Dollars, Sense, and Dignity

Actual Text

1.The first piece of text that stood out for me was the description of the elderly housing building in Fort Lauderdale. This housing was subsidized by public funding and destroyed in a fire yet people continued to live there because they had no place to go.

2. Another piece of text that really stood out to me was the last paragraph. Bretos discusses how altruism is a part of us and as social beings we are inherently compassionate.

Responses

1. When I first read this piece of text I had to go back and make sure I read the description correctly. The fact that this building was infested with rats and people were sleeping on beds of feces surrounded by worms is truly horrifying. I think that many people don't think twice about homes for the elderly because they assume everything is fine and taken care of. However, after reading this article it is clear that there are severe issues in homes for the elderly that are funded by the public. I think that there needs to be more awareness for elderly homes because I think Bretos is correct when he says that "we segregate the elderly to be neither seen nor heard."

2. I think that this piece of text is important because whenever there is a catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina or the Tsunami in Thailand people are always willing to help. This a great quality that we as human beings have, but we need to be willing to help those in need at all times. Like Bretos states, we are all interconnected and it has come to the point where we need to realize that in order to survive, we need to connect with others and be more sympathetic. We cannot just donate money to victims of natural disasters and expect that that is enough. If we look around us there are poor people and elderly homes that need help as well right in our own backyards. As human beings we need to be more aware and replace apathy with empathy to eliminate global indifference

More blog posts in this category Common

• The Wound & the Blessing/The Economy of Communion Project Post
• The Crest- Jewel of Wisdom & Work as a Spiritual Practice Post
• "What Money Can't Buy" Blog Post
• Blog Post Ni: FTRN Booklet & Arithmetic of Passion
• Work as a Spiritual Practice (The Transformation of Work)