Probably you know
very well the story about the woman who looked out of her kitchen window on
Monday morning to notice her neighbor hanging out her laundry to dry… Well, she
noticed that the whites looked gray and the coloreds looked dull. “Such a shame
that woman doesn’t know how to wash her clothes clean,” she said to husband. The
same thing happened the next Monday. But the third Monday – oh my, what a
change! The whites sparkled in the sunlight and the colored clothes were
radiant. Finally, the woman thought to herself, that neighbor lady has
discovered how laundry should be done. When she told her husband how much
better the neighbor’s laundry looked, he said, “Well, it should. Last Tuesday I
washed your kitchen window.”
So often the way
we see things is conditioned by our own “dirty windows.” What seems to be a
problem “out there” is actually a problem “in here” – in us – in the way we
perceive the situation.
On this
Thanksgiving Day 2011 there appears to be so much “dirty laundry” out there in
our economy, in our world. Everyone is calling for “a fix.” But what can
effectively “fix” our economy?
Perhaps what is
really called for is a window washing of our own consciousness –a different way
of seeing— clearing our own lifestyles. Only if we take a good clean look at
the ways in which we honestly and credibly make money, spend money, save money
and share money can we truly Give Thanks in this difficult year. I firmly believe
that we CAN say “thanks a lot” if we hear this financial crisis as a wake-up
call from our God[1].
In other words: how
can we on this Thanksgiving Day wash the dirt from the windows our own economic
perceptions? Well, we MUST reevaluate our economic visions and practices from a
spiritual perspective, I mean, we need
to see our economy with the clear vision of God’s eyes. And that vision
allows us to see and to say: what is best for me, for us, is what is best for
all.
Sadly private
gain has prevailed over the common good. We’ve lost sight of what the common
good is, very often –even in religious activities- we are driven by a
self-interest.
The priorities
in our economy need to be revised –or
perhaps better said, reversed. If we
wash the windows of our soul, our priorities would read like this: People,
Planet and then Profit. As Catholics we have to be convinced that money must be
at the service of people and the planet – not the other way around…
Our gospel today
gives us a great teaching: Only one leper came back to thank Jesus for the
healing. For him more than his body had been healed. He realized that his very
way of seeing and being in the world had been transformed by God’s grace. The other nine healed lepers seem to
have returned to business-as-usual. They didn’t realize what had really
happened to them. Their vision had not been transformed. They could not
acknowledge the One who had worked that wondrous deed. Only the one Giving
Thanks had the windows of his vision purified to see the source of his New Life
and The Path Ahead. It is Thanksgiving that makes all the difference.
We cannot spend our
way out of this crisis. We must transform the ways in which money is made,
saved, shared and spent.
Let’s try to see
this difficult time as a Gift of God to help to open our eyes toward a more
just and impartial and just abundance for all. Then, with Sirach on this 2011
Thanksgiving we can honestly repeat the beautiful words that we just heard at the
first reading: Bless the God of all who
has done wondrous things on earth Who fosters people’s growth from their
mother’s womb, and fashions them according to his will[2]
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