, continues to report on the bullish energy story in North Dakota. He quotes economist Ed Yardeni that the “fracking dividend,” much like the “peace dividend” that followed World War II, is about to take hold and lift the US economy:

The Fracking Dividend has already narrowed this US petroleum trade deficit from a recent peak of $359 billion during January 2012 to $182 billion during November 2013. The deficit could go to zero over the next couple years. That would provide a big dividend to real GDP growth, as well as more purchasing power for Americans. Building the infrastructure to export crude oil would be another benefit, especially for capital goods manufacturers.

Exporting our own oil, very recently, has helped cut the US trade deficit to a four-year low. Petroleum product exports climbed to an all-time high of $13.3 billion. Meanwhile, crude imports declined to $28.5 billion, the lowest since November 2010. The petroleum deficit thus shrank to $15.2 billion in November, the lowest since May 2009.

There is no oil or natural gas scarcity. Question: So, why aren’t we able to use our own inexpensive resources?

Sometimes it takes a while, but over time, economics has a way of trumping politics. If the oil industry is thwarted in utilizing our own products within our own country and are forced to export crude oil and natural gas in order to shrink the trade deficit, then, more than likely, those economic entrepreneurs of business will tap into the cache of exponential information and knowledge that we have been building and construct a detour around the problem created by politics.

Oil giant, Exxon Mobile announced in 2010 that they were committing $600 million over the next six years to developing a whole new generation of biofuels. Most of us remember earlier unsuccessful attempts by industry to create ethanol-gasoline out of corn. That didn’t work so well. But Exxon Mobile intends to spend its $600 million on creating new concepts in biofuels, as well as lots of other products.

Exxon Mobile made an interesting move. They teamed up with super scientist, Craig Venter, the inventor who decided the US Department of Energy was moving too slowly and spending too much money on their DNA project to sequence three billion base pairs for the human genome project. Some folks thought the project was impossible, some believed it couldn’t be accomplished in less than fifty years. The US government set aside $10 billion for the project. At the late date of 2000, Venter decided to join the race with his own company Celera. The US spent $1.5 billion successfully sequencing the human genome. Venter tied their completion date and spent only $100 million to accomplish the task.

Dr. Venter and Exxon are determined to manufacture super inexpensive fuels. Instead of extracting oil from holes drilled in the earth they are growing a new type of algae that can take carbon dioxide and plentiful ocean water and create oil or any other kind of fuel that would please the market. Venter has sailed his Sorcerer IIyacht around the world gathering samples of algae to process through his new DNA sequencing apparatus. He now has built a library of over forty million different genes that he can presently use to successfully design a large variation of biofuels for the future. “We only need sunlight, CO2, and seawater.” The designer algae will manufacture the bio oil that is produced. You never harvest the cells, only the oils they excrete.

Exponential knowledge and information growth in such areas as biotechnology makes it possible to develop manageable methods to harness the information as well as the resources. I personally, have to keep reminding myself that it was Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt who stated that from the beginning of time until the year 2003, humankind created five exabytes of digital information. An Exabyte is one billion gigabytes. By the year 2010 the human race was generating five exabytes every few days. In the near future the number is expected to be five exabytes produced every few minutes.

I don’t know if I can really comprehend all that. But I am beginning to comprehend how for the first time in history our knowledge base and technology is beginning to catch up with our dreams and ambitions.

In my research on all the progress taking place and the good things that are happening today in our world, I ran across an ambitious endeavor that virtually leaves me breathless and in awe. The bright minds of the industry are now getting serious about the unique addressability of things. I have run out of space in this posting to flesh out this incredible concept. So, I am going to give you my research starting points and let you investigate to your heart’s desire.

As far back as 1999 Billy Joy talked about D2D (Device to Device) communication. By 2009 Kevin Ashton wrote an article in the RFID Journal about the Internet of Things. In the article he stated,

. . . today's information technology is so dependent on data originated by people that our computers know more about ideas than things. If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things—using data they gathered without any help from us—we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best. The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the Internet did. Maybe even more so. (Kevin Ashton, 'That 'Internet of Things' Thing', RFID Journal, July 22, 2009)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is based on the idea that if all objects in daily life were equipped with identifiers, they could be followed, managed, and inventoried by computers. Assigning to all objects in the world a minuscule identifying device or machine-readable identifier could transform daily life. For example, reorders would be created and activated automatically and your business would no longer run out of stock. Maintenance tasks could be identified and performed as a machine part communicated through a network of sensors and receptors and ordered its own repair.

The Internet of Things is already in operation. Estimates project that more than 30 billion devices will be wirelessly connected to the Internet of Things by 2020.

Another important player in IoT is Vint Cerf, a real-honest-to-goodness father of the internet. At MCI he engineered and managed the first commercial email service. He was also employed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) where he was chairman of the web’s US governance department for oversight. Let’s say the world’s population was nine billion individuals and each person had somewhere between one to five thousand items or things that needed to be identified, it would take forty-five thousand billion IP addresses on the Internet of Things to handle the communication network.

Vint Cerf has now been assigned to design a new program called Ipv6. It will have protocols to handle 340 trillion, trillion, trillion, unique addresses, which figures out to be about 50,000 trillion, trillion unique addresses per individual. No longer would it be possible for “Junior” to lose his laptop computer with his homework assignment on it. You wouldn’t lose anything. I suppose, come to think of it . . . no one could steal his laptop either!

Dr. Cerf says that the Ipv6 Internet of Things . . . “holds the promise for reinventing almost every industry. How we manufacture, how we control our environment, and how we distribute, use and recycle resources.”

Next Week: A Look at Progress, Part 5

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 3

I keep thinking back about the reoccurring apparition that dances around in my mind in my waking hours. I can hear, “I designed the earth with sufficiency enough to take care of everything and everyone I ever allowed to live here.” We don’t have a shortage of water. Seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water . . . real deep puddles of water. We don’t have a shortage of electricity. We don’t have a shortage of food. Global scarcity has never been the issue. Global accessibility to resources has been the issue. Selfish control and manipulation have been issues. The politics of scarcity and fear, and wars and killings over perceived scarcity have been issues.

I don’t believe that God is angry when we discover some of his designs and intelligence. I believe it puts a smile on his face when we pay enough attention to the insights and wisdom that he has already shared with us in order to set into motion the seeds of exponential knowledge and information. The more we learn, the more we are able to learn. We honor and worship him when we desire to pursue his thoughts. Future possibilities and triumphs continue to await us. There is enormous bounty through specialized innovation and creativity.

Let’s look at some exciting advances in the area of water. For the past twenty-five years I fulfilled a civic duty by encouraging the constituents to elect me to a water and sanitation board here in Colorado. I don’t know that I had much to offer, but I certainly learned a lot about water. I learned that the ski areas could use the river water to make artificial snow, but the constituents were rationed to two nights a week to water their summer flowers and grass. I learned that the municipalities in Colorado were stopped from access to mountain snow runoff, but places like California, Las Vegas, and New Mexico could use the same water to mist large downtown areas to keep them pleasantly cool for their customers. I learned that districts could arbitrarily ration water usage on a short time basis, and then enhance their revenues by raising the permanent rates because they were not selling as many gallons of water during the rationed periods. Oh, there was so much to learn about water, water rights, and usage!

During that period of time, however, I was exposed to some very positive and exciting water issues. There is a gifted inventor named Dean Kamen, who was perplexed that it was so difficult to access pure enough water for IV (inner venous) injections without pretreatment osmosis membranes, pipelines, and installation permits. He was also motivated by over 900 million people worldwide without safe drinking water, and some 3.5 million people dying annually because of diseases brought on by drinking unsafe water.

Dean Kamen developed the “Slingshot” (named after the David and Goliath episode), a simple method to make sterile water available. It works from a concept of vapor compression distillation and requires no filters. The devise is about the size of a small apartment-sized refrigerator with a power cord, an intake hose, and an out flow hose, and produces 250 gallons of 100% pure water per day. That is enough pure water for the cooking, drinking, and hygiene needs for 100 people per day, and uses less than one kilowatt of power. Its power source is the Stirling engine, another invention of Kamen, designed to burn almost anything, including cow dung, and runs maintenance free for at least 5 years.

Dean Kamen designed the technology of his Slingshot with the transformation in mind of the 97% of the earth’s water that is undrinkable. His intention is to make the water pure so that it can be used and consumed on the spot, readily and inexpensively. Presently, the cost of the purifying apparatus is about $2,500, and the price of the Stirling engine, another $2,500. The price, however, when mass produced would be around $1,000 each.

Another inventor, Michael Pritchard, was repulsed by the way we handle clean water shortage in crisis situations by simply sending in loads and loads of bottled water. So, he decided to tap into the vast source of exponential information and knowledge, and he developed probably the best hand-pumped water filters on the market. Until Pritchard’s “Lifesaver” bottle came along, filters with membrane pores as tiny as 200 nanometers were the standard benchmark. Such filters can capture most bacteria, but the considerably smaller viruses still slipped through the filters.

Pritchard developed membranes with pores only 15 nanometers wide that removed everything, including bacteria, viruses, cysts, fungi, parasites, and any other water pathogens. One of Pritchard’s filters lasts long enough to clean over1500 gallons of water, and then it safely shuts itself down. A five gallon size container equipped with a proper filter can supply clean water for a family of four for three years, and it only costs a half a cent per day. The exponential knowledge and information has allowed a new era of molecular manufacturing that includes rearranging atoms. That results in developing entirely new physical properties.

It is that kind of molecular manufacturing based on recent information and knowledge that is necessary to be applied to the universal challenge of desalination of sea water. President Dwight Eisenhower would be very pleased to know that we are so close to solving the problem. Hydrogen and oxygen (H2O) are not in short supply, and many predict that it will not be that long until there are inexpensive methods to meet the pressing needs for safe and sustainable water. IBM and Central Glass, a Tokyo based company, have recently developed technology for removing both salt and arsenic from ocean and sea water.

While on the subject of water, let’s look at the area of sanitation. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 1.2 trillion gallons of water leak from U.S. homes each year. That is more than all the water used in the cities of Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. If you were to dump a gallon of water each second, nonstop, it would take you 32,000 years (longer than all recorded history) to dump one trillion gallons. Toilets are the biggest waste. So it’s time to dump the toilet!

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation teamed up with Lowell Wood. Their conclusion is that you can burn the fecal portion of the waste and utilize that energy to return the urine back to fresh water. There is over a mega joule per day of energy to be derived from burning the feces. That is enough to do everything the toilets need to do, with plenty of energy left over to charge your cell phone and light your lights. Their goal now is to get the cost to operate the new method down to less than five cents per day. That would make it feasible for under developed countries to take advantage of the method. But just stop for a moment and consider how much we are presently paying for the fresh water that we now use for sanitation, to say nothing of the high cost of operating the sewer lines and plants everywhere.

There are so many good and astounding things happening right now in our lifetime. It is a good practice to recognize and be grateful for this adventure called life. Resist the peddlers of gloom and doom and open up to the generous abundance of potential and possibility.

Next Week: A Look at Progress, Part 4

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 2

My international travels have included most of the oil cartel countries of the world. When I board an airplane to leave one of those countries, I never know whether to rejoice because of the positive results of the industrial revolution, or to feel sad because of what laborless luxuries have done to spoil the privileged of those countries. I am tempted to perceive that no great inventions, models of science, industries, economics, arts, literature, music, or civics seem to flow from those countries . . . just boatloads of oil. So, most often upon exiting, I simply find myself, , excitedly looking forward to a post-petroleum-based world economy and scratching my head wondering why we have remained so long in the pitiful position of oil dependency.

All the international political folks have been wringing their hands and whining that we are in such a precarious position of oil scarcity, yet all the while, the constant drumbeat of exponential information and technology has continued. In my opinion, it has never been an issue of global scarcity, but of global accessibility to resources.

Technology has had to keep on the stretch to try to stay up with the exponential growth of knowledge and information. On average, technologies are doubling in power every eighteen months, in an effort to stay up with the exponential supply of knowledge and information. The prices for those technologies are also being slashed in half every eighteen months. Affordability continues to drive the growth. Inventions based on today’s technologies are usually outdated by the time they get to the market. That’s a marvelous thing.

Gordon Moore’s famed tech trend of trying to cram more and more components onto integrated circuits has paid off handsomely. Circuits on a computer chip have exponentially doubled every year since 1958 and the invention of the integrated circuit.

Today, exciting things are happening in the areas of sand and silicon. IBM is developing new breakthrough approaches in chip technologies by integrating electrical and optical devices on the same silicon chip. Instead of the old electrical signals, the new chips communicate with signals of light. That eliminates the historical problems of generating heat that has always limited the speed and required vast amounts of energy for cooling. Using light eliminates both problems.

Conservative estimates figure that IBM’s new chip design could increase a supercomputer’s ability a thousand fold. It should take the present 2.6 petaflops to a full exaflop that would provide some quintillion operations per second. Simply speaking, that is one hundred times faster than the human brain functions . . . and we used to marvel that the old horse-and-buggy computers could actually beat the Russian chess champion on a regular basis.

Our locally grounded and linearly acclimated brains have a tough time comprehending what is really going on in the progress of our world. Incredible miracles are taking place every day and we hardly notice. Just what are the implications of three billion new individuals coming on line presently by computers and smart phones? Three billion individuals who can learn, dream, invent, and experiment. They are now allowed by technology to open the treasure chests of information, knowledge, and contacts. Ignorance and scarcity brings poverty; abundance and access to that abundance brings opportunity for freedom.

In January, 1994, I took Anna Marie with me to Nairobi, Kenya. It was her first trip to Africa. From Nairobi we traveled to the majestic Rift Valley, to Begonia Game Park, and on to Nakuru. The large district hospital was located in Nakuru. Project C.U.R.E. was involved in donating hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of greatly needed medical goods to the hospital.

We were invited to visit the Tendress Coffee Plantation outside Nakuru. Alfred, the plantation foreman, wanted to show us the plantation school, as well as their small clinic. As we drove into the schoolyard, we saw the pupils still out playing soccer or huddled together talking. The teachers were standing outside near the entrance to the school. Alfred was kind enough to introduce us to the headmaster and the teachers.

Since it was about midmorning, Anna Marie, who has her PhD in education and communication, asked the headmaster if all the pupils were out together for recess. He explained that the people had not yet come by to give the teachers the lessons they were to use to teach the kids that day, but that they should be along very soon.

Inside the classrooms there was one chalkboard on the front wall of each room, and crude writing desks and chairs enough to handle up to forty-five students per room. In talking to the teachers, we discovered that they had never had textbooks, curriculum, or reference books at the large school. The headmaster would receive everyday what the teachers would be teaching to the classes.

We asked some of the students if they were given homework assignments. They informed us that they were responsible for their own pen or pencil and their own paper for their assignments. When we asked where they went to get their supplies, they told us that, since they had no money for such things, they would walk along the fencerows on their way to and from school and collect the windblown paper scraps on which they would figure out their math assignments.

Anna Marie began working with the school, and upon the return to her school in Evergreen, Colorado, she organized students and parents and ended up sending thousands of pounds of encyclopedias, non-cultural library books, maps, and school supplies to the plantation school. We later found out that when the encyclopedias arrived, the teachers began taking them home and reading them completely by the light of their cooking fires at night.

Now, multiply that thirst for information and knowledge over the continent of Africa that is large enough to contain all of the United States, Europe, China, the sub-continent if India, and more. That was in 1994. Today, those students aren’t waiting for the headmaster to receive the teaching material every morning. This morning the teachers aren’t even waiting for some encyclopedias to arrive along with some medical goods from Evergreen, Colorado. They now have wireless access to information that was not even available to Harvard University or the president of the United States just a few years ago!

Three billion new individuals are coming on line via computers and smart phones, who have never had access to a world community of information, knowledge, and contacts. They are not only going to be recipients of the exponential intelligence, but also they will enter onto the freeway of communication, and be able for the very first time to contribute to the discussions, the discoveries, and inventions of the future. Now that’s progress!

Next Week: Supposin’: A Look at Progress, Part 3

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 1

For a brief session, let’s mute the invasive and persuasive barrage of the press and turn up the volume on some positive notes of hope and progress. Here are some facts that will make you smile for a change. It is time we take notice of the technological and cultural advances that are taking place without our even noticing. Your amygdala may not ferret out these facts, but your heart should be greatly encouraged when you hear them.

We need to be reminded that our generation has more access today to services, goods, information, and modes of transportation, medicines, education, communication systems, human rights, and democratic experiments than any other generation in recorded history. Generally speaking, we are wealthier, healthier, and safer than any previous inhabitants on earth.

When I was eleven years old, Dwight D. Eisenhower ran against Adlai Stevenson for the presidency of the United States. I was pretty passionate about the General, and even wore an “I Like Ike” badge, wrote a poem, and also made a poster for the campaign. With World War II over, I recall how General Eisenhower tried to assure the American people that all the information and technology that had gone into developing the atom bomb could be turned into peaceful purposes.

He talked about using the nuclear power to turn the salt water of the seas and oceans into fresh water. We could irrigate the unused fertile land of the world with the water and transform it into a breadbasket for the millions of hungry people. He also explained how the harnessed power of the atom could one day be safely used so that there would never again be a shortage of electricity anywhere on the earth.

After his election in 1952, he spoke to the young United Nations organization in New York City and laid out the plan for his Atoms for Peace program: “To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you–and therefore before the world–its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma–to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." (December 8, 1953)

Imposed fear and political manipulation pretty much sabotaged President Eisenhower’s dream. But in the ensuing years, the knowledge base regarding atomic and hydrogen power continued to grow exponentially every year. Exponentiallymeans the doubling of a number from one period to the next, (example: 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, etc.). And now, for the first time, our knowledge base and technology is beginning to catch up with our dreams and ambitions. Let’s talk about the exponential growth of our knowledge base.

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt claims that from the beginning of time until the year 2003, humankind created five exabytes of digital information (an Exabyte is one billion gigabytes . . . that’s a one (1) followed by eighteen zeros.) By the year 2010, the human race was generating five exabytes of information every few days. By the near future, the number is expected to be five exabytes produced every ten minutes. (1)

A major newspaper today will contain more information in one week’s worth of print than the average seventeenth century individual would have encountered in a lifetime. A culture can possess the possibility of storing, exchanging, and improving ideas based on specialization and innovation . . . building one idea or bit of information upon another.

When I first started traveling in Africa in the early 1980s, the only international electronic connections I had to countries like Zimbabwe was the old commercial Telex machines. Other than that it was air mail service that took about 10 days each way to communicate. It would take forever to communicate back and forth just to make travel arrangements, hotel reservations, confirm who would be at the airport to meet me, and any other inner-country arrangements.

I thought I had arrived in heaven when the fax machine was introduced, eventually followed by the marvelous computer email. Within just the time I have been traveling to Africa, the internet and wireless technologies have become within the grasp of nearly all Africans. They never had to go through the stage of stringing telephone lines that would have cost multiplied millions of dollars, because the technology was wireless.

Because of micro-lending and other available programs, 2% of the people had mobile phones by year 2000, 28% by 2009, and nearly 70% by 2013. Now, a common African businessman with a cell phone has better information and communication capabilities than the president of the U.S. did when I first started traveling in Africa. And if he has Google and a smart phone he has better information than the president did just fifteen years ago. Very soon the entire world’s populations will have the exponential technological advantage and experience that only the affluent experienced just a few years ago.

Three billion people who have never before had access to the internet or shared information will be coming on line via computers and smart phones. They are a brand new world market. Additionally, their contribution to the global intelligence will result in new ideas, inventions and discoveries, and products.

Next Week: Supposin’: A Look at Progress, Part 2

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': Naughty Doggie

We have just tagged the amygdala (a-mig’dala) as the Rottweiler of our brain. It was designed and employed as a guardian and helper. As a watchdog, it beautifully fulfills all expectations to seek out even the most obscure danger and warn us with a rousing raucous. Its duty is to point out problems and ignite our fear mechanism.

But, like every watchdog, it needs discipline and training. Left to its own nature, the watchdog that was engaged to patrol and protect our person and property can become a vicious and dangerous controller of the whole estate. Undisciplined, the watchdog has the potential of focusing all of its attention, and the attention of everyone in the household, on problems, problems, problems.

When that happens, the owner’s response is to give more attention and weight to the negative information and experiences rather than to any positive input. The atmosphere is more pessimistic than optimistic as the fear-driven assignment morphs into a full-time search for trouble. The naughty doggie has just taken over control of the whole estate, because he will find more trouble.

If some screwtape- type individual should want to negatively control the watchdog, and subsequently the whole estate, all that is required is to keep the watchdog’s attention fully focused on the distracting fears and threats. The watchdog will cause commotion enough to keep the whole household in a state of fear, and will paralyze the behavior of the owner so that he is prevented from accomplishing anything positive or productive. An even more subtle problem is that all the commotion and fear caused by the distractions will actually blind the owner from even seeing the present situation as it really is. He will develop a false perception of reality.

Does that sound even a little bit familiar as to what happens to us as we try to live out our individual lives? We become entangled in our fears about our shortages and perceived dangers. Our worries burn holes right through our inner eyes of hope, imagination, and achievement. We are left blinded to the good things that are happening today and the possibilities of future triumphs. Every time the watchdog barks, even if it is at his own shadow, we tend to become paralyzed by fear. It is time to stop the goofy game. It is time to say No, no, naughty doggie, I am the owner and this is my estate . . . No, no!

So, what are some of the things to which our inner eyes have been blinded from our incessant preoccupation with our fears of shortage, lack, and insufficiency? This is, of course, not a problem exclusively identified with Americans. It is universal. It was the problem and process of Eastern Europe. It was at the heart of the messes in Bosnia and Rwanda, as well as Vietnam, Serbia, Cambodia, and now again in the Ukraine. It is a prime example of cultural economics, because all transformational change takes place at the intersection of culture and economics.

Let me share some observations I have made as I have traveled and studied cultures in over 150 countries of the world. These are the subtle issues of which discontentments and even wars are made:

• We lose proper perspective of the good things we already possess. We begin to hoard and become stingy toward others.
• We abandon our attitude of gratitude and become acutely aware of what other people have in comparison to what we have.
• We adopt the idea that we are entitled to more than what we have and fear that we might end up with even less.
• We spend our time worrying about not having enough, even though we have never tried to figure out just how much is enough.
• We are tempted to believe that the reason some others have more is because they somehow took our share away from us.
• We begin to subconsciously think about ways to redistribute things that others have in order that those things can justifiably be ours.
• We start becoming attracted to those we consider strong enough to take things away from those who have and distribute them to us.
• The fear and preoccupation surrounding the perceived inequity of scarcity and shortage shuts down our creative processes of problem solving and drives us to a deeper dependency on government, insurgency groups, mafia, or another voice that will offer to do the worrying for us and ultimately take care of us.

Here’s the good news, however: the disposition of the naughty watchdog can be altered. It is possible that we can shed the old logic of the limited and embrace theability of abundance. The old paradigm does not have to remain, it can be replaced. Our ability to hear the good news again can be restored.

A quick look again at history can validate the fact that things are not as bad as we have been made to believe. Real progress is being experienced right now where we live. It is fair to state that never in history has there been a time when living standards have improved so dramatically as in the past century. Who would have thought a hundred years ago that even the poorest folks in America would be enjoying such luxuries as indoor flushing toilets, personal cars, telephones, and multiple televisions? It is time we take a candid look at just how much available abundance our culture presently enjoys and how rapidly things are continuing to change for the better. 

Next Week: A Look at Progress

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Big Clue to Our Problem

It seems to me, as a cultural economist, that there is ample evidence in ancient manuscripts, contemporary writings, and anecdotal traditions, to make a strong case for an economic model based on abundance, choice, and accomplishment, rather than scarcity, choice, and cost. If that is a possibility, then why is it that we have a natural propensity to base our daily decisions on a fear-based model of insufficiency, lack, and shortage? Let’s do some exploring.

When you were born, you came equipped with an amygdala (a-mig’ dala) as standard equipment. Aren’t you happy for that? In fact, you came equipped with two amygdalae and didn’t have to pay extra for either one. As an owner, that should really make you twice as happy . . . or maybe not.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped mass of gray matter in the front part of the temporal lobe of your cerebrum that is part of the limbic system and is involved in the processing and expression of emotions, especially anger and fear. It has a lot to do with the flight-or-fight response. It also plays a pivotal role in triggering a state of fear based on the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Because of that, there may also be a link between the amygdala and patterns of extreme anxiety.

I like to think of the amygdala as the Rottweiler of your brain. It was born and bred to be the ultimate watchdog, assigned to your personal survival. As standard equipment in your brain, it is your first line of defense and a warning system that is expected to always be hyper-alert and seek out any and all danger. It never sleeps and never slumbers and its growl and bark sends instant messages to the heart, the lungs, the nerves, the skin, the eyes, the ears, the memory chips, and even prepares the muscles for instant action.

This Rottweiler of the brain is always looking for something to fear . . . and will always find something to bark about. The more barking, the more he is considered successful. He is always looking for something that is negative and is never patted on the head for discovering something positive. And, as you might expect, if the watchdog ever gets hold of something that has agitated him, it is possible that he will never let it go.

Now, with the Rottweiler in mind, let’s ask the questions again: Why is it that we have a natural propensity to base our daily decisions on a fear-based model of insufficiency, lack, and shortage? Why is it easier to believe something negative than something positive? In order to get higher listener and viewer ratings, wouldn’t the newspaper, television, and computer outlets cram the airwaves with negative stories as opposed to any positive stories? Why would we always have the feeling that we are under siege? Why is it so lucrative to sell pessimism and fear? Why don’t potential dangers ever go away?

The simple answer is, because we have allowed the watchdog to run amuck and have rewarded him for his incessant behavior. We have developed and encouraged a messed up watchdog that possesses an insatiable appetite for the negative, the fearful, and the insufficient.

So, what are some methods to modify the out of balance behavior, other than selling the Rottweiler, buying a Golden Retriever, and moving out of the dangerous neighborhood? Realistically, how do you ratchet down the fear and insecurity mindset in order to make room for the alternative of hope and confidence? Let’s brainstorm:

• Limit the tsunami of negative media flow into your conscious and subconscious mind. Just say, “No thank you” to 90% of the news.
• Try to remember that the fear of scarcity can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Quit rewarding the watchdog when it barks at its own shadow.
• Train your watchdog to perceive that the person approaching may not be an intruder, but may be your best friend.
• Dare to investigate the idea of My God shall supply all your need . . . (Philippians 4:19).
• Try to remember that the attitude of shortage is bondage. The attitude of abundance is freedom.
• Begin to delete the information on the memory chips of your amygdala to replace it with new and positive information on sufficiency, abundance, and accomplishment.

It is true that your personal model came equipped with a left and right amygdala. They were designed and installed as a benefit to you. But, you are the one in charge of your current model and have the responsibility of overseeing the use and discipline of the function of the amygdalae. Your new automobile also came from the factory equipped with two windshield wipers for your benefit, but you are in charge of turning them off and on at the appropriate times. If you find yourself with a complicated problem regarding your factory supplied equipment, it would be recommended that you contact the manufacturer of your model. 

It is our choice whether we allow the information we receive into our human beings to affect and influence us negatively or positively. That call is ours. It is not the set of circumstances in which we find ourselves, but how we respond to those circumstances that makes all the difference in the world.

Next Week: Naughty Doggie

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': In Search of a Solution

I have had people in the past come up to me and say, “So, Dr. Jackson, just how did that relinquishment thing work out for you, where you and Anna Marie gave away your accumulated wealth and started over? Did you have to take out bankruptcy, or did God bless you for being a good guy and reward you by giving back to you a trillion dollars of real estate in return for the sixteen million you gave away?”

The simple answer to that is, “neither.” God is way more creative and intelligent than that, and he has way more integrity than that. We didn’t give to get. That is, we didn’t give away our things in order to manipulate God into giving more back to us in some sort of quid pro quo game of economics. We gave those things away because that was what we felt we ought to do, and we never suggest that anyone else should ever necessarily follow suit. We needed to push the restart button of our lives and get our priorities straightened out. I personally needed to break the dangerous addiction of wealth accumulation and simply stop it!

I don’t have anything against wealth or people accumulating wealth. But I certainly wasn’t seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness . . . and I needed to do that. Relinquishment was the lesson I needed to learn, and spending my life and energies in helping other people be better off was to be my future involvement.

Now, to the reality of what actually happened: everything that we would have spent the accumulated wealth on to buy, we now have in abundance. I’m still not sure, however, just how a thing like that happens. All I can attest to is that, like the widow from Zerephath when she obeyed Elijah’s challenge to her, all of our needs have likewise been graciously met. And then, on top of all that, we were allowed the indescribable privilege of seeing Project C.U.R.E. start from absolutely nothing and grow like a seed from the ground into an entity that has enriched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. A handful of relinquished goods has miraculously become a multiplied resource for spreading health and hope in over 130 countries.

Allow me to pose this question: Why is it so difficult to base our lives on the possibility of abundance rather than on the basis of insufficiency, lack, and shortage? Why do we base our entire economic system on the trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost to the exclusion of the serious possibility of abundance? Is there a chance that we are cheating ourselves and our culture by not pursuing the possible?

I’m not into dreams, or illusions, or strange things. I’m a rather concrete Scotch/Irishman. But sometimes I slightly awaken before the alarm goes off in the morning and I review a reoccurring apparition dancing in my mind. It can’t be more than twenty years in the future. I am in heaven (I like that part!) and God is giving me a tour, much like I would give someone a tour of one of our warehouses.

He is so excited telling me about never ending space, and interplanetary travel, and earth, and growth, and life, and chemicals, and systems, systems, systems. “Do you have any idea what you are going to get to do forever and forever, and how much exciting knowledge there is for me to share with you? I could hardly wait to share it with you. You are going to absolutely love the adventure and the knowledge and wisdom available to you forever . . . and you will know even as you are known. 

“There was so very much more I wanted to share with you and other humans on earth. But, you didn’t listen. You didn’t stop to hear. You were so preoccupied with arguing and fighting wars over who was going to control the oil reserves, the fresh water, coal, precious metals, and all the other things you thought were scarce. I designed the earth with sufficiency enough to take care of everything and everyone I ever allowed to live there.

“Some people, however, slowed down, unplugged their ears and listened. I was able to share insights and wisdom with them that began to grow exponentially. That pleased me, because there was so much more I was eager and willing to share that would have solved so very many of your problems and puzzles.”

It’s always about that time the alarm sounds and the music box stops. I’m left with the rest of the day to think about all we have missed and how much is right now available to us to see and hear and learn.Next Week: 

Next Week: Supposin’: A Big Clue to our Problem

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---

Supposin': A Personal Choice

It was a beautiful March day in Israel. My son Jay and I were traveling with Shaul Amir, an executive of the large Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tel Aviv. Shaul wanted to introduce me to some of his close friends who were very important Israeli government people in the city of Haifa. We drove north, with the Mediterranean Sea on our left and the Jordan River to our right, to the base of Mt. Carmel, and then on toward Sidon. Before we reached Haifa I, spotted a signpost that pointed toZarephath.

“Shaul,” I excitedly asked, “is that the same Zarephath that is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures when they talk about Elijah and wicked King Ahab and how God made it not rain for three years?”

“How would you know anything about our old prophet Elijah?” Shaul inquired with a bewildered expression. “How would you know anything about Zarephath? You know I grew up just over there on the side of Mt. Carmel. I rode horseback all over this area when I was young.” We had a marvelous conversation as we drove on. I told him all I remembered about the story and he filled in the local color.

You see, King Ahab was the most wicked king Israel had experienced to that time. And his foreign wife, Jezebel, was twice as evil. God got their attention by sending Elijah to the king so he could tell Ahab that God was going to stop the rain until he sent Elijah back to see him later. Jezebel and the king didn’t like the message, so they decided to kill the messenger (nothing new in history).

Eventually, God had to send Elijah to the village of Zarephath, where he arranged for an old widow to hide him and take care of him until the rains started again. When Elijah arrived at the edge of the city, there was the old woman gathering sticks to build a fire. “Please bring me a glass of water,” requested Elijah. As the woman turned to fetch the water, Elijah called to her and said, “Oh, yes, and while you are at it, please bring me some bread, also.”

That was enough to trip the trigger of the old widow. She was thinking what a stretch it was to even consider getting the old man some water, since there was almost no water available because of the imposed drought. But now he was asking for some bread! She replied, “I don’t have any bread, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it – and die.”

Elijah responded, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’ ”

The woman went away and did what Elijah had told her to do. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family, for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry as the Lord had said through Elijah. (I Kings 17:7-16)

Shaul, Jay, and I had a spectacular time discussing the story about the village of Zerephath on our way to Haifa. Whether we risk our life on our belief in the economic concept of scarcity, insufficiency, and lack, or dare to believe in the possibility of abundance, is really and finally up to us. . It is our call. It is like what my old dad used to say: “Be alert to the image you hold in your mind, because you ultimately become what you think about all day long.”

Many times as I would be in flight somewhere on the millions of miles I have flown in the past thirty years, I have thought about the strange and glorious adventure Anna Marie and I started on when we decided to risk our lives on this call to obedience and abundance. At the beginning of the adventure it looked more like “de-abundance” than abundance. We had spent our life radically accumulating wealth for ourselves that would last us until we died. We had worked hard and acquired sixteen times more than I had thought we would ever have in our entire lifetime. But, it was not satisfying. We were doing well, but we were not doing good. We were not happy, and as I looked around none of our friends who were addicted to accumulating more and more were happy, either.

After a lot of discussions, we decided to give away what we had accumulated and start over again. Perhaps we needed to learn that God couldn’t trust us with heaven’s riches until we could be trusted with no riches. I never suggest that anyone else do just as we did and give away all his or her accumulation. But for me, I had to break the radical accumulation addiction and I needed to do it cold turkey. I needed to change from a person who was bent on getting to a person who was bent on giving.

A mental and spiritual disposition of getting springs from a fear that there is only so much available in the scheme of things and we must hoard, covet and redistribute what someone else has for our own taking. The doctrine of shortage promotes bondage; the doctrine of abundance promotes freedom. After all these years I have come to believe that it is through relinquishment that you come to true abundance. To have relinquished the old paradigm and embraced a new and different concept of abundance was the best business deal I ever made in all my life. But the choice to move from a paradigm of scarcity, choice and cost to one of abundance, choice andfulfillment is a very personal decision.

I have often thought how Washington Carver must have felt in his experiments with the lowly peanut . . . we are merely scratching the surface of the scientific investigation of the possibilities of sufficiency and abundance. Our new adventure required us to purposefully let go of those things that we had considered as our security blankets, but were in fact items of bondage. We then had to allow a new image of trust and expectation to become our security. We kept focusing on My God shall supply all your needs . . . (Philippians 4:19). In starting over we had to push to the edge of the cliff, and then walk over the edge, expecting that there would be something beneath our next step or else we would be taught how to fly.

Now, some forty years after that decision and launch of the adventure, some of the results are being tallied. Over one billion dollars’ worth of medical goods have been donated through Project C.U.R.E. into over 130 countries around the world. Because of the help of over 16,000 volunteers and staff at Project C.U.R.E., literally tens of thousands of people are alive and economies are stronger. We had purposefully chosen to take our hands off the things that would last for a short time so that we could lay hold of the abundant things that would last forever. The best business deal we ever made was to choose, along with the old widow from Zarephath, to exchange what we could not keep for the abundance we could not lose.

Next Week: Supposin’: In Search of a Solution

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

---