The Best of Times

We took a day trip to one of our favorite small towns yesterday. My husband swam at the local YMCA, we both got massages, and I spent a little time in their local independant bookstore.

It's a wonderful little bookshop, with a little bit of everything, and nicely arranged. I had a good conversation with the owner, chatted about how much I would like to open up a little bookstore myself, except that I know how difficult it would be, all the different business skills I would need.

We talked a little about the virtues of small businesses, and how (I think) some aspects of the
American business community have gone wrong, by focusing solely on the purpose of creating value for shareholders. I said that a good business has three purposes: to create a good product or service for customers, to create a profit for shareholders (if that is applicable), and to create a good environment for employees. There has sometimes a focus on short-term profit at the expense of long-term value.

"I just wanted my community to have a book store," she confessed.

A bookstore is a business, there's no doubt about it. But a local business is also a part of a community, a part of the "common good" of a community, just like a school or a library or the fire department.

Some people treat the term "common good" as if it were a sign of creeping socialism. However, "common good" is just a word that recognizes that we live in a community.

In the bookstore, I saw and almost bought Neil Gaiman's book Instructions. It was on the table with books for graduates, a lovely and kind of strange picture book with instructions that sound like they have come out of a fairy tale.

"If the Bible is an instruction manual," I said to the bookstore owner, "It is probably more like this book than it is like, for example, your car owners manual." (I'm not really convinced that the Bible is an instruction manual at all, but just for the sake of argument....)

Except for one thing. Neil Gaiman's book is an instruction manual for individuals, for heroes who are on an individual quest. We assume that these days. We are all on a quest to find ourselves. But the Bible is an instruction manual written to a community, not to individuals. We are on a quest, but we are not alone. We travel together, we quest together.

We live in a community.

The best of times.

Excuse me while I grieve.....

As of today, Northwest Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta. It is the end of a long and proud tradition here in the upper-midwest. I suppose it's always seemed like a stretch to some that a city like Minneapolis (a pretty parochial place and always a big small town in some peoples' minds) could also be a major airline hub.

In recent years, I have not always been a fan of Northwest, or its management (or should I say, at least at times, mis-management.)

And of course, let's all remember that it wasn't long ago that Northwest requested a bailout from our legislature, promising that they would never move their headquarters.

Still, I will miss them.

I took my first flights, as a young adult, on Northwest Airlines. Northwest was once called "Northwest Orient" because it offered flights to Japan. One member of our congregation worked for Northwest for many years, and often flew to Japan.

Good bye, Northwest.

Shared Sacrifice

At least once or twice in my life I've talked to people in business who knew other business leaders who had to lay off or reduce the wages of their workers. I've wondered aloud whether it might not be a good idea for those business leaders to take pay cuts themselves, or at least freeze their pay wages while their workers were making sacrifices. On both occasions, it was patiently explained to me (as if I were a two year old) that "it wouldn't do any good." They meant, I suppose, that as big as their salaries seemed to be, if they cut their own wages, they could not save enough money to save any of those jobs, or to help their workers.

Of course, that is an explanation based on "the bottom line," profits and losses, and quarterly income statements. I get that explanation. I'm not stupid.

But I don't buy it.

The bottom line is not the only consideration in business, or in life. There is also a concept which has become almost (not quite) unknown in our culture: Shared Sacrifice.

It is a concept for people who are living in community, who know that they are members of one another, who know that their actions have ripple effects beyond their personal, individual lives and their family lives. When there is pain to be borne, we suffer together, and together we can make it through the dark night and back into the light. In a therapeutic sort of way, I suppose this is one of the benefits of grief groups and other support organizations.

As I have been reading the economic news these past few days, I've been wondering just what is in store for us as individuals, as families, as a nation. Some people have used the word "Depression" to describe what could happen. We are a much more prosperous nation now than we were in 1929: more of us have bigger houses, with more amenities, more things we consider necessities. For example, grandparents did not have a VCR, DVD Player, or a CD player. They did not have cell phones or computers. And they did not have anywhere near the books that I have. They went to the library.

But they did have more of one thing than we have: community.

I remember reading Russell Baker's book Growing Up several years ago. He poignantly describes what it was like growing up during the depression. One of the things that struck me about the book was the sense he had that everyone he knew was in the same boat, everyone was suffering together, everyone was struggling together. If there were executives with large salaries somewhere having parties, he didn't know about it.

Some have speculated that in these New Hard Times that we will rediscover what it means to live in community: to rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep, to make sacrifices for the common good. Perhaps we will discover there is power in working together, serving together, maybe even worshiping together.

Or, maybe we won't.

What do you think?