bankruptcy of spirit

What do we do if it looks like the world is falling apart? We gather our resources and hold them tight or if it looks really bad, we pass them out to family and friends as life preservers. It is what the big banks did with the TARP money. Lend it out as requested? No, they would rather distribute it to friends or hold it firmly in their grubby hands.

We have real problems. The driving principles of past administrations' economic policies have been Ronald Reagan's. You put money in the hands of the wealthy, and they will know what to do with it. Trickle it down, dispensing it and investing it through their ultimate wisdom to the lower classes. The rich would create jobs, putting people to work. They would create the ideas moving our economy forward through their hunger for even more wealth. After all, in the Republican scheme of things, if you have more money and are more neatly dressed you must be more intelligent and of greater moral standing than the common man on the street!

But if you've never done anything before in your life, if you have no well developed skills, no sense of your own potential in the development of beauty, no sense of community or connection, how can you be expected to invest in the lives of real people? It's a risky business. It takes wisdom and effort. And who in their right wing mind would take such a leap of community and faith?

But what if we were to have work shops in schools to supplement classroom learning? Our children would be challenged not only with ideas but with the use of those ideas to better the lives of their families and communities. In consequence they would grow into adults with greater understanding, compassion and imagination as well as the impulse to create, not only in their own lives but to build the lives of others.