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"Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people - robbers, crooks, adulterers..."
This month's theme is gratitude. My knee-jerk reaction was to start with a 'I'm-so-thankful-this-election-is-almost-over' type of sentiment. My second thought was to acknowledge that I am part of the same country that has created this kind of vitriol. I am, in a very real sense, part of the problem. I consume the 24-hour news. I live-tweet debates and post on Facebook. I make purchase decisions without considering how my dollars will contribute to the perpetuation of inequality. If we're honest with ourselves, I think we'll find the quote above seeping into our hearts. We think we're expressing gratitude, but really we're just being prideful.
Gratitude should always be accompanied by humility. If we are thankful that the election cycle is nearing its end, we should recognize the role that we have played in exacerbating the divide. If we are thankful for our family, we should acknowledge the ways we have failed them, only to have found that they loved you in spite of your failings.
And then it's time to act.
True gratitude must always result in a change in status-quo behavior, working to make things different. Humble gratitude plus action results in justice. Our world is simply starved for true justice, the kind of justice that creates peace. Justice that isn't about advancement or self-importance, but about making things right.
Gratitude without humility is pride. Humility without action is sympathy. May gratitude fill your heart and spur you into action. Not because of prideful motivation or even sympathy, but because you desire justice.
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Reader's Digest
Kathryn Edin
Greg's Notes:
- Presents a balance of policy and practice, data and narrative.
- Stories from Chicago, Johnson City (TN), Cleveland, and the Mississippi delta learning about specific people trying to make it in America on $2/day or less.
- There are 1.5 million US households living at or below this extreme poverty threshold of $2/day (approximately 3 million US children), but only the tiniest subset apply and receive any kind of cash assistance (i.e. welfare)
- In the US, there are more stamp collectors than there are welfare recipients
- In none of the 50 states can a minimum wage job afford a standard, fair market rent
- To date, our reforms have focused almost exclusively on 'personal responsibility' while forgetting the arguably more important opposite side of the coin: job opportunities
Key Quote:
"The ultimate litmus test we endorse for any reform is whether it will serve to integrate the poor - particularly the $2-a-day poor - into society. It is not enough to provide material relief to those experiencing extreme deprivation. We need to craft solutions that can knit these hard-pressed citizens back into the fabric of their communities and their nation."
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Around the Web
Andrew Sullivan
Ironies aside, this piece is worth the block of time you'll need to digest it. It's noise, technology, connection, relationship, spirituality, and meditation all rolled into one beautiful tapestry. What are you noticing about your life? What are you making time for? What are you thankful for? Which areas need realigned?
(Bonus: Quiet Rev has a shorter, similarly-themed piece.)
Key Quotes
"I’d long treated my online life as a supplement to my real life, an add-on, as it were. Yes, I spent many hours communicating with others as a disembodied voice, but my real life and body were still here. But then I began to realize, as my health and happiness deteriorated, that this was not a both-and kind of situation. It was either-or. Every hour I spent online was not spent in the physical world. Every minute I was engrossed in a virtual interaction I was not involved in a human encounter."
"We hide our vulnerabilities, airbrushing our flaws and quirks; we project our fantasies onto the images before us. Rejection still stings — but less when a new virtual match beckons on the horizon."
"...just as modern street lighting has slowly blotted the stars from the visible skies, so too have cars and planes and factories and flickering digital screens combined to rob us of a silence that was previously regarded as integral to the health of the human imagination."
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Just for fun:
The What Should I Do With My Life card game. In case you need a starting point for that whole change-in-behavior part I talked about at the top...
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