Winter Eliot 2016-2017: "American Paradox: Why Enough is Never Enough" with Rev. Dr. Preston Moore

Wednesday, December 28, 2016 at 03:30 PM
Sunday, January 01, 2017 at 02:00 PM

AMERICAN PARADOX: WHY ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH

 

Seeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, we Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream. Even if we achieve what the world is pleased to acknowledge as success, we discover that the seizing of it fails to satisfy the hunger of our spiritual expectation . . . .

                                    Lewis Lapham, Money and Class in America

 

            America pushes itself to work more, earn more, and spend more than the world’s other leading economies. We devote more time, treasure, and talent to charities, public causes, and strangers in need. Yet, enough never seems to be enough. We yearn for something we have trouble naming. America leads the UN’s Human Development Index, yet we have the highest rate of mental disorders. The nation with the lowest is Nigeria, at the bottom of that UN index. Might this be related to the way we push ourselves? What drives us? How did we get this way? Some consider such questioning unpatriotic. Our Unitarian Universalist heritage holds love of country differently.

            Preston Moore is a trial lawyer turned minister. Spanning a dynamic period in American commerce (1971-2002), his legal career was an excellent observation post on the growth and globalization of American capitalism and those who work and live within it. Since leaving the law he has served as a UU minister and has led a wide range of spiritual development programs. His secular and spiritual careers provide a swim-in-both-ponds perspective on American national identity.

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