For too long our country has afforded lifestyles which are no longer possible. We have promised wages which were way too high. We have advertised stuff which could not possibly deliver what was promised. We were living beyond our means in more ways than one. Yesterday GM declared bankruptcy. Today, it could be an airline company going down the tube.
Has money so controlled us that we forgot all about the Depression of the 20-30s? In those days we learned Interdependence. One corn planter had to be shared by 5 farmers. One boar had to service the sows of 5 different farms. Sunday afternoon prayer meetings were given to beg the Giver of life for rain for the crops. You borrowed money to put in a crop, hoping to have the crop to pay back the loan. You found ways to recycle before the word was invented.
the banks, those who have received
ReplyDeletethe largest bailouts, have all gone into a consortium wherein they can
continue to do the kind of default derivatives which have been
questionable, because we were all overextended, and for too long..
The default derivatives are bets placed on promise: if certain loans
are guaranteed to fail, there will be buyers for those defaulted
properties: larger and larger blocks of property which can now be had
for a song. And the insurers will have to make up the difference. It
is all in the interest of creating wealth. When you are borrowing
money, even if the ability to pay it back is badly compromised, you
are creating wealth. That is theory, but it appears to work.
Example: In 1972, on a GI loan, I borrowed the full price (no down
payment) ($22000, on a 30 yr fixed interest at 7%) of the house we
own. I had no guarantee that I would be totally able to pay the money
back. Of course it was an insured loan. A GI loan had certain
protections, but it was probably our good name which helped in getting
the loan. Besides the RE agent helping us needed to earn, and the
bank earned plenty in loaning the money. In 30 years I had paid back
twice what I borrowed. But, only 8 months later (Dec 1972 I was under
pressure to resign my post, and did it sadly, but victory came later).
Thankfully Mary Jean was working (as a beginning nurses here monthly
way could have been $676). Half of that had to go toward the house
payment. And then my career as a property appraiser began, Jan 1973.
Who was doing the betting? We were doing the betting, and we won. The
house is paid for and we have money in the bank. Because Vancouver was
growing faster and because property was cheap, we bet on winning in
the housing market. It was a necessary tax shelter for us, because we
were a 2 income family and young people in college
A Prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero
ReplyDeleteIt helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Oscar A. Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, in El Salvador, was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in a small chapel in a cancer hospital where he lived. He had always been close to his people, preached a prophetic gospel, denouncing the injustice in his country and supporting the development of popular and mass organizations. He became the voice of the Salvadoran people when all other channels of expression had been crushed by the repression.
cher
ReplyDeleteshow details 9:28 PM (8 minutes ago)
Our political process of finding and supporting the best leadership
for our country has lost it's focus: ' that we are first and foremost
Americans.' We are too often polarized between liberal and
conservative, between for or against war, between Republican or
Democrat in the extreme. It becomes much more frightening and
troubling when people start demonizing other people in the other
camps. And why should we not expect the other camp to do the same
demonizing? Even the 'Right to Life' people are Americans first, and
'Abortion doctors are Americans first.' In this country we do our
debate in the open.
I suppose we are caught in the web of thinking negatively about
differences between us and others. Real thinking has stopped and then
it's a matter of name calling and demonizing. But, stop and think for
a moment. If you cannot say anything good about another, then say
nothing at all. That is well placed advice in such a time as ours.
Instead of demonizing, why not try to divinize....that is, to see
something really good about others, though on first thought, it may
seem impossible. That is it, though. We must see others as the Divine,
as the Other, the Good which has to be in all of us. None of us comes
into this world with perfection. Instead of exaggerating our
differences, we need to work toward the Union and Unity in which we
already stand. Let us recover the
E Pluribus Unum, 'from the