'Soup' for the spirit to ponder...

I can't say I don't dream, because 'the experts' say Everyone does, but I can say that I have almost no memory of what goes on when I sleep. I willingly admit that one of my major concerns with this 'aging process' is sleeping poorly: having to get up multiple times in the night to wander around the house, check non-existant e-mail, make another cup of 'sleepytime' tea, read for hours, detour to the bathroom from all that tea!
I had a dream recently, and think it worth reporting. Actually wondering if I can find someone who might 'interpret' in the Old Testament sense. I am sure it means something, but haven't quite yet figured out what I am supposed to learn.
This was my dream as I remember it: except for my daughter, all the other people involved appeared to be from India or southeast asia, so we must have been in a foreign country. We were surrounded by masses of people who we struggled to communicate with, and I think part of our problem was due to language limitations....
We were in a large complex of buildings, trudged up stairs to an upper floor. Not a modern shopping mall, but more haphazardly built, where one corridor somehow leads you into another area overflowing with merchandise. In part of the building that was more like a stall in a market or bazaar, we were looking at items, handling things, perusing, and decided to make a purchase.
I started to take money out of my pocket to pay, but my daughter handed over cash first. I said: 'Let me pay', and tried to get them to return the folding money and change.The young worker had already put the cash in the box or drawer, and when she handed it back, only gave paper money. When I questioned her, she said she was not allowed to give back change, that as soon as it was handed to her, it became property of the shop-owner.
I was SO indignant.
The owner was standing close by, probably to observe her every move, (thinking his attentiveness would keep her honest?) and immeidately came over when he saw there was conversation and would likely be a problem.
I tried to make the owner understand that those young people he was employing and training to run a business were being taught how to be dishonest, they were using him as a model for cheating customers. I was convinced that they would take this business practice with them the rest of their lives, and eventually pocketing the change he thought he was keeping. I knew he was training them to be cheats and it made me so angry that he would deliberately demand his workers be untrustworthy. He kept telling me that since the money was in His possession, it was obviously His Money, unwilling to see the Big Picture. The fact that I was willing to replace 'his' money when he returned it to my daughter, with some that was mine would not persuade him to let go of what he already had in his till.
As I have pondered this, it reminds me of the fable about the monkey who put his hand down in the narrow-necked jar to retrive some food, made a fist around what he desired, and therefore had his hand stuck because he was so greedy he refused to let go of the prize within to free himself.
It made me think... about how kids learn as much (or more) from what they SEE parents, grandparents, teachers, other adults, their 'models' for behavior actually DOING, as they do from all their instructions, lessons, what all those people TALK about, and tell them is the 'right way'.
This is very much a generational thing: Emulating the Elders, and applies to me, you, kids a hundred years ago and a hundred years into the future - we all go through the process of looking to those older, and theoretically wiser, as models for how to speak, act, live...
If you can figure anything out about this, please let me know...

One of the things I get from this is that we are called to be faithful in little ways, to be consistently willing to tend to the small things in our lives. We all walk past pennies in the parking lot, won't pick up a nickle or dime someone else had dropped on the sidewalk as not being worth the effort, since you can't actually buy anything for that insignificant amount in our society.
But consider that most of the workers in the world get paid less than one dollar a day for their labor, and families all over our planet actually manage to subsist with such limited resources. Not with the frozen convenience foods, microwave ovens, and delivered pizza we enjoy, but they do provide for their families.
Do you know anything about micro-finance, and what a remarkable impact it is having in third world countries? Check out www.kiva.org.