THE CULTURAL CREED OF THE UNHOMED

If I’m honest, I’m not sure where I fit in anymore.

When I look around to see who is my political neighbor, I realize I’m in a land triangulated between the liberal Left, conservative Right, and those chaotic Libertarians. I didn’t feel like the 2016 presidential candidates from any of those three parties represented my moral universe adequately enough to get my vote. I cringe at CNN and Fox in equal measure. I increasingly feel that it is important for me not to be beholden to a “side” culturally or politically.

I’m just not the kind of guy who can say, “This party or person, do or die.” 

So I increasingly find myself wandering uneasily in the topography of a world that seems intent on filling in all the Valleys full of Gray Uncertainty and leveling all the Hills of Important Nuance.  

Don’t get me wrong - I like the Plains of Certainty and the Fields of Truth. I just want to acknowledge that those mountains and valleys of Uncertainty and Nuance exist. And I don’t want to climb them with cable news talking heads, youtube faux philosophers, conspiratorial bloggers, tweeting politicians or blindly partisan Christian leaders. 

I want fellow explorers who don’t mind the hard work, who know when and how to pick a philosophical fight full of grace and truth, and who will join me at The Brew afterwards at a table full of the laughter and tears of friends because, in the end, we are determined to love each other well in a world that is broken enough already.  

If we can do that with mutual thoughtfulness and respectfulness, that table might just feel a bit like home no matter what land I inhabit.

Here we go, in no particular order: The Cultural Creed Of The Unhomed.

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Economic Trends Even People Like Me Can Understand

All the recent discussion of the U.S. economy has piqued my interest in an area that is notoriously hard to understand. Who gets credit, and why? How easy is it to establish cause and effect? As I have been researching, I am struck by how one can paint remarkably contrasting views of the economy by isolating particular areas, or particular time frames. To get an idea of how we are doing overall, we need to see the Big Picture set in the context of our history. Before I get to some specifics on both those things, a few thoughts that have lingered with me as I have been reading. 

•  The world's economy and the U.S. economy are intertwined. Major events in one impact the other. Cause and effect goes both ways. 
• “Acts of God” (hurricanes, volcanoes, drought, fire, etc) can have a huge impact in an economy. People are displaced, out of work, and in need of a lot of assistance.  Looks what's happening in California right now. The economy is going to be rocked (at least $300 million at last count). Hurricane Harvey cost $73.5 billion. Hawaii is out $12 million, not factoring lost tourist dollars. These all happen on some administration's watch, and there will be some kind of downturn, but it won't be their fault. 
• Acts of mankind can be incredibly disruptive as well (assassinations, terrorist attacks, wars, banking regulations that cause a housing market crash, etc.) 
• Presidential administrations inherit the previous administration's legacy, for better or worse. How quickly the new administration’s policies impact the economy is not entirely clear, especially since it can be influenced by the previous three things on my list. 

Now, for what it’s worth, here are some things worth considering when we talk economics. I offer these if for no other reason than to note that a five minutes news story or youtube monologue will almost certainly fail to do justice to the Big Picture set in the context of history.

So will this post. Do your own research too. Feel free to add to the breadth and depth of what I offer here (or correct me if I am wrong) for the sake of all of us learning.