economy and impermanence
No pondering can commence without some acknowledgment of the economy. The gravity is shocking enough to interrupt even the normal wrangling of a presidential campaign. One can only hope that it will interrupt also the endless run of negative commercials.
As the world turns, I wonder how the news of the day intersects with our daily lives. To be sure it makes me cautious about my own financial choices in ways that are new. But thus far the basic balance of life has been largely untouched. We go to work, make our mortgage payment, use our credit cards at the grocery.
Of course we reason that the big guys are the ones who should pay. The obscene wealth of a few at the expense of the many rightly offends us. Appropriately we ask accountability in these current negotiations to minimize the continuation of this injustice. Yet the situation is not so simple and the blame not so neatly placed at the feet of a few. We’ve largely prospered in an economy designed upon greed, where our endless desires push the economy forward.
The search for scapegoats will no doubt also commence soon. In times of economic uncertainty the temptation to point fingers is hard to resist, but we must. This is neither a blue problem nor a red one. This is not about nationalities or creeds. More importantly, solutions to the current challenges will not come from skewering anyone but rather from demanding greater accountability both from ourselves and our leaders.
Perhaps an appropriate response might be one of humility. Impermanence is a spiritual principle not often explored in western Christianity, but perhaps one worthy of our consideration. Impermanence is the perspective that all of life is flux, that constancy is an illusion and change the norm. Embracing impermanence would enable us to loose our grip not only on our stuff but more importantly on our expectations. Freed from the inclination to cling, we are empowered to find life in whatever context unfolds. Focused on matters of the spirit, we will also be less likely to join the hunt for scapegoats.
Clearly we pray for a quick fix to the economy, but more measured attention to our souls may be the order of the day.
