part two of economic charla, it blows that it's taken me this long and i've forgotten some of what has been said. day two was coming from the opposite direction, about the values the bible upholds as being directly opposed to the economic system that exists today in our increasingly globalized world (mainly in reference to the US and Europe). so the first point is that when you criticize any system people expect a solution, a counter proposal if you will. the problem is that i don't have a magic system up my sleeve and i really have no idea what the solution looks like on a big scale, because change has always started from the base, revolutions begin in small communities that have the power to affect world conciousness, no matter how small in number and i have to believe that it is possible. so we started with the creation stories, in one of the stories human beings are the end and in the other just the beginning. woman, created after adam, is the pinnacle and jemstone of creation and it is clear she was created as companion, to be the equal in every way of Adam-this is the significance of the rib (she wasn't created at his feet no matter how history tries to distort woman's place). the idea of imago Dei or that we were created in God's image has caused unimaginable damage to the rest of creation when assumed because of this we are superior with the right to exploit rather than be stewards and protect the richness of creation. however, from this we also reach a valuable conclusion that all human beings have inherent value and dignity versus the functional dignity that human beings are reduced to in economic terms-judged and valued only for what they can produce and thus the elderly and children become economic baggage. also, the creation stories come from a prospective of abundance not scarcity as in economic theory. abundance is the starting point. thus the sabbath isn't about production, or about efficiency but about rest and rhythm of life that has nothing to do with economic interactions. in the story God says it's not good for adam to be alone and after trying to find a suitable companion among the animal kingdom he creates woman-hence man is by nature social and enters into society versus the individualism that our economic system encourages and produces. the idea of choice is also very interesting because in the story of adam and eve they chooce self awareness, they have free will to make choices versus the shallow ecomic decions we make-where is the freedom in choosing between twenty brands of toothbrushes? i wish i remembered more of this point. the story of cain and abel is relevant as well because after the murder God asks where is your brother? and cain answers 'am i my brother's keeper?' the implied answer is yes, you are. and so in a social world we are indeed required to have social responsiblities to our brothers and sisters-we can't ignore their cries as we continue to hoarde the wealth that capitalism generates while the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. the last OT story that we discussed was Moses and the Exodus. the points were that oppression and inequality do not just happen; they are human choices, human decions-Pharoh dictated that the people were enslaved. Furthermore, God liberates. when moses askes who this god is who's calling him to a crazy mission because there were so many gods he answers with the name I AM. i've always wondered about that one, sure things get lost in translation but it's still weird. but the name means absolutely nothing until God acts, and what is his first action? the first thing he does is liberate and free the oppressed: this isn't just a reform, he completely destorys the system.
the more i'm down here and the more our group discusses i notice when more and more when i'm walking around numb-numb to the poverty on the streets and the begging, dirty kids asking for a peso, the three kids who came into the clinic the other day with their grandma three of a family of eight kids with a drug addict dad and a mom that works, numb to the stories of the maquila women who work up to 24 hour shifts and get fired with no compensation or get cut for working too much overtime trying to put food on the table and they are literally killing themselves working so hard. so it's that or the incredible weight of sadness and disbelief at what we as human beings have done to other people. i couldn't help but cry on the bus when we went to la chureca talk about being uncomfortable and at the same time acutely aware of each and every feeling of overwhelming sadness, anger, disgust, repentance damnit it was so fucking hard. i don't have the vocabulary to put it into words, how do you put an experience like that on white paper or a computer screen i guess, it's too clean to sanitary too removed from the reality. how do you rationalize kids working and living in garbage and not just that but breathing nauseating fumes every second of every day and squinting through the smoke, tasting the smell in their throats-you wonder what hell is like and i think i could take you there. vultures for effect. so where is this liberating god? good question where the hell are we? God had nothing to do with people living in garbage but that doesn't mean he's abandoned them, you look someone in the eyes and they're just another person living in this hell on earth-if could have been me, why wasn't it? so what good are words when the world is so fucked up. the only time i feel fire is when we talk about breaking the system, dreaming that another world is possible and not only that but that we have to be the ones to change it. so how do i even think about going home in a month and going back to my jesuit university that costs more a year than the combined income of pretty much everyone packed like sardines on a dozen buses? i repeat things are messed up. i hope someone says we're radical, that we're living out something of the truth we've experience here, if not we've failed. what good is theology if it doesn't touch your life, what good is anything if you don't live it?