We Americans should be the most compassionate and caring people on the face of the earth. We live, after all, in the world's richest nation. Our national per capita income - that's our total income divided by our population - is now running over $35,000 a year, $5,000 more than the average income in Norway, the developed world's second-richest nation.

No other nation, clearly, has our fiscal wherewithal to do good. And in few other nations do people get reminded to do good as often as they do in the United States. Nearly half of Americans, 45 percent, say they attend religious services at least once a week. The average for the developed world as a whole: just 21 percent.

Compassion, given our wealth and religious proclivities, ought be everywhere in America. We should be, with all we have going for us, a shining light unto the world. But we're not.

"The point of progressive politics is to help cultivate the 'arts of life,' rather than simply the human-capital demands of the economy - to create opportunities not only for poor people to become richer, but for us all to lead richer lives." - Richard Reeves

"Giving material goods can help people. If food is needed and we can give it, we do that. If shelter is needed, or books or medicine is needed, and we can give them, we do that. As best we can, we can care for whoever needs our care. Nevertheless, the real transformation takes place when we let go of our attachments and give away what we think we can't." - Pema Chodron

"The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves - or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn." - Sophie Scholl

Juliet Schor is a professor of sociology at Boston College. Before that she taught at Harvard University for 17 years. Her work over the past 10 years has focused on issues pertaining to trends in work and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic justice.

Schor is the author of the national best-seller The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure and The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer.

Gerry McCarthy: In Born To Buy you write that: "Children's social worlds are increasingly constructed around consuming, as brands and products have come to determine who is 'in' or 'out,' who is hot or not, who deserves to have friends, or social status. In such a world, how many parents opt to downshift or simplify? It's a radical step many children don't welcome." What's happening here? Do parents fear that if they don't provide their kids with the "cool" brands or products they'll have social problems?

Juliet Schor: The broader question is: Why are parents buying so much for their kids and up- scaling consumer culture so much. The smaller question is about the down-shifters. That's what the passage is a response to.

- an article from Bruderhof Communities web site

"If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is Attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy." - Anthony de Mello, SJ

Sr. Jose will be leading a special Ministry of Money retreat entitled: "The Global Impact of Our Living Simply" at Wellspring Conference Center, in Germantown, Maryland, on May 13-15, 2005. Contact the MoM office at (301) 428-9560 for more information!

One morning [on a low-budget trip to the Holy Land with nine other sisters], a very, very old man approached me. He looked more like a shriveled up dwarf than a man. His back had a hump; his head and feet were bare. He wore only a dirty white rag wrapped around his body. When he smiled, I saw he had two teeth. He held out a bowl. At first I thought he wanted money. Then I realized he was offering food. I looked in the bowl and saw an awful looking mixture of chicken bones, an animal skin, grain, and a milky-looking liquid. Smiling, he pulled a dirty little spoon from the bowl, and, with anticipation, invited me to help myself.

Third Way Cafe - a web site of Mennonite Media

Too Much: A Commentary on Capping Excessive Income and Wealth - America's only e-newsletter dedicated to the proposition that the United States would be a considerably more democratic, prosperous, and caring nation if we narrowed the vast gap between the very wealthy and everyone else.

Your Daily Dig - a daily quote from the Bruderhof Communities web site

Money & Faith Retreats:
 

September 16-18, 2005
Special Money & Faith Retreat on "Globalization" with Barry Shelley, economist and author, and Michelle Tooley, Lilly Professor of Religion and author
Wellspring Conference Center, Germantown, MD
Cost: $TBD

Ethiopia Pilgrimage
November 2-16, 2005
Cost: $TBD
Registration Deadline: September 1, 2005

For information about any of these events, please contact Ministry of Money at (301) 428-9560 or by email at office@ministryofmoney.org

If you are interested in applying for one of these positions, please contact Kevin Cashman at (301) 428-9560 or by email at kevin@ministryofmoney.org.