Spirituality on Wall Street

From January 13 to January 15, the Poverty Initiative in New York City began an Immersion trip that will go across three states to reflect on and see important sites in the fight against poverty—and also sites that are significant in the creation and sustaining of a power structure that places a few wealthy people on top while the rest toil away below them. I am fortunate enough to take part in the first leg of this journey. Let me tell you that I have been left with my jaw on the floor at the strength and intelligence of the participants and with the amount of leadership mentality in the room. Every way I turn I am just hit with the amount of power and potential.

Yesterday we were led on a walking tour of Wall Street by John Wessel-McCoy. During this tour we saw important sites like the Customs Building, the bull of Wall Street , Trinity Church and, even though it seemed almost hidden, the Goldman Sachs Building. We focused on the symbolism and portrayal of monetary power that is based there. And trust me, there are a lot of symbols of power in that immediate area. The main portrayal seemed to be the same: money is good and is almost equal to divine power and if you have no money you are weak.  It’s almost as if money has taken on a whole new meaning for people in our society and instead of a thing we use in our daily lives it is seen as and revered as this almighty entity that dictates what we can and can’t do. There’s a lot of spirituality on Wall Street as well as numbers and statistics; there is the sense of hoping and having faith and almost worshiping the entity known as “The Market”. 

All in all it seems as though the people with the most money right now hold so much power that they sort of govern all of us down below. And us as people from below blame ourselves for not having as much as them. Well, in reality it is not our fault that we are going without, and it is not because there isn’t enough.  In fact, we live in a country where if all the wealth was evenly distributed, every household would have a net worth of $380,000. But the way it is now, 10% of the population has 80% of the wealth. As I walked down Wall Street yesterday, I wondered: Are the Wall Street devout, worshipping the wealth they hoard, right in doing this?

click for full image