Recently I was attending a five-day meeting in Chicago when a cold that I had been tolerating quite bravely turned into a full-fledged "coughing-sneezing-achy-sore-throat-where-is-my-mother-when-I-need-her" affliction.

Here is what I did. I asked a friend of mine to drive me to a nearby supermarket and I bought what I needed to medicate my distress, including a magazine and a bag of M and M's for chocolate therapy. Then I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Here is the invisible abundance that was at my disposal. I had the use of a private car and enough gasoline to take me a distance that I could not easily walk. I had extra money in my wallet. There was an astonishingly huge, clean market, open 24 hours a day, filled with food and flowers and books and medicine within a reachable distance. There were no soldiers barring my way into the market. I was treated with respect and waited on promptly. The Marriott Hotel, though not nearly as comforting as home, was safe and warm, with hot running water, ice to cool my sore throat and a cozy bed to rest my weary body.

What amazing abundance.

Ever since I lived in places that have so much less than we take for granted in America, I have experienced a small shock every time I walk into a supermarket. We live casually with abundance that most people in the world cannot even imagine, and yet most of it is invisible to us. Instead we complain about having to do grocery shopping and cook, we fuss about the appropriateness and style of our clothes, and we worry about accumulating a good pension so that we can maintain a comfortable life-style when we retire.

Maybe the biggest obstacle to generosity toward the poor is our blindness to the abundance that God has given us. Maybe the most important American middle-class prayer should be a request for eyes to see our abundance.

Our New England Synod vision statement is "God's Abundance: Live it!" First, let's try to see it. Then let's pray to learn what God asks each of us to do in response to such abundance. Then, in the abundant life that Jesus freely gives to us, let us give generously for relief of the hungry and solace for those who suffer from oppression and injustice.

As we respond from our material and spiritual abundance, we will discover that we have all that we need to do all that God asks us to do. I am convinced that the church and its witness will grow in strength and effectiveness as the eyes of faithful disciples are opened to our abundance.

Bishop Margaret G. Payne +