Roots and walls and the Great Recession

There are two primary spiritual responses to what in America is being called the Great Recession; to build walls around us, out of the weakness of fear, or to put down roots to give us strength and hope. So writes Tim King, assistant to Jim Wallis, in Jim's book Rediscovering Values: on Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street (A Moral Compass for the New Economy). The former response of fear comes from the "Greed is good, it's all about me," "I want it now" camp. Too scared to share, too scared to show vulnerability, these people build ever bigger walls around themselves and their ever more "valuable" assets, trying to buy security and happiness. but of course it won't work in the long run.

On the other hand, we can have hope, and grow roots to give us the strength to live by the maxim that enough is enough, we're in this together, and we will look after the interests of the generations coming after us. Roots dig under the surface, reach to the source, give us the strength to meet the challenges ahead - with such a sound source of strength we are not afraid to share, not afraid to be vulnerable, and we can make the world a much fairer and better place.
This is a good book. Even though it is primarily written for the American reader it is just as relevant and accessible for any English speaking audience - the recession has after all been global. But all will be wasted if we don't use this opportunity to change things - don't just go back to the same economic and spiritless behaviour that got us in this mess in the first place. We need real change of heart and mind, and we need spirituality. Tim King recalls the sound wisdom of sharing so that all may have enough, passed down from his great grandmother to his grandmother. I am reminded of an even older wisdom in a passage in Alastair McIntosh' wonderful book Soil and Soul:

McIntosh recalls how Tom Forsyth, a crofter from the Scottish West Highland community of Scoraig, would say: ‘it’s not good enough to do your community-development only at the grass roots. So much of the grassroots are just at the level of spectator sport, television, cigarettes, drink and consumer culture. No, you’ve got to get down to the taproots…that are rooted in the ‘ancient spiritual bedrock.’’ This is where change has to start.
Amen

Rediscovering Values

This half term week reminds me of another half term; it must have been many years ago - my boys are now young adults. It was a rain soaked Sunday, and we had the misfortune to visit a large shopping mall outside town to return some goods to one of those internationally known super stores.

All those years ago the elder of our two boys was in a religious studies lesson at school. They were discussing Sunday Trading. “It is just wrong,” he said. No reason was needed – it was simply wrong!

Ever since it was introduced I have abhorred Sunday trading, and actually I also loathe those big soulless monuments or temples to consumerism and materialism we call superstores and shopping malls. But as I said we needed to change something and thought we could save petrol by calling in on our way to visit a local house and garden of historic interest with the kids. I had completed my morning duties at the Sunday service in our local parish church. This trip to the shop was meant to be incidental only, en route to our traditional Sunday afternoon family excursion, this time to Down House, the country home of Charles Darwin for the last 40 years of his life until he died in 1882.

Now I realize that for many Christians who like me abhor Sunday trading the mention of Darwin and his views on evolution may itself open up a fairly passionate discussion about The Origin of the Species and his theories of Evolution and Natural Selection. I’ll take that risk, but that isn’t the point of this story.

The car parks around the superstore were practically gridlocked, cars jostling for the scarce, almost nonexistent empty parking spaces, and families with their children were pouring into and out of the store, those on the outward home bound journey pushing trolleys loaded high with consumable goods. There were several thousand cars there, with perhaps 3 or 4 or more in each car. The arithmetic is simple and the disquieting effect on my previous feeling of spiritual calm was very real!

The damage to the environment inflicted through our collective behaviours around that one store on that one day must have been colossal. It doesn’t bear contemplation to multiply the effect by the number of other similar stores around the country presumably displaying the same patterns of greed and consumerism! These places have become for many the new religion, shopping malls replacing the church as the Sunday venue of first choice.

At least I was trying to economise that day and avoid two car trips where one could suffice; and our shopping trip was intended to be fleeting!