Reflection by Edgar Cahn
This story has two parts: what caused the accident and what emerged from the personal disaster that the accident created. There is something symbolic about each.
First comes the fall. Why did it happen? Reaching for a punch bowl had its own higher purpose: hosting a party to support living theatre – local art, living art. Life takes on purpose when it celebrates the creative impulse in ourselves and others. There is a need to nurture artistry – and sometimes, perhaps all too often, that entails unexpected consequences.
That brings us to part two: finding a pathway back. We are told that every morning, Cara Barbero showed up to shovel a path for Joan because with a broken vertebrae, Joan couldn’t get out to the sidewalk when it snowed. We can reframe that path through the snow as a path through life’s winter. One individual, Cara Barbero, shoveled the path – but she came because there was a network of strangers, who had used TimeBanking to create a living ecosystem that could respond. An invisible system of caring cleared the path without being asked – often before dawn.
Fall and recovery is a recurring storyline, beginning with Adam and Eve. Here we have a contemporary Genesis story. TimeBanking is where such new beginnings become possible.
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