Danae is a perky, precocious, perennially opinionated 8-year-old.
One of her sidekicks is Lucy, who happens to be a stuffed horse, but who is very much alive to Danae, as Hobbs is to Calvin.¬ Actually, Danae is a product of the creative mind of Wiley Miller, whose wonderful comic series, "Non Sequitur," provides an ongoing look at the absurdities of modern life and culture. In a recent daily version of the comic, a conversation ensues between Danae and Lucy.
Danae: You're welcome, Lucy.
Lucy:¬ ¬ ¬ Uh ... for what?
Danae: It's my new attitude of gratitude.
Lucy:¬ That's not how it works.
Danae:¬ What do you mean?
Lucy:¬ ¬ ¬ Um ... Pretty much the opposite of what you think.
Danae:¬ Oh ... so that'd mean I'm supposed to be grateful.¬ (The light dawns)
Danae:¬ Well, that doesn't fit my master plan at all.
Lucy:¬ And for that we are all grateful.
In her "what's in it for me ... are you playing the tune for my parade?," approach to life, Danae is an icon for the me-centered times in which we live.
A recent editorial cartoon by The Boston Globe's Wasserman features two side-by-side buildings. 0ne is quite tall and elegant with a covered walkway leading to its entrance in front of which is a limo.¬ Next to it is a low nondescript building from which flows a long line of people.¬ The tall building is labeled "Investment Bank,"¬ the low one is labeled "Food Bank."¬ A child at the end of the line pointing to the two buildings asks, "Are they related?"
Millions of Americans and millions more around the world are out of work and unable to find new work.¬ Many of our fellow citizens face the loss of homes and live in fear of major illness because they have no health insurance.¬ The long-term costs of this situation in fiscal, physical and emotional terms is incalculable.¬ Meanwhile we learn that the investment bankers who drove the present crisis continue to reap huge benefits and bonuses.¬
A recent analytical writing about the industry said that the quest within it for greater remuneration, bonuses and benefits is an addiction.¬ Unfortunately, it is an addiction whose feeding we have paid for through the current stimulus program when the responsibility for doing so lay with the corporate bond holders of the industry.¬ The risk of bond holding is that you do well if a venture succeeds, but take the loss if the venture fails and has to be bailed out.
When the primary goal is making money, we lose both our way and our values.¬ Sensibility suggests that a business wants to make a profit, but if so doing is the only goal, the value of common life suffers.¬
If the primary aim is a good product that serves well its purchasers and those employed to produce it, the company will make money in a reasonable manner and all will benefit.¬ If, however, the primary aim is to make money, in many instances the product will suffer in quality and only one side of the equation will benefit.¬
A drive to make money for its own sake brought the world economy to the brink of disaster.¬ The financial consequences are only beginning to be comprehended, however much it may seem that recovery is on the way.¬ The hard-core analysts, the ones we avoid lest the bubble of denial is burst, suggest the long-term picture is not good because the recovery is not built on solid ground.¬ Whether they're correct will only be apparent over time.
This week, two annual events occur, our national day of Thanksgiving and another that has come to be called Black Friday.¬ The latter is so named because the shark-like feeding frenzy of consumer buying on the day after Thanksgiving is supposed to fling retailers into profitability for the year.¬
In the Christian tradition, there is another Friday — the one called "Good." The title seems ironic since it marks the execution of a young and truly good man fired by a deep vision of the loving purposes of God.
Near the close of the 20th century, Professor John Macquarrie, sometime Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in Oxford University, wrote a small volume with a long title, "Mediators Between Human and Divine from Moses to Muhammad."¬ In it he writes of nine figures, Jesus being one, who each inspired one of the great world religions.¬
The word religion at its root means that to which a person gives obligation and reverence. So it is possible to make greed and self interest the foundation of one's religious conviction.¬ It is also possible to decide to make a commitment to the loving and transforming purposes of God revealed in wonderfully particular and yet basically similar ways by the holy people of whom Professor Macquarrie writes.¬ There is a great deal at stake in which way we decide.
The Rev. Richard Simeone is the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Gloucester. Midweek Musings is a column rotated among Cape Ann clergy.
