Don't know much about economy...

Hey everybody. If you're like me, you probably get that glossy look in your eyes when people start talking about the current financial situation.  And I was an econ minor (although my education seemed to be largely relearning the same facts I learned in intro courses, except doing some calculus. Sweet.)

Anyway, here are some resources for you!

Paddy Hirsch's Marketplace Whiteboard series explains it all.  But their listed with the most recent ones at the top, so you'll want to start at the bottom, since the concepts often build on each other.

Also, Timothy Carney at Culture 11 posts a regular column, Heckonomics, (as in, what-the-heck-o-nomics) which will have you understanding things in no time.

Michael Lewis, in "The End of Wall Street's Boom," gives you a behind-the-scenes account of the housing bubble.

Happy reading.

At least the bank can't take your sense of humor

Time to laugh at the economy.  Or Adolf Hitler:

From Clusterstock.

Meanwhile, across the English Channel:

The Hiding Place, pt. 6

Others came to Bloemendaal, scarred body and soul by bombing raids or loss of family or any of the endless dislocations of war. In 1947 we began to receive Dutch people who had been prisoners of the Japanese in indonesia.

Though none of this was by design, it proved to be the best possible setting for those who had been imprisoned in Germany. Among themselves they tended to live and relive their special woes; in Bloemendaal they were reminded that they were not the only ones who had suffered. And for all these people alike, the key to healing turned out to be the same. Each had a hurt he had to forgive: the neighbor who had reported him, the brutal guard, the sadistic soldier.

Strangely enough, it was not the Germans or the Japanese that people had most trouble forgiving; it was their fellow Dutchmen who had sided with the enemy. I saw them frequently in the streets, NsBers with their shaved heads and furtive eyes. These former collaborators were now in pitiful condition, turned out of homes and apartments, unable to find jobs, hooted at in the streets.

At first it seemed to me that we should invite them, too, to Bloemendaal, to live side by side with those they had injured, to seek a new compassion on both sides. But it turned out to be too soon for people working their way back from such hurt: the two times I tried it, it ended in open fights. And so as soon as homes and schools for the feeble-minded opened again around the country, I turned the Beje over to these former NsBers.

This was how it went, those years after the war, experimenting, making mistakes, learning. The doctors, psychiatrists, and nutritionists who came free of charge to any place that cared for war victims, sometimes expressed surprise at our loose-run ways. At morning and evening worship, people drifted in and out, table manners were atrocious, one man took a walk into Haarlem every morning at 3:00 A.M. I could not bring myself to sound a whistle or to scold, or to consider gates or curfews.

And, sure enough, in their own time and their own way, people worked out the deep pain within them. It most often started, as Betsie had known it would, in the garden. As flowers bloomed or vegetables ripened, talk was less of the bitter past, more of tomorrow's weather. As their horizons broadened, I would tell them about the people living in the Beje, people who never had a visitor, never a piece of mail. When mention of the NsBers no longer brought a volley of self-righteous wrath, I knew the person's healing was not far away. And the day he said, “Those people you spoke of---I wonder if they'd care for some homegrown carrots,” then I knew the miracle had taken place. 

Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, pp. 246-247.

Believers such as myself can easily fall into a saccharine view of forgiveness, seeing the joy of reconciliation but neglecting the hardship required to reach that point.  Forgiveness may hurt. Even if our hearts are filled with compassion for others, society-at-large may only harbor contempt.  Reaching out to the condemned may bring ostracism for ourselves, too.

Another point: it is easy to imagine loving the "deserving," those who suffer via some seemingly cruel twist of fate--a calamity that could befall anyone, including us.  Yet who imagines love for the unworthy, those who have brought calamity upon themselves, those who have committed or condoned atrocity?  And yet Christ commanded us not only to attend to the hungry, and the parched, and the naked, but the imprisoned, as well.  And he made no qualifications: he did not hedge with qualifiers such as the wrongfully incarcerated, or the minor offenders, or the well-behaved.  He calls us to love the damned--the rightfully damned.  

Caring for them, more likely than not, will be bittersweet.  We cannot approach them with naivete; tough love may be needed.  They are not monsters, though the temptation to call them that is strong.  Many have done monstrous things, and their bodies are scarred, their souls are disfigured.  This ugliness has been wrought by their own hands, sullied by blood.  But we know of the Fount of blood that washes, heals, renews.  When the ugliness is cleared away, we may find they were not monsters, but sons and brothers.

The Hiding Place, pt. 5

We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw. We could hear the women who had arrived with us finding their places. Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above.

Something had pinched my leg.

“Fleas!” I cried. “Betsie, the place is swarming with them!” We scrambled across the intervening platforms, heads low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle, and edged our way to a patch of light.

“Here! And here’s another one!” I wailed. “Betsie, how can we live in such a place?”

“Show us. Show us how.” It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

“Corrie!” she said excitedly. “He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!” I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch.

“It was in First Thessalonians,” I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen. In the feeble light I turned the pages. “Here it is: 'Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.'” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.

“Go on,” said Betsie. “That wasn't all.”

“Oh yes: '. . . to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus-”'

“That's it, Corrie! That's His answer. 'Give thanks in all circumstances!' That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!” I stared at her, then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

“Such as?” I said.

“Such as being assigned here together.”

l bit my lip. “Oh yes, Lord Jesus!”

“Such as what you're holding in your hands.”

l looked down at the Bible. “Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all the women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.”

“Yes,” said Betsie.

“Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!” She looked at me expectantly. “Corrie!” she prodded.

“Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds.”

“Thank you,” Betsie went on serenely, “for the fleas and for---“ The fleas! This was too much.

“Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

“'Give thanks in all circumstances,”' she quoted. “It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”

And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, pp. 209-210.

You must read the book--the fleas, in the end, are a blessing.  But I can't give anymore away.

Housekeeping

Well, I'm gonna post a glut of new content. Some Hiding Place (remember that from July) that got lost inside my post manager and forgotten about. Some gallows humor for the economy. Other goodies.

Christmas and Fulfillment

Santa wants You to do your Duty. From Blake Huggins

Happy Christmastime, everybody! Now that Thanksgiving's over, you can put up your lights and listen to obnoxious music without drawing the ire of Holiday Celebration Time Period Purists like myself.

Good post by Rod Dreher this morning, "Media, Black Friday and the Last Shopper," in which he, besides detailing the media's complicity in creating a consumption free-for-all after Thanksgiving, relates this sad comment on the state of the American Shopper Psyche:

Carr's ending is a jolt, suggesting a consumerist version of Nietzsche's Last Man:

Even consumption may have limits. Mr. Cohen said that in his 32 years interviewing consumers in malls during the holiday season, he had never heard what he did this year. "People really have no idea what they want," he said.

They don't even want anything. They want to want. Our popular culture, driven by news and entertainment media, and advertising, has stimulated their appetites, such that all they know now is appetite. I don't know whether it's more pathetic or frightening. Maybe it's frightening because it's pathetic: the Last Shopper.

Is this what the Consumerist Experience has come down to? Originally, man could view his possessions as a blessing, a means towards seeing Someone greater, but then we elevated material goods as an end themselves.

The act of consumption has become an end itself.

Now, apparently, our alienation has increased by another order: the goods themselves are meaningless¹, and the act of consumption has become an end itself. The Urge to Appropriate has become so generalized and ingrained that it has become our prime motivation. All we know how to do is abate the need, at least temporarily. This bears striking similarity to my current course material in medical school.

Addiction.

Consider for contrast this video my church just played yesterday from the Advent Conspiracy:

Interesting opportunity and needed wake-up call. We would be wise to remember Paul's words in Phillippians:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

How often does our culture do the opposite? Whether in want or wealth, we are consumed with bitterness and envy. and as the fading economy forces us to live with less materially, what will we do relationally?

A friend of mine had a blurb on her GChat away message asking if it was ok to start up a Christmas Countdown. I say yes. We have 25 days. A brief amount of time. What will we do to commemorate the season? What will we do to heal the wounds of the mad pursuit? Will we:

• call up friends we have neglected, whether due to indifference in the face of a crowded schedule, or avoidance in the wake of old conflict?
• show concern to those we'd otherwise ignore, as if one could merit our love (how often others have cared for us, when we were insolent or ignorant)?²
• give money, when we'd rather keep money?
• cleanse our hearts so we could love guests amidst their messy lives, rather than cleansing our homes for fear guests wouldn't love us amidst our messy lives?³
• look for ways to bear another's suffering?⁴

Ostentatious verbiage to "put Christ back in Christmas" does little.⁵ We, and those around us, are best served by putting Christ back in our hearts.

Footnotes:

1. You want meaningless? Check this out. Wrong on so many levels. Kids do not need to make numerous copies of their artwork--even if it looks like a Jackson Pollock, it doesn't mean you can sell the prints for decor. Plus, why are we giving kids "adult"-like toys? Why are we accelerating childhood into miniature adulthood, replete with office supplies to match? Next they'll be wanting cell phones. Oh, wait... I had to use cups and string.

2. Matt 18:21-35

3. Luke 10:38-42

4. Mother Teresa said:

Once they came to a door and no one answered. The woman had been dead for 5 days and no one knew - except the odor in the hallway. So many people are known for the number on their door. The worst disease today is not leprosy; it is being unwanted, being left out, being forgotten. The greatest scourge is to forget the next person, to be so sufficated with the that we have no time for the lonely Jesus - even a person in our own family that needs us. Maybe if I had not picked up that one dying person on the street, I would not have picked up the thousands. We must think ONE, ONE. That is the way to begin.

5. I appreciate their sentiment, but no one else does, and that is precisely the reason institutionalized drives like this fail. In other words, there is a diseconomy of scale to cultural change: the bigger an entity, the less effective it is, primarily because "sentiment" is the first thing expunged from a petition. Emotion, care, and concern cannot be communicated via an organization, and an intimate and living interpersonal connection is absolutely necessary if hearts and minds will ever be changed. This is not to say that individual people cannot create that connection as members of a group, but the focus should be on the organization's resources reinforcing the message of love already communicated through the person. (Organizational resources are why larger organizations may have economies of scale (bigger equals better) in regards to financial concerns, but cultural change must be local). Too often, the member becomes subservient to the group, a nameless, faceless amoeba of mission statements and donation requests.