Ali has an interesting take on the situation, and one I’m sympathetic with, in her post here: http://meadowsweet-myrrh.blogspot.com/2007/05/choice-decision.html. Money quote:

“Choice is always about responding to the present, not only choosing ‘the lesser of two evils,’ but choosing to respond creatively to a difficult situation, acting on the freedom to seek out and articulate alternatives.”

I think what is meant here is that when you seem to be presented with a decision in which you seem to have to make a comparison of value, in which you seem to have to set priorities, it actually indicates a basic disfluency in your relationship to the universe / spirit / all. It means you are not hearing what Spirit is really saying to you. It means, I think, that there is a Third Way which combines the two elements in the most meaningful way for you.

I think. I know I’m probably not making much sense. Still working on it…!

“Which is more important to me right now?” — a mother might ask — “buying an ultra-fashionable handbag, or buying enough food for my three children?”
If she’d pay $75 for a handbag, and she does so every week as soon as she deposits her paycheck — yet refuses to ever shell out more than $15 per week for food, and spends almost all of that measly $15 on bonbons and Cheez Doodles — that says something about her hierarchy of values.
If she has the reverse priorities — no more than $15 for a handbag, IF she buys one at all, and at least 5 times that amount on *nutritious* food), that says quite a different thing about her hierarchy of values.
And it would say so whether she bought her food, or her handbags, in a conventionally managed store or in a “pay-what-you-like” store.

Let’s say that she goes to a “pay-what-you-like” store — handbag store, or grocery, or restaurant. As your own “SAME Café” example points out, part of what she pays in such a store may indicate how much she values the way that the store operates. If she takes her three kids out to the SAME Café for dinner one evening, and chooses to pay $40 for everything, this may mean something like “The food is worth $10 to me, and the way this place operates is worth $30 to me,” or it may mean “The food is worth $35 to me, and the way this place runs is worth $5 to me” or it may mean any other combination of “How much I value the food” & “How much I value the way the place operates” — we can’t tell, just from the transaction, but very probably she knows and she could tell us if we asked. (Whether we get to ask her, or can find out otherwise, or not, what she does with her money expresses her hierarchy of values — and does so as surely in the SAME Café as anywhere else. So I regard SAME-Café-type business practices as a subset of capitalism — admittedly, a very interesting subset with a lot of potential! — and *not* as a replacement for capitalism.

When someone leaves a donation at the SAME cafe, they may indeed be thinking “this meal was worth $X to me, and that’s what I’ll leave”. But they may also be thinking, “I want to help this place out, and I’m going to leave $X.” As I pointed out in an earlier “Selling Salvation” article, two instances of parallel giving may look like a trade, but it isn’t really.

As for people getting tired of giving again and again — definitely. Nevertheless many charities live long, healthy lives. The Red Cross is a good example.

Your second comment — the Myth you suggest — is fascinating! It reminds me a little of the ancient, ancient Indo-European myth of the twin brothers, one of whom sacrifices the other to create the world and the Otherworld…