Looking around for a leader I am. Who in the world will lead us out of this mess? It’s a mess created by human greed and fear. There’s an economic meltdown threatening again across the world. The first was led by the greed of our U.S. financial executives and when it looked like we had evaded that meltdown a new one appeared caused by the debt problems of the poorer countries in the European Union. The richer member countries of the Euro Zone are now trying to decide if they will bail out the poorer ones in order to save what has been a successful economic partnership.
Lest we think we Americans are not tied to our European brothers and sisters, take a look at what Europe’s problems have done to our stock market.
Meanwhile back home, while the world burns our Neros in Congress play the fiddle of gridlock. At a fairly young age I learned that when your expenses were greater than your income, you do two things: cut your expenses AND increase your income. Both things need to be done in order to eventually balance the budget.
In times of crisis like this fear often takes over, replacing sound reasoning. But times of crises are also times of opportunity. There are signs that manufacturing jobs are coming back. Government intervention into the automobile industry appears to have helped.
Fear coming out of crisis often leads to blaming and scapegoating. An example would be the harsh measures being taken in some states against illegal immigrants, as if they are the cause of our economic woes. A large number of them have lived in this country for many years, raised children who are citizens and contributed to the economy like everyone else. How ironic that seasonal illegals are being blamed for taking jobs from citizens, jobs that most citizens are unwilling to work at or do very poorly, like stoop farm labor.
A great economic leveling is occurring in the world fueled by many factors, not least of which is electronic communication. It will not be possible much longer for rich nations to dominate poor nations and draw from them the resources which fuel the rich nations’ standard of living. The rich or First World Nations, the United States being the most prominent example, will not have the military and corporate resources to impose their will. Already the U.S. Pentagon budget is being cut as part of the austerity measures in Washington. Many, if not most, of the large corporations are multi-national, owned by interests from all over the world. Already a Second World Country, China, is the second most powerful economy in the world. Third world countries, such as Chile, formerly written off as hopelessly impoverished are moving into First World ranks.
What this means, I believe, is that our standard of living will decrease as others, in the past less fortunate, will increase. We have been living in a bubble of affluence, which cannot be maintained indefinitely. Here we have a choice. We can enter this new world gracefully, accepting the belt tightening, getting by on a little less, raising our own produce, settling for a more fuel efficient transportation, turning the thermostat down AND seeing more of our fellow human travelers sharing the good life, while not resenting that our tax monies are spent on roads that everyone drives on and schools that other peoples’ children are educated in OR we can fight the changes fear and scapegoating, continuing to support out-of-control wars and hating those different from ourselves.
This is a time of opportunity. Two popular revolutions are going on, one well developed, the other in its infancy. The Arab Spring uprisings in various countries of North Africa and the Near East is the first. It has led to the overthrow of two repressive governments with a third possibly to follow. With some help from divine providence what follows in those countries will be an improvement over the past with a greater opportunity for human freedom and ingenuity. The other possible revolution is being signaled by the series of anti-Wall Street demonstrations in various cities around the country. It remains to be seen how powerful this movement can become. Hopefully, it will lead to progressive change and not contribute to further deadlock in Washington.
So where will we find the one to lead us out of this mess? I think I have found our leader. He is not a politician or a king. He is not a business man or a general. He is not a professor or a scientist. In fact, he is not alive. He lived in thirteenth century Italy. His name is Francis from Assisi in the Province of Umbria. It is the example of his life that will lead us.
Francis, the son of a successful business man, spent his youth in harmless revelry and fruitless attempts to win military glory. His conscience was pricked by his contacts with beggars and lepers and he decided to embrace a life devoted to Lady Poverty. Against his father’s vehement opposition he gave away everything he had, put on a beggars garb and devoted his life to the poor. Followers flocked to him, a pope approved a religious order inspired by him and lead by him for awhile. The Franciscans became the largest religious order in the Catholic Church. No one, to my knowledge, has been able to follow perfectly in his footsteps, but generations have been inspired by his life.
Francis is our leader. His birthday was this week. We don’t have to give up everything to follow him. But the voluntary giving up of a certain lifestyle in order to share with those who have less is the solution to the mess we are in.
Francis had a great love of nature and preached to the animals when humans would not listen. The animals understood. But that is the topic for another opinion piece on the environment at another time.
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