Religious Educator's Memo by Sierra-Marie Gerfao

Tue Feb 5 14:20:15 EST 2008

R E L I G I O U S   E D U C A T O R’ S   M E M O
What a relief this last week when my wife Gina and I received not one, but
two offers on our house in Olympia. Since putting our house on the market,
we were forced to drop the price a handful of times until it finally matched
our "worse case scenario." To be honest, I was getting pretty scared.
Talking openly about money is uncomfortable, but telling our stories is
important for reasons I will explain momentarily.

Just over a week ago, on January 26, I wrote in my personal blog, about the
increasing talk of recession: "In many ways, my family is among the
especially financially vulnerable right now. This possible recession has
been precipitated by a housing crisis rip tide that we were swept into. We
are carrying a rent and a mortgage at the moment as we live over 3000 miles
from the home we own, a home which we have been desperately trying to sell
for over a half year now. We've had to talk about foreclosure, though
fortunately we do believe that we can avoid it." On February 1, our home
went under contract, inspections pending. If all goes smoothly, we'll close
at the end of this month. What a difference a week can make!

Our backup plan had been to find a renter, and actually, I would have loved
it if we were able to afford to keep our house in Olympia as an eventual
“income property.” Gina's brother is a real estate broker in Olympia and
could have done our property management for an affordable fee. But Gina and
I would like to own a house in Worcester (really the only way owning in
Olympia would have had much value in any case), and with tightened lending
requirements, in all likelihood we would have been disqualified from
purchasing out here as long as we owed money on our house in Olympia. When
it comes down to it, we're fortunate to be homeowners in the first place. My
generation, it is said, will be the first in a very long time to not move up
economically from where our parents are. In other words, we do not enjoy the
class mobility that generations before us have. In fact, a year or two ago,
a New York Times article identified class mobility in the United States at
this time to be something of a myth.

My parents moved from working class to middle class during my childhood. I
watched it unfold. When I was sixteen, my parents purchased their home. It
is a modest home, but home ownership is a big deal. It is unlikely in my
vocation that I will come to earn more money than my father-- now an
extremely skilled software engineer-- even during my peak earning years.
This is a function of vocational calling, but there is evidence that even if
I had chosen to go into my father's industry, I wouldn't grow to surpass his
earning potential because I am simply part of a new economic era. The reason
Gina and I owned a home in the first place is because Gina's brother was
able to find us a superb deal at a good time for buyers, my father agreed to
assume the risk involved in co-signing on our loan and fortunately had the
credit to do so. We qualified for a "zero down" program during a generous
period of home loan giving, and three of Gina's relatives helped us with the
minimal closing costs involved in our deal. Once a homeowner, it is much
easier to buy again.

All this is the result of privilege. It is hard for me to say this because I
don't generally identify as a particularly financially privileged person.
The working class memories of my early childhood have set my attitudes and
assumptions about my own means. I am willing to bet that although Unitarian
Universalists are predominately, though not exclusively, middle and upper
middle class, most of us have a much more complicated history with money and
with class than it might appear on the surface. This, among other things,
hinders our faith community in owning our privilege, properly honoring
economic diversity within our congregations, taking purposeful and useful
steps toward greater inclusion of folks in all economic classes, and in
fact, being effective in our social justice work.

This week our multigenerational Lenten Series theme is "service and
compassion," which we'll examine primarily through the lens of Christianity.
Service is an act of faith. On one hand, it is a familiar and natural realm
for us as Unitarian Universalists. On the other hand, it is a tricky realm
for us. While as a collective people of faith we tend to have a special
appreciation for liberation theology and a social justice gospel, when it
comes to class issues, we tend to do much better at “doing good” than in
empowering, linking ourselves in solidarity, or building relationships. This
is interesting, as liberation theology calls on us to be a part of something
perhaps more meaningful than “traditional service work,” which involves
giving and acting for and on behalf of others. To the extent that we talk
about service as it relates to class, I wonder if the following might help:
(1) telling our stories, both personal and collective, (2) being honest (at
least to ourselves) about our complex relationships with money, (3)
eliminating language that creates a division of “us” and “them,” and (4)
assuming that it is at least possible that anyone we meet at church could be
struggling financially (especially as “middle class” is a term in
transition).

Warmly in Faith,

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.firstunitarian.com/pipermail/firstumemo_firstunitarian.com/attachments/20080205/42156708/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2551 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.firstunitarian.com/pipermail/firstumemo_firstunitarian.com/attachments/20080205/42156708/attachment.jpe 