Creating Community in the Time of Crisis

Eight out of ten Americans feel extraordinary stress during this time of financial crisis and uncertainty. Extended periods of stress have physical consequences: depression, illness, and isolation. Losing a job, a home, status--especially in American culture--carry shame and stigma. "What did I do wrong?" "Why was I dispensable?"

Shame and stigma too often result in withdrawal and isolation at exactly the moment when we need each other, we need community.

So how do we create community in this time of crisis?

Krista Tippett is the host of American Public Media's Saturday morning show, Speaking of Faith. She began this non-denominational show after 911 and it went weekly. Now she is doing a series on the moral and ethical consequences of the economic crisis. The series is called Repossessing Virtue.

This morning she continued her interviews with prior guests--spiritual leaders, poets, neurologists, philosophers--to explore how we are reacting to this insecurity and how we might take this challenge to convert our lives. Take a moment to explore the website dedicated to this venture. I only heard half of the program: Praghu Guptara, Sharon Salzberg, Martin Mary, and Esther Sternberg. By building community, by helping others, by changing our expectations of wealth and success we can transform this time from one of individual isolation into community building. These very wise guests have a lot to offer us.

Crisis, change and the feeling of uncontrollability are the products of the global financial crisis--eight months ago over 100,000 million people were thrown into poverty. Many more have joined them by now. With unemployment rising and the spectre of GM going under, we must consciously build connections to others, we must consciously take control over the details of our lives.

We have no control over the world financial markets. According to Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University, and the author of The Ascent of Money, in 2006 "the measured economic output of the entire world was around $47 trillion. The total market capitalization of the world's stock markets was $51 trillion, 10% larger. The total value of dometic and international bonds was $68 trillion, 50% larger. The amount of derivatives was $473 trillion, more than ten times larger." That's an awful lot of credit for not that much output. Where did all of the money go?

Derivatives--contracts derived from securities, such as interest rate swaps or credit default swaps, have grown so fast, that the value of all derivatives by the end of 2007, was just under $600 trillion. Here is an interview with Ferguson that explains some of these concepts. Thanks, Naneen!

We became greedy gamblers, living on credit collateralized with ahistoric beliefs that business isn't cyclical and nothing much else. Many of these transactions, too, were "off books" so we didn't see how many corporations were using them as another way to make money. We might not have control over what Citigroup or Bank of America do, but we have control over how we interact with people daily, how we approach our homes, families, and children. Whether we act intentionally in everything we do.

How do we interact with those who are suffering, especially when we are, too. American culture has always avoided suffering. Now we have to accept the consequences of our actions and form communities, not to ride out the storm, but to change our way of living to sustainable, respectful, and geared more towards the collective and less to the individual.