So, a few days ago the scope of the Big Effing Downturn hit me quite suddenly. To this point, all I’d heard about was banks and the auto manufacturers, the Big Three in Detroit. Sure, none of that was good, but I don’t work at a bank and I don’t drive a car, so I haven’t been particularly worried, some of my more alarmist posts on this blog notwithstanding; that’s been more general worry, and not, I would say, personal worry. None of that immediately affected me except insofar as I live in a country dependent on banks and cars.

I have some personal experience with how the Credit Crunch can affect small business, though: at my last job, I did Accounts Payable/Receivable for a small Christian bookstore. I wasn’t very good at it, and you’ll notice I don’t work there anymore. Anyway, this store positively depended on small, short-term lines of credit both to and from businesses it dealt with. We’d receive $3000 worth of books and wouldn’t pay it for eight months, or we’d sell $3000 in choir robes and wouldn’t see that money for a year. We could do that because much of our operating budget came from small, short-plan loans. We depended on the ability of banks to keep small businesses afloat with these loans. Banks stop doing that, and we go out of business.

But I don’t work there anymore. So I haven’t seen any of this crunch firsthand, or had any real awareness for how it might affect me until a few days ago. I watch CNN pretty much non-stop. It’s a habit I developed during the election that I’m trying to ween myself of, especially now that the news lacks the sort of State-By-State Election Analysis with John King of which I had grown so fond.

So I’m watching CNN, as usual, when a story comes on about three companies and their Massive Frakkin’ Layoffs: Sara Lee, Electronic Arts, and Random House. Cake and video games. Fun. Fun isn’t selling. Fun isn’t selling! Beyond simply scaling back on expensive stuff, we’ve stopped buying cake. And that’s notable, because nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee (or is it “Nobody does it like Sara Lee?” I’ve never been clear there). 

Meanwhile, economists like Robert Reich who were afraid to say the word recession are now talking openly about a depression. We’re talking homeless people in fedoras, a rise in sepia-toned photography, and gathering around the old radio to listen to Barack Obama’s weekly Youtube address when we aren’t in soup lines. And while I’m not saying it’s going to happen, I am concerned about this possibility. Because it might.

Above all, I’m concerned about my response to this. If things do get really bad, if things do stay bad, I’m not sure how much I want to simply be struggling for myself when I can be struggling for others. I’d rather confront an abyss of despair with an abyss of love. This sort of crisis has me thinking very hard and very critically and very prayerfully about the nature of my own vocation and the way in which I’m supposed to serve. Where, in this midst, do I fall?

As our wealth dwindles, how much will we mourn its loss and simply work to restore it? How can a country that lacks any poverty of spirit, any sense of evangelical poverty, deal with being poor in a way it hasn’t been poor for decades? Only Christ, the preaching of Christ crucified, can provide a way, and only if the American people discover their worth goes beyond their wealth, their dignity present both in and out of work, and the moral and spiritual greatness of which they are certainly capable, this downturn, if it turns into something much worse, will only degrade our spirit and serve as a cause for us to dehumanize ourselves and prostitute ourselves to the wealthy in desperation for a wage. If we go into poverty with the eyes of the rich which we now have, we only go into poverty to be degraded.

So, I wonder: should I fight poverty — or should I choose poverty? An evangelical poverty that can serve as a witness to the world of the Cross of Christ as the redeeming sign for all humanity? A cross under which we all gather?