In tight times, clergy counsel patience

c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Rabbi Benjamin Adler hasn’t felt particularly helpful lately. Older couples have been talking to him about their vanishing retirement accounts because of the recent havoc in the stock market, and the spiritual leader of White Meadow Temple in Rockaway Township, N.J., hasn’t known what to say. Sometimes, all a […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Rabbi Benjamin Adler hasn’t felt particularly helpful lately.

Older couples have been talking to him about their vanishing retirement accounts because of the recent havoc in the stock market, and the spiritual leader of White Meadow Temple in Rockaway Township, N.J., hasn’t known what to say.


Sometimes, all a man or woman of the cloth can do is lend an ear.

“It’s mostly really listening to them and being a reassuring presence,” the 33-year-old Adler said. “I don’t necessarily have words of wisdom, especially for people at that stage of life. There’s been a lot of fear out there. It came out around the High Holy Days when we think about our future and where we’re going.”

Since September, the financial crisis has been an especially palpable concern at houses of worship, say pastors, rabbis and imams. It has been the subject of clergy counseling sessions, sermons, and in-house career seminars.

This fall has been a time, too, for religious leaders to warn against using the material over the spiritual. Last month, Pope Benedict XVI said from Vatican City, “He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money builds the house of his life on sand. … Only God’s words are a solid reality.”

Many clergy say they find themselves doubling as networking career counselors and therapists more than ever.

“Some people, you know, they’ve been at Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns,” said the Rev. Edward Halldorson of Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, N.J., where many of the parishioners work in New York City. “(We) look for ways we can gather to have groups of men and women who are going through this, and share with men and women who have been through it before. If I lost a job in the past, I can give a great deal of hope to someone going through it now.”

The Rev. Jethro James of Paradise Baptist Church in Newark, where some parishioners have recently lost jobs as security guards and engineers, said he urges the unemployed toward education.

“We’re encouraging folks to go back to school and take courses. We’re telling our young people to prepare,” James said. “More people are coming in for counseling than ever. More people are taking food from the food bank than ever.”


He said his church keeps up with social service agencies to note any changes in food stamp requirements, and also networks with fast-food restaurant managers about jobs to help needy members.

“You almost become an employment agency,” he said. “A young lady who lost her job, was a professional, she had a knack for cleaning. If we can get her $100 a day to clean someone’s house, we’ll do that.”

He has noticed an unexpected source of angst in some who talk with him: the anticipated effect of their parents’ dwindling fortunes on their own financial futures.

“Your mother now needs to get a reverse mortgage and in reality it may deplete what you believe is your inheritance,” James said. “You’d be surprised at how many folks get bitter about that. They feel something is owed to them. But don’t you want your mom to have a great next 20 years?”

In Ridgewood, N.J., leaders of the Career and Resources Ministry at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church have seen larger-than-ever attendance at monthly workshops, which were begun seven years ago to help parishioners who lost jobs after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Usually, five or 10 people attend. But the September crowd was 15, and October’s was 30.

Even in wealthy areas, some six-figure households are “making the same money decisions that people who live on the edge make every single day,” said the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton of the Episcopal Church of St. Paul in Chatham, N.J.


She said her church usually gives away about eight $25 supermarket gift certificates a month, on an as-needed basis, but has gone through 16 in the last three weeks. In her church bulletin she has been posting toll-free numbers for people who need assistance.

“A couple of parishioners don’t believe that they’re going to be able to finish off the year with the commitment to their pledge because either their husbands have lost their jobs, or in one instance a person in sales hasn’t made a sale in six months, so hasn’t gotten a commission,” she said.

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Kaeton said the tough times can give people unexpected spiritual opportunities: “It allows us to go off automated pilot and live a more intentional life _ to really examine your priorities.”

On her blog, “Telling Secrets,” she posted a “Prayer for the current financial situation”:

“Lord God, we live in disturbing days: across the world, prices rise, debts increase, banks collapse, jobs are taken away, and fragile security is under threat. Loving God, meet us in our fear and hear our prayer: be a tower of strength amidst the shifting sands, and a light in the darkness; help us receive your gift of peace, and fix our hearts where true joys are to be found, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

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