Thoughts on the economy and God

With Wall Street in turmoil, some turn to religion

By Christine Kearney Mon Sep 22, 2:04 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As financial workers suffer through tumultuous times on Wall Street, some are turning to an old source of solace: religion.
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Religious leaders said attendance was up at lunchtime meetings in New York's financial district last week, with many more people in business attire than usual.

That is hardly surprising, said Reverend Mark Bozzuti-Jones of Trinity Church Wall Street, given that people don't know if their employers will survive from one day to the next.

"The economic financial crisis is a reminder that we cannot put our faith in riches, that we cannot put our faith in money," Bozzuti-Jones said in his sermon at lunchtime on Friday, which he devoted to coping with the financial crisis.

A handful of men in suits and ties and women in business attire were among dozens of people at the Episcopal church, which was hit by debris from the World Trade Center collapse on September 11, 2001.

The church, which normally attracts tourists and a few financial workers, experienced an upturn in visitors this week, Bozzuti-Jones said. In the past few days he had requests for help to pay rent from those who had lost their jobs.

"People are just sitting there, praying or crying and definitely exhausted. There has definitely been an increase in the number of people who have come in," he said in his office after the service.

The church was putting on special workshops and seminars over the next few weeks including "Coping with stress in an uncertain time" and "Navigating career transitions."

Just a few blocks away, St. Peter's Church has seen "a slight uptick in attendance among people in suits," said Father Peter Madigan. St. Peter's, a Catholic church, displays a cross found in the rubble of September 11.

"In the past couple of days there was high anxiety and trepidation," Madigan said. "The situation we are faced with today by economic standards is very much unknown, uncharted territory and faith helps us deal with those situations."

The Wall Street Synagogue is opening its doors nightly starting this week to accommodate Wall Street people. But rather than a rush of people last week, Rabbi Meyer Hager said he has noticed a change in his regular worshippers.

"I can see it on the faces of certain people who come here who are regular people -- some work for AIG and other large banking houses -- I can see the expression of strained concern," he said.

He noted that the synagogue was founded in 1929, the year of the Wall Street crash.

A mosque located in the financial district about a mile from Wall Street did not return a call seeking comment.

Lou Janicek, who works as a financial adviser on Wall Street, said he had not considered attending a religious service, but said Wall Street would benefit if people applied the same morals they learned in church to the workplace.

"What you do at work matters as much as whether you regularly attend church or the synagogue or whatever," said Janicek, who was brought up as a Christian. "If you are an accountant or you find yourself in an unethical situation, you can't just stand by and let it happen -- then you have another Enron.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Eddie Evans)


It's something I never thought to see. I haven't been keeping up with God as much as I could have, should have, etc. And yet, he still provides. Opens the doors.

Weird little thing that has been in my head for a while. Suppose the whole economy crisis goes on further, suppose things go to a worst case scenario and crash half the economy or something crazy. I've been thinking now, that this should give me even more incentive to study my languages and such. In case the economy craps out, I now have an "out", if you will, so I don't go down with the ship.

A month ago, this wasn't even something I would have thought about.

learning

Learning...

not how to improve composition, but how to compose
not which culture to fit into, but how to fit into it

New posts, been a long time in coming everybody. Still synthesizing the experiences from Korea, and also, more importantly, clipping certain things from the diary I made.

Back to Seoul

I’m in the international terminal of San Fran’s airport, and I’m kinda nervous, but mostly just ready to go home.

later....

much later.....

Long Flight from San Fran to Seoul, but it was all right, stayed awake most of the time so I think I will get over the jet lag quite nicely. When I got into the airport, the immigration line was quite long, so prepare to wait a lot. I think I got lucky and only had to deal with half an hour. Anyways, after that, went over to Stay Korea, took the subway (it really is actually quite easy to figure out), and got off at Hongik Station. Walked a long long way, and it turns out that the hostel is rather nicely situated, and rather far back from the street. Got there, met a few other people staying, and it seems like there is a common trend at the moment; everyone is either just leaving or just going to Yonsei. There were two guys from the States, and a guy and girl from Germany and Finland, respectively, who had both finished up things at Yonsei. It seems that traffic may not be as bad as it used to be, so I think I can actually get a cab to Yonsei today. With that in mind, I may wanna get out of here soon so I can actually head out and grab breakfast and all that good stuff.

Now, for actual thoughts real fast before I go off and get some breakfast.

You have nooo idea how happy I am right now. There's nothing like having been away from in this case, my hometown (which may be my ancestral one for all I know, but that's besides the point), and coming back.

It's just like somewhere, deep inside, you feel like, you're finally home.

k-drama time

Woah. K-drama time.

Been finally catching up on 상두야학교가자, and well, I'm starting to get addicted to K-dramas :P (as well as starting to go omg omg eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! at particularly cute moments, but yeeeah)

Oh, and on another note, I'll be working at a Rita's water ice for the next month or so, so I can actually have some money to spend in Korea. If you're around, find the Rita's on Concord Pike just over the state line in PA, I'll be there a lot lol.

edit: watching episode 10, and first kiss ^_^ *insert awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww here, also insert silent squeal-like reaction (everyone else is asleep already)

New York

So I just got back from New York City, spent the day hanging out with my friend and his gf.

Actually managed to get up at around 8ish, an impressive enough achievement on its own :P. Afterwards, headed up on the turnpike, and I can say simply, thank God for K-pop and K-rock ^_^ Cherry Filter+Wonder Girls+Epik High all the way up and down was quite nice and helped me stay up.

Got into Manhattan at Penn Station, after a fashion, figured out where Bob and Laura were so we had a breakfast (1st in their case, 2nd in mine) *shakes head at the both of them*. Headed down to the ferrys at South Street to go to Liberty Island, wanting to at least go up in the pedestal, only to find out that we need to reserve times far in advance, and basically need to show up to Manhattan several days early if we evar wanna do that. Oh well, nice Island. Headed back to the city, and decided to do dinner at K-town, mostly on my request hehe. So we went and I found out that....



I can't order in a restaurant in Korean yet to save my life! (note to self: correct this fast!) That was much to my embarassment and much to the laughs of Bob and Laura. On the other hand, much to my laughs, Laura apparently has a thing with fish and actually surgically removed the salmon from her philly rolls -_-''', but on the other hand, Bob got around to trying kimchi and other Korean foods which are certain to make their way into my house come August (insert cultural bwahahaha here).

Headed up to Central Park, and we found the most curious thing, a stone/concrete playground. Now I'm kind of intrigued, why would they make a kids playground out of hard materials, instead of at least plastic? Either way, more amusement ensues, then we headed back to Penn, my case back to Jersey and home, their case back to Long Island for a few more days.

Oh, and I got the new Epik High CD in K-town ^_^ Quite good.

Now off to play Smash. :-D

Between Worlds

So, Joyce mentionedc "I think you take pride in being (something like more AMerican, I forget the exact quote already)"

Now thinking about it, I think it's really a matter of taking pride in being the oddball, no matter where I go. I mean, I will be here at Wash U, and in ACF I'm musically a renegade, in actions I'm still a little off the norm, and with people in general, yeah. Then back home, I make it a point when I'm with the friends (all white-Americans) to be as Asian as possible, bringing along all the music and food and culture I can without going all out insane.

It's a new sort of pride, pride at honestly not completely fitting in anywhere I go.

I have a few words to say.

First of all, I just got my admissions letter to Yonsei!!!!!!





Now, that being said, time to think about my own homecoming (borrowed from Liz's blog about her going back to Korea over the summer. well, it fits still :) ) Anyways, I am not sure what to expect in terms of culture shock (though it can't possibly be as bad as what happened this year in my own suite). On the flip side, I dont mind seeing a bit of culture shock, but only if it follows that I actually go off and absorb a decent bit of the culture into me, and even larger amounts of language :-)

And speaking of language, now time to keep reviewing for Korean tomorrow afternoon (wait, today is tomorrow now, its 2:30)

Wow, woke up quite late for class.

It's 9:24AM and I'm calling it late ><

Read some of the screwtape letters today, and came across an interesting passage.

"He can be induced to live, as I have known many humans live, for quite long periods, two parallel lives; he will not only appear to be, but actually be, a different man in each of the circles he frequents. Failing this, there is a subtler and more entertaining method. He can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent"

Is that me? If you know me in the slightest, you know that I tend to hang with a crapload of crowds, and in each case, I have no reason to abandon. But do I fall into this potential trap of living not just a double life, but a split personality of I don't know how many parts?

spam blog????

So apparently google or blogger thought this blog was a spam blog, for whatever reason, and I just got the blog unlocked again.

So, that just leaves the simple question to be asked: what the heck?

I guess it's like "Hi! I'm a spam-bot!"

*end rant*

Being inefficient

Makes us human, yet something I'm sure many people wanna get rid of.

It's funny how it ends up like this.

Example: I'm writing this and I have a paper to finish that's due in literally 4 hours

Yet another blog? Sure :)

I got bored, and jumped on the bandwagon.

Maybe this blog will stick around for a while :)