{"id":421,"date":"2009-02-09T18:28:05","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T18:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-stimulus-package-a-view-fr.html"},"modified":"2009-02-09T18:28:05","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T18:28:05","slug":"the-stimulus-package-a-view-fr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/the-stimulus-package-a-view-fr.html","title":{"rendered":"The Stimulus Package: A View from The Pew (by Rev. Donna Schaper)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p>The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is Senior Minister of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.judson.org\/\">Judson Memorial Church<\/a> in New York City and author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Grassroots-Gardening-Rituals-Sustaining-Activism\/dp\/1568583451\">GRASS ROOTS GARDENING: RITUALS TO SUSTAIN ACTIVISM.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>My people are shovel ready: they are ready to shovel the manure out of the<br \/>\nbarn and clean political and economic house.<\/p>\n<p>When I gave the pastoral prayer on Sunday, I couldn&#8217;t help myself. I had to<br \/>\npray to God that God stimulate congress.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Stimulate means to activate, deepen, embolden, inspire.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>What stimulates my people right now?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hope, most of which they are having to<br \/>\ncome up with on their own.<\/p>\n<p>The President is now stumping for the Less than Perfect But Absolutely<br \/>\nNecessary Stimulus bill, which sounds like a vitamin that upsets your stomach<br \/>\nmore than anything else. In the pews, we know what burps.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We know the difference between<br \/>\nstimulation and boredom, stimulation and soul, stimulation and substance. We<br \/>\nknow when our leaders don&#8217;t know &#8211; and we wish they would at least fake it.<\/p>\n<p>In the pews, there is a triumphant pessimism, a load of boomers become<br \/>\ndoomers, slum dogs pre millionaires.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>We knew the government was letting the liars and thieves run the government.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We know about the people who do enjoy<br \/>\ntax cuts.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We have seen their<br \/>\nhouses, their advertisements for themselves, the amount they spend on face<br \/>\ncream, which would feed our family for a week. We still have a sliver of hope<br \/>\nthat someone might lead the liars and thieves and SUV crowd out of town &#8211; and<br \/>\ndo so with a smile, our smile, on their face.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>So far, not so good.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Thus the confirmation of that bulletproof jacket known as cynicism.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>At least we are not surprised.<\/p>\n<p>It could be different.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We could<br \/>\nhave leaders who understood the relationship between catastrophe and<br \/>\ntransformation.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>This is what<br \/>\nordinary people say to each other when terrible things happen: God never closes<br \/>\na door without opening another one.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Isn&#8217;t it great news that the old economy is dead?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It was mean when it wasn&#8217;t unfair. It<br \/>\nwas a giant Ponzi scheme.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It<br \/>\nbenefited the few and ignored the many.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Right now our leaders are missing a great opportunity to take the<br \/>\ncynicism out of the electorate.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Taking the political depression out of the electorate might even avoid a<br \/>\nmaterial depression.<\/p>\n<p>A good leader right now would articulate hope.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Forget about the material stuff, forget our rail system that<br \/>\nshames Bulgaria, our highway system and automotive industry that destroy the<br \/>\nair our grandchildren might have breathed.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Forget about the shovel ready infrastructure projects,<br \/>\nleaders, and talk to us about our souls.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>They have been trickled down ON for too long.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Stimulate them and you will be amazed at the growth that<br \/>\nresults.<\/p>\n<p>My people want nothing less than perfect from our new President.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Think how Sullenburger landed the<br \/>\nplane. They want him to tell them how things are going to be better, in a<br \/>\ndifferent way than they have always been.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Nobody needs another hair dryer or toaster.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We need protection against depression, and I don&#8217;t mean the<br \/>\neconomic kind.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We don&#8217;t need to<br \/>\nbuy tasteless tomatoes any time of day or any time of year: we&#8217;d like our food<br \/>\nto taste better and be less fattening and artificial.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We need the government to figure out how to move us around<br \/>\nwithout destroying the planet&#8217;s air.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>We can&#8217;t figure that out by ourselves.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p>We are shovel ready &#8211; shovel ready to shovel out the s&#8230;&#8230;. that has comprised<br \/>\nour government for way too long.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>You can take the trickle too.<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>What is that s&#8230;&#8230;..?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is<br \/>\nthe government&#8217;s lying in bed with the rich who have now stolen both the<br \/>\nspiritual and the material infrastructure for the American Dream.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>A good leader right now would say<br \/>\nenough of that.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>A good leader<br \/>\nwould guarantee that the rich are no longer going to enjoy BONUSES !!!! while<br \/>\nthe poor and middle class can&#8217;t get the bank on the phone to remortgage their<br \/>\n3BR, 2Baths.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>A good leader would<br \/>\nwork from the bottom up, not the top down.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p>The ground and the pews need attention.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>If they don&#8217;t get it, watch out for social revolution.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Watch out for the current depression in<br \/>\nthe pews to turn into anger in the streets. That will also cost pragmatic<br \/>\nleaders something: they will think they will have to protect the rich from the<br \/>\npoor.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Instead they could avoid<br \/>\nthat expense and funnel stimulus money to the poor and middle class right now.<br \/>\nThink of it as a bargain.<\/p>\n<p>Want to avoid a depression?<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>Work on the depression that already exists.<\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City and author of GRASS ROOTS GARDENING: RITUALS TO SUSTAIN ACTIVISM. My people are shovel ready: they are ready to shovel the manure out of the barn and clean political and economic house. When I gave the pastoral prayer on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,10,19,307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-economy","category-poverty","category-prayer-and-ritual"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Stimulus Package: A View from The Pew (by Rev. 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