Feb 08 2009
Taking Stock
A note of appreciation: I am so grateful for the quality of comment building on this blog–and thank many of you for writing in these past months. I read every comment, and smile and greet the names I recognize: friends, long ago students, and storycatchers coming in whose names are new. If you haven’t clicked into the comments, take time to do so–it’s a great community. I have an impulse to respond to each of you personally, and have decided I pretty much have to hold the boundary of how I spend my writing time. I can do this blog, and I can write the book under contract, and manage the business, and I can’t take on much individual response. Please know my heart says hello to each of you commenting, and each of you reading. Thank you.
I’ve been commuting back and forth all this past week between my house and our exquisite local retreat center, The AlderMarsh, where we teach when we’re home. I was guiding a small group of women writers through the complexities and magic of a circle that is gathered to have an experience together, while at the same time focusing on the depth of their own works-in-progress. Most of them stayed on-site, so I was the bringer in of news from the world–and it’s not an easy time for morning sound-bites. In conversations that plunged into depth and poked into many topics, we kept raising the question–So, what’s really happening?
This is the most recent example of being in small groups where we are seeking a deeper story that will prepare us for the conditions that are really coming our way. I cheer when President Obama calls for a cap on the CEO salaries of corporations in bail-out, and snarl at the idea that these people are so removed from the realities of the rest of us that they can even imagine taking millions in bonuses and buying private jets, but that’s just one layer of the problem: I believe we are finally facing the imperative to retool the global economy.
In a recent article written for Merrill Lynch, I highlighted these quotes from economic analysist David A. Rosenberg:
“We are witnessing epic changes in the ways in which people approach how they move around and how they allocate their budgets, especially with respect to discretionary spending and their attitudes toward debt.” …
Since WWII, (78 million boomers) ensured that even the most dire recessions were modest… Now, the baby boomers are done. … there is no pent up demand for discretionary items in the household budget. The average household owns nearly $40,000 of non-housing durable goods assets (i.e., the art, the third SUV, the fourth television set, etc.)… The boomers are not just satiated, they are over-saturated, and since one of the few booming segments of the economy are consignment stores, …these assets are being liquidated so the marginal household can trim its record debt and interest burden.”
Wow, I had no idea that buying my teaching wardrobe at Senior Thrift would kick off a national trend (and economic downturn!). A year ago we paid off our mortgage and we live debt-free. We have plans if our income continues at current levels, and plans if it drops. We live in a community in conversation about local sustainability.
I’m sharing this because I believe the current financial crisis raises the need for conversations that ignite a passionate willingness to redesign our understanding of the material world so that we–people, businesses, communities, and countries– can establish a new equilibrium and move forward into the realities of the 21st century. I’m an English major, a Storycatcher. My last math class was 10th grade geometry. Yet I know wisdom resides in each of us. We can assess what is happening in the larger story and design our lives to survive and thrive. We can build the path forward, story by story and insight by insight, and action by action.
This is my first entry on this issue. I invite us into conversation, here, as well as wherever you are living.
- What are you talking about? Hearing or reading about?
- Who are you talking and listening to?
- What stories inspire you? What scares you?
- How are you framing the facts so that you can hold them with confidence?
At the end of January I had a conversation with a member of the Kufunda Village community in Zimbabwe where we visited and taught in 2007. He had been on a respite travel time here and I asked him what it was like to be in the US during the Obama inauguration, and also what he was taking home to speak to his village. He said, “It is terribly hard in Zimbabwe right now. I am afraid to go home and see what inflation has done to us in the time I’ve been gone. And I also go home to say, ‘there are ways we Zimbabweans are still rich. Rich because in our country there is always someplace to run–people who will take us in, who will share their last potato. Here, I see that people don’t know who will help them. They close the doors of their houses and suffer alone. This must be so much harder.’ ”
Wise words from one of the “poorest” nations to one of the “richest.” My interpersonal work now is to participate in conversations where we break the remaining taboos of isolation and start the conversation and share the stories that will help us help each other in the necessary losses and unexpected gains of these times. I still have extra potatoes–let’s talk.
Christina
Copyright ©2009 Christina Baldwin. All rights reserved.
I’m sitting in my kitchen-office with a pot of chicken soup cooking in the pot. I too have potatoes. Tomorrow I turn 66, which puts me just a little ahead of the boomers, and I too have no debt. It is such a relief to not worry about how to survive tomorrow, but I am concerned about how I will survive ten years from now. We are experiencing events that are new to us and no one seems to know the answers to when will we hit bottom and when will we recover (and how fast).
Maybe we won’t recover to our consumerism, economics over environmental world!! That is what I think I want, but - - What does that mean for me? I am trying to buy less, differentiate between wants and needs, but know that I still acquire more than I need.
Maybe I need to create a covenant that can guide me to contributing to recovery. I’m not sure I know where to begin - except in dialogue with others who share the same concerns.
Thanks for the thought-provoking topics.
Joyce
I work in India (mostly). A recent visit in February revealed that my (middle class) Indian friends will ride out the current economic storm because, unlike most of us, they traditionally save 90% and spend 10% of earnings. As Sharad said “Most of us are OK for the next five years.” My grass root friends are not so affected by economic downturn and as one artisan so wisely commented “sustainability to my family means two simple meals a day and a change of clothes”. Would my life be so simple. No wonder I choose to spend much of my year in such company working with those who have a hold on some grounded reality. I trust I am not a romantic!
I went back to Mumbai, paid my respects to the Taj Mahal Hotel and drank pomegrante juice at Leopold’s cafe where the manager has not covered up the bullet holes and sports a scalp scar from his near miss. Terrorism has not cowed the city and I fully intend to continue taking my small tours with one eye on carbon offsets and the other on supporting small communities. Checks and balances.
Now, as I pack up a house to move home from Spain (after my partner’s five year project) to Australia I am dismayed at the accumulation. Time again for simplicity, letting go, moving on cleanly and unencumbered.
This year I will use my time to continue building my business along sustainable lines; economically viable, ecologically responsible and socially aware. I’ll discourage the use of the terms “rich” and “poor”, “first” and “third” and “undeveloped” and “developed” countries. In the final analysis the notion of rich and poor is based on materialism, first and third imply a race (to which finish line?) and I trust we are all still developing! I am not denying inequality or dreadful poverty but those states exist as much in my world as in any other.
I watched Obama’s inauguration on a screen in remote Gujarat along with local friends. Today, we are thankful that a major political power has a new champion and remain optimistic at our human capacity to reach for the truth, change ourselves and make a better world.
My potatoes are waiting.
Christina,
I welcome this conversation! My husband was (finally!) looking at retiring (maybe!) this year…he will be 70 and I’m 68. We have watched our IRA disappear by leaps and bounds over the past few months. We started the process of crafting a plan to sell our business to our boys, only to see the possibility of their getting a loan (only a modest one) from the bank become less and less.
We are currently working and meeting every week with 2 financial planners to save what’s left of our IRAs and to re-work the business plan to accomodate what the kids can handle. Our business is auto body repair, and while business has been steady, the cost of supplies has become astronomical and shows no sign of diminishing.
I have been retired for a few years and, while we have assets and are living comfortably right now, I cannot help but wonder if my husband and I will ever get the “couple time” that we looked forward to after raising seven children. It seems like the rug could be pulled out from under us very quickly now, and despite the years of hard work and sacrifice, we may not be able to have a “retirement” at all….
I welcome the opportunity to put these fears into writing….I have not been able to put words to my feelings for some months now, and I’m becoming prone to angry outbursts and resentful words at inappropriate times….
We are actually very lucky to be where we are and to have a business of our own. I hope and pray that my husband’s hard work will offer him some reward for all the years he’s put into the business. At the same time, I realize that our problems are so tiny compared to those who don’t have jobs or are under the threat of losing a job. It feels like a very uncomfortable place to be right now….
Carol
Oh, Christina, I SO love your “voice!”
This is a great conversation to start! Thank you!
I entreat any readers here to visit
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
It is a 20 minute short course in “environmental issues” and explains quite a bit about how we came to be so isolated from our communities, neighbors, and even family members.
I agree that this widening and deepening crisis we are in can be an opportunity to reach for the GIFT! The gift of reconnecting to people, and disconnecting from the rat race. The rat race is a pyramid scheme: who are you willing to sacrifice so that you might rise up a little? Even for those just trying to “maintain,” it is a course of dehumanization, keeping you from REAL life.
We have an open door to go back to the “village.” Let’s GO!
What scares me? Well. I recently read that 50% of the Americans polled (I hate polls and really do not trust them, but even so….) believe in creationism. This is frightening to me for many reasons, but in the context of this theme, I worry about the number of those people who also believe in “the rapture” deal. These people are NOT going to be great teammates! 50%???? Even 10, 20, 25% sounds VERY scary.
What inspires me? (Besides folk like you!) International folk dancing.
Folk dancing is a wonderful way to connect with people. It is a joyful, loving, cross-cultural, appreciative and accepting of differences, and physical activity where we can hold hands, touch hearts and really CARE for each other.
Folk dancing has its own circle, but I see it as just one arc of the larger piece: Storytelling, sacred circles, music, wilderness, OH! So many arcs! We are ONE.
with hope and oceans of love, Valerie
What stories inspire you? What scares you?
It seems to me that everything cycles — there are up-cycles and down-cycles — it seems to be the natural state of things, why should economics be any different?
It also is amazing to me that people, corporations, countries expect continuous growth — that is really impossible. When you get to a certain point it should become maintenance.
I am very fortunate in that I have always had to live frugally; however I do have some credit card debt — all for necessities — car repairs, medical bills, taxes, but I am slowly paying that down. The education loans are all paid! The work-load is continuing — the rent will be going up, but not for several months now until all the remodeling is finished. I do have an option there — I can go back to the midwest and live with my sister (although that will mean starting over in the job and medical areas). I will be 66 in August and if I take my ss payments and keep my 2.5 jobs I will be able to afford to live in Southern California for a couple more years.
What inspires me is stories of the “Great Depression” — people shared and became closer and they got through it. I think we are in for another learning experience of sharing and learning what is really important and we will survive this economic downtown and maybe come through it with improved infrastructure and simpler lifestyles and more ecological awareness and nurturing for the earth.
Not much scares me because I have family to turn to. I get scared for my daughter who lives on her own in Manhattan (the most expensive place in the US to live) and works in the world of theatre which is very uncertain). But, she, too can “come home” for a while if she needs to.
I sometimes think this is a “leveling of the playing field in that the people with the most may eventually realize that accumulation of stuff is not what life is about. We will get through this and we may learn to live on a more sustainable level.
Christina,
Thank you for this story. The questions build a way to flip fear upside down and move one from a place of trembling paralysis to a position of intentional movement.
The way we are answering this question in our household of two single women is to invite in a third to cut down on expenses, to broaden our community, to provide a safe place for this third who is hungering for a change of environment and a place to grow and belong. Her soil has become toxic and she desperately needs to be replanted.
We, the current two, have developed a weekly prayer calendar to take our concerns and often times fears and convert them into the positive, creative energy of prayer. We pray every night before we go to bed. We have seven items per night that we take before our God to make requests, to pour out our desires for each and to offer the parts of them that are too heavy for us to bear to the One who has the ability, resources and insight to do what we alone cannot.
We, through God’s miraculous provision, keep this house stocked and often find ourselves in impromptu lunch and dinner engagements, hosted at our community house. We want to be a lighthouse here in our community, always open and welcome for the weary one that needs a place of refuge. We want to be the place where people run to. We have had the unique priviledge of being that to a few. We are praying that will increase as we grow.
We got our house last August as we prayed for perfect roommates to do life with. We found each other one week and within the next week, we found the house. We had no furniture between us, and now had a fabulous 1940’s 4 bedroom 2 bath craftsman to fill. We sat on the empty living room floor and prayed that it would be what God wanted it to be and I declared that the house would be filled within two weeks, the date that we would be moving in. That happened. Through the free stuff site on Craig’s list, the free giveaway site in our local newspaper, and on our free cycle local yahoo group, we had what we needed, without paying for a thing. Later we filled in some empty places with a few bought things at prices that would make any bargain hunter envious. Neither of us had done this before, but now we know about provision in a way that we never would have if we had not been willing to pray for help, and be brave enough to take a risk that by sight alone made absolutely no logical sense.
I encourage people to open up to doing life in a new way. We truly will be richer and wiser for it. Thanks for giving me a place to share this story.
I, too, wonder where this is all going. I took a risk eight years ago and retired when offered a “buyout.” Initially, I panicked. My best friend and I bought a house (our second) nearly 20 years ago. After we both retired, and took both our mothers in before they died, she decided to marry and move away. Another panic…how can I manage it all?
I suppose I am naive, even at age 69, but I calmed down, paid off all credit card bills, realized that I have a great support team where I live and know that I have a wonderful circle of friends who will take me in if it came to that. Several of us have talked about the value of shared community living.
I have more than I need but have been paring down the last few years. Some things I can give to charity, some to the trash heap, but I’m learning I need a lot less of what I have. My bills are only basic living expenses, with a bit for recreation or spiritual enrichment. I still have a small mortgage but can handle it.
I think when we realize that there are so many in our communities who have a great deal less than we, it prompts us to take a closer look at our own lives. This hit hard many years ago when I was in a religious community. I went home for a visit and my mother apologized that she didn’t have steak to feed me (We never had steak at home.) because she “knew the sisters ate steak.” What an eye opener. How glad I am that I had the opportunity to come to her aid as she was growing old and becoming dependent on her children.
So, I pray that all of us will come to understand our role in these economic trials and reach out a hand to those around us.
Thanks for asking!
Just before reading this post I got an email from my husband saying we need to sit down and carefully evaluate our finances. So this is a very timely post: I thank you so much for asking these questions and raising these issues, and I am inspired by the comments I see here.
We, too, are debt-free, and my husband is still gainfully employed, so we are fine for the moment. We’ve been poor off and on in our lives and know how to live frugally; we enjoy used and discounted clothing and books so our expenses are not out of line with our income. Our daughters are both in college, though, and I’m worried that they won’t be able to separate from us and build lives of their own after they graduate. My husband has been wanting to retire, but we both know he’s very happy working, so the current plan is for him to continue doing so as long as his current employer continues to pay him — which doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon.
All of which makes us among the lucky ones. And so, on behalf of those less fortunate, we are working this year to clear out the “extra stuff,” giving away the clothes we rarely wear that someone else might need, the collection of fabric from my quilting days that might make quilts for children in hospitals, the books someone else might long to read. And, like many people, we’re cooking at home more, reading more, going out less, traveling less…
When my girls were little I used to read a story to them, written by Leo Lionni, about a mouse named Frederick, who stored up light and color and stories while the other mice were busy collecting nuts and seeds for the winter. They accused him of being lazy, but they sang another tune when, in the dark of winter, the nuts and seeds ran out, and Frederick was there to offer them memories of color and sunshine and music to help them wait out the dark days til spring.
I don’t know about you, but when I think of the Depression, I think of those dreadful gray pictures of people waiting in food lines, and then I think of the amazing art that was created during those dark years. As an artist, I’ve seen my income dwindle to almost nothing in the last three years (thank God my husband has a job) but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep doing art. So now I have begun sharing, both my photographs and whatever faith I bring to the journey (I am an occasional Episco-buddhist, I guess) on two daily blogs. One is photos and poetry, a quick read (www.contemplativephotographer.blogspot.com) and the other is photos with longer meditations (www.contemplativephotography.com). It just feels like a way to say we’re not alone, and that some struggles - especially the ones that try to seek or create meaning in the ordinariness of things — are common to all.
Thank you again for providing space for us to express our fears and think through what gifts we may have to offer in the time ahead.
Hi Christina, and all who have gathered in this circle.
As a woman of 42, married with an eleven year old daughter in the prime of our ‘earning and saving years’, living in uber-depressed Michigan with jobs dependent on the decimated auto industry I hear FEAR everywhere I go. It is inescapable. Relentless. Yet, I am strangely calm. I have four amazing friends and the teachings of Christina the Wise and Anne the Courageous on how to come together in deep conversation and tell the story of what we see.
One of the things that we have been talking about and practicing (after a good long RANT about whatever stupidity we have just witnessed, or comeuppance we are celebrating) is finding the mental, emotional and physical space to live in beyond the paradoxes of hope and fear. Rumi’s piece has become a bit of a touchstone for me. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
This was put sorely to the test this week when my husband was informed of a meeting that his boss and president of his company would be coming across the state to have with him. No further information available. With rampant layoffs and dismal sales we sat in limbo for three days. Had I not just come from a two day retreat with my girls I know I would have been panicked, adding to the crushing weight of responsibility on my husband’s shoulders.
Our circle’s center on our retreat (a tarot card layout from Angeles Arrien’s book - the path of balance) showed us that the legs holding us up are our relationships. The ground in the groundlessness. And, the feminine physical capacity we have in spades to express great care. Over those couple of days I reached out to him, not to share worry, but to mirror back to him his finest qualities and simply be together. It made a huge difference and I hope I can do more of that with him.
I am reaching out, and back, to the most meaningful relationships in my life, and inviting new ones. A huge feat for my hermit self. Its all I have.
In the words of R.E.M. “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”
Thank you for these wise thoughts. Last year I spent four months traveling around West Africa and stayed in communities and villages where people wore the same clothes every day, shared one car and two bicycles, and ate simple meals of rice and sauce. What struck me is not what I expected; instead of feeling pity for these impoverished people, I was astonished by the amount of laughter and song ringing through the town. There was a sense of sturdiness and calm even in situations that seemed dire and frightening to me. For these people, there always seemed to be just enough, and the concern was not how they were going to get through a five year plan, but how they would feed and care for their families and friends today.
As belts tighten and I sense anxiety among my friends and family, I think of the wealth that exists in other forms of currency - like friendship, health, stillness, and love. What I’m seeing many of my young friends worry about is having to move home to live with parents, not being able to buy things, having only part time or no work at all. I’m trying to find the opportunities hidden within these challenges. Moving home means more time to reconnect with family. Not being able to afford to buy someone a birthday present means I can learn to craft and make use of all the stuff lying around my house to create one instead. Having less time at work means more time for things I really love, like taking walks in nature, gardening, and being with friends. I’m also starting a weekly potluck cookoff, where I ask each friend to bring one ingredient they already have around the house. We meet, survey the collected goods, and create a huge feast for everyone to share. We get to hang out, have a good time, eat, and save money all at once.
My, my, such wisdom and attentiveness to the many changes afoot in our world. My partner and I do have a mortgage, but for the foreseeable future, we also have a good income, between her pension and my salary. For that we are grateful! And for that we also feel a responsibility … surely our privilege, the comfort we were born into and which has embraced us most of our lives, demands something of us. We’ve decided it asks that we be rigorously mindful of all that we have and all that others need. We tithe and we also try to be generous in the ways we give of our time (probably our scarcest resource) … the readiness with which we change our plans because of a phone call asking us to be present to someone else’s troubles.
I have an elderly mother and several elderly aunts and uncles and we are constantly called upon, and we believe that being there for them is part of who we are. We also live a special global connection to important community building happening in the village of Longido in northern Tanzania (www.projectembo.org). My partner’s sister and her partner are the founders of a small charity that is committed to empowering the local women and essentially - over the next several years - doing themselves out of work. And by contributing financially - as well as contributing our ideas and our thinking - we are a small part of that empowerment. It is, indeed, a distinguishing characteristic of our time that it is both the scariest in our living memories and, at the same time, there is enormous hope. Hope that is grounded in good things happening in the world. Hope that even the scary things hold meaning as they stretch us to rethink who we are and what we need in order to be that person.
I recently had the pleasure of hearing economist Richard Florida speak on the emergence of a creative economy and how the way out of these times is through shifting the economic engines away from things, towards people, towards creativity and ingenuity and intellectual capacity. We need to value every person’s capacity to be creative and to contribute, and only by caling that creativity forth will we transition into the new economy and create growth and wealth once again.
I was struck, in particular, by two things he said. He told us he won’t use the language of recession and he doesn’t like to speak of what’s happening as an economic crisis, but rather, he thinks of it as an economic reset. An important opportunity to revisit our values and think the hard thoughts about who we are as a society, what kinds of choices we’ve made, and do those choices reflect the best of who we are? Like a reset button, it allows us to get past the mistakes of the past and imagine the possiblities of the future. The second thing he said that resonated with me was that the economic transition we are living is as significant as when our ancestors went from an agriculture economy to industrial; that we are living that magnitude of a change.
I find it reassuring and comforting to think of myself as being a small part of history and so I like the idea that what we are experiencing is, indeed, significant, and that we can impact it by the choices we make, locally and globally. I like to think, in fact, that as a species we can reset our values and choose to live differently.
I loved your questions. I fell and broke both my shoulders on November 7th. I spent five weeks being fed, having my nose blown, etc., etc., etc. Altogether I was away for thirteen weeks - am slowly coming back into ordinary life - unable to do so many things. I was nowhere near death - am nowhere near death - but am facing very deeply the fact that as a sister I will never die in the boundaries of my community - this is brand new for all of us - I need to spend time with your four questions and begin to formulate - you have touched a very deep part of me with them - thank you - mary sullivan, r.c.
I felt pulled this early Monday morning, before the new week ramps up, to send my gratitude for this conversation. I keep coming back to it. Checking in on new voices, rereading the previous. All of them together help me hold each day with courage and new conviction and ideas about how I can help. I was also noticing this morning how your words and stories have re-connected me with the stories of so many others I have been privileged to be in the path of throughout my life. The patterns are comforting. The repetitiveness of messages, reframed over and over with the lovely details that make them uniquely yours at the same time, nourishing. Thank you each and all.
[...] ongoing examination of the value of stories in coping with the current economic crisis, I admired a blog entry by Christina Baldwin, author of [...]