Economic Collapse: Calling forth images of true self

by Courage & Renewal Facilitator Paul Michelac

I opened my newspaper recently to the following description of our national economic landscape.  “Unemployment rate hits 7.2%, the highest level in 16 years.”  “A net loss of 2.6 million jobs from the economy in 2008, the most since 1945.” “11.1 million workers unemployed in December.”  (Denver Post, Jan 10, 2009).  A short time later I opened my email to read that my work place was freezing all open positions and offering severance packages to encourage early retirements, all in the service of reducing payroll costs.  A small but grinding pebble of economic uncertainty, a chip from a larger mountain, has now become a part of my life.  And perhaps you or someone you know has opened his/her email to find that uncertainty has turned to reality and their department  has been eliminated in an effort to improve the company’s balance sheet.

I listen daily to the business news and worry about the economic and personal loss of so many American workers.  I wonder what it must be like to experience such a rapid shift of identity from employed to unemployed, often with the stroke of a computer key and frequently with little or no warning.  There is no doubt in my heart and mind that I live in troubled times with the weighty realities of economic collapse and personal catastrophe.  How might I make meaning of the pebbles, boulders, and mountains of fear and loss that characterize our national economic landscape?  As I live the questions of professional meaning and finding relevant work I find myself thinking about winter and its invitation to search out elements of true self that remain alive, but inactive, in a frozen land.  The Courage work invites me to reconsider the little stone in my shoe as a gentle reminder that my dormant gifts of selfhood, once awakened, can draw me toward meaningful sources of employment.

But of course in the midst of waiting, the hardships of under-employment and unemployment continue in very real ways.  I’m reminded, especially in the winter of my personal and professional life of the words of Mary Oliver, from her poem “Wild Geese.”

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.”

I’m drawn to the transition between the two sentences, a mere tiny space between a period and capital letter.  Yet at the same time a universe of potential that for me frames a productive space between the real and tangible moments of suffering I experience and the equally real sense that larger more inclusive energies are ever moving forward.  So, if the “world goes on” what does that mean for me, one tiny part of a collapsing economic world?  How might I make sense of the changing circumstances of my immediate lived existence, the work that I do, in a way that preserves my sense of selfhood?

To begin answering those questions and by extension to begin articulating the kind of work that best suits my gifts and talents I turn to “A Valley Like This” by William Stafford.  

I find his words a helpful model for making sense of my “despair” around the nature of my work within a world that is remaking itself and sometimes disappearing from sight.  As you read “A Valley Like This” I invite you to think about ways that the poem leads you to clearer descriptions of your talents and gifts, attributes of selfhood that you might consider guideposts toward meaningful work, whether you are currently employed or looking for work.  And when you find that the pebbles and boulders in your shoes begin turning to diamonds, I invite you to write about that experience and share your learnings and wonderings into this virtual circle of fellow Courage-travelers.  Or if “despair” is a better language for you, I invite you to write about that emotion as well.

A Valley Like This

Sometimes you look at an empty valley like this,
and suddenly the air is filled with snow.
That is the way the whole world happened -
there was nothing, and then...

But maybe sometimes you will look out and even
the mountains are gone, the world becomes nothing
again. What can a person do to help
bring back the world?

We have to watch and then look at each other.
Together we hold it close and carefully
save it, like a bubble that can disappear
if we don't watch out.

Please think about this as you go on. Breathe on the world.
Hold out your hands to it. When mornings and evenings
roll along watch how they open and close, how they
invite you to the long party your life is.

William Stafford

What word, image, or phrase captured your attention and invites your soul to appear, even in a time of loss, and offer its wisdom of selfhood and meaningful work?  If nothing stood out for you, I invite you to read the poem again and consider the following prompt to journal around and share on our blog.

As you hold out your hands to the changing work-scape of flying snow and disappearing mountains, what is the “long party” of your heart’s calling that your fingers are pointing toward?   

Please share your comments on our blog.