“Reading the Times” 2009

from Torin Finser, General Secretary

As the old year swung to a close in 2008, our region of southern New Hampshire experienced a severe winter storm. Not snow, which some have learned to expect in this region, but a massive ice storm. Our family woke at 2 am on December 12th to hear the cracking of branches all around us. Hail pelted the windows, the trees groaned with the weight of ice, and from time to time branches gave way with a shudder and crash. It was impossible to sleep.

Then at around 4 am we heard an especially loud crack followed by a crash and the sound of glass shattering. We ran downstairs and found a tree limb sticking through the bay window in the living room. Glass was everywhere and the wind was blowing through the house. More branches were cracking, some at a distance, and the world seemed to be ripping apart around us.

We woke the children and they huddled under a quilt between the kitchen counters while I looked for matches and flashlights to inspect the rest of the house. Although the storm lasted for hours, the worst was over by dawn and we all crawled back into bed in search of lost sleep.

The world that greeted us the next day was an enchanted ice kingdom. Everything outside was coated with an inch or more of solid ice. Bushes and trees were bent to the ground, icicles hung from every eve, branches were strewn across the yard, and the driveway was sheer ice.

We were also without power, as were 400,000 other homes in New Hampshire. Thus began the great blackout of 2008, which in our case lasted twelve days.

We have become accustomed to a world powered by electricity and telecommunications: lights, heat, internet, stoves, refrigerators and, most important of all in my view, water. Thanks to wood stoves in many homes in New England, we can cope with the cold to a certain extent. There is even a bit of relief without phones ringing and e-mails to answer. But a family without water is a burden indeed. The first few days my son and I had fun collecting icicles from the eves and melting them inside. The evenings were sort of romantic by candlelight, although reading by flickering light is more difficult than it looks. And after a few days, the novelty began to wear off.

It occurred to me one cold, dark night that in many ways the New England blackout of 2008 represented more than the loss of power lines. As we now progress into 2009, it appears more and more likely that the events of recent months signal a seismic shift that is taking place all over the world. We are currently faced with the most fundamental economic realignment since the invention of electricity. Our financial lives have been powered by a force called leverage (or debt) that had grown into larger houses, more cars, fancy electronic gadgets and masses of credit card debt. Now for many, not just the struggling hourly workers but also many top executives, all this has suddenly been taken away. All over the world people are asking: who turned off the lights?

If we are to move forward it is essential that we not only understand what led to this dramatic turn of events, but also the nature of the deleveraging that has only just begun. We need a fundamental reform of our economic system so that we don’t simply lurch from one bubble to another, crisis to crisis. In countries all over the world, people are “All over the world asking questions that need a response. Now is the people are asking: time for a complete re-imagination of the economic who turned off basis of our social life. the lights?”

Then I turned back to my notes from the last meeting of the General Secretaries in Dornach in early November, and recalled the conversations we had concerning the economic crisis from an Anthroposophic perspective. We were fortunate to have two distinguished bankers in our midst, Paul Mackay, member of the Executive Council, and Philip Martin, General Secretary from the UK. They shared thoughts on the nature of the crisis that led to a lively conversation.

It is significant for a student of anthroposophy that the crisis originated in over-extended loans, the so-called sub prime mortgages. Loans have to do with relationships, which are now being called into question all around the world. Inflation had been a concern in recent years as too much money chased after material things. Now we are entering a deflationary era in which there is too little money available, and prices are declining. Excess money in recent years was not diverted to support the cultural life as intended by Rudolf Steiner, but instead fed upon itself in creating inflated assets. Now the bubble has burst, and everyone is affected as banks, businesses and individuals try to shed debt.

Relationships are also very much connected to the soul life of individual human beings. This is of course the fundamental basis of the Anthroposophical Society. How can we find one another in our true humanity? What does it mean to meet in this age of Michael? How can we move from a preoccupation with security (financial and otherwise) to renewed confidence in the free spiritual life?

More and more we will need to “read the times” in which we live and apply the resources given through anthroposophy. A crisis, even though painful when it means loss of jobs and security, can assist in awakening the human spirit, not just in our anthroposophical centers but in striving human beings all over the world. Will we be ready to meet this awakening?

The blackout of 2008 resulted in school cancellations all over New Hampshire. The Nativity play, performed every year since the founding of the High Mowing School in 1942, was cancelled. The students were sent home for the holidays without the usual festivities.

After several more snow storms and much cold weather, the Nativity was finally performed at High Mowing on January 19th, Martin Luther King Day and the eve of the inauguration. Performed without words but only through song and gesture, the angles sang in chorus, the shepherds and kings gave their gifts, and the celebration of the Child took on new meaning. With a full heart afterwards, I realized that this too was a sign of the times. We need the presence of the Christ not just in December. As we move through 2009 with both hope and trepidation at the challenges ahead, words spoken long ago have ever-greater meaning:

Darkness of Night

Had held its sway; Day-radiant Light

Poured into the souls of men: Light that gave warmth

To simple shepherds’ hearts,

Light that enlightened

The wise heads of kings.

O Light Divine!

O Sun of Christ!

Warm Thou our hearts,

Enlighten Thou our heads,

That good may become

What from our hearts we would found

And from our heads direct

With single purpose.

(last lines from the Foundation Stone by Rudolf Steiner)

May this reality live with us ever more strongly as we gradually find one another in a free association of human beings known as the Anthroposophical Society.

Torin M. Finser

General Secretary