Application of "Reaching Out" to the Financial Crisis

I think the thing that is really hard to parse out about the current economic situation is the amount of vitriol people use for these financial titans they've trusted yet are now proven to be as human as the rest of us. People are seriously out for blood. It's funny, but so far I'm the only one out of my cousins that's decided to go for business as a vocation. Funny to me because I thought that was the most traditional thing anyone could do, go work for a company (though I didn't necessarily do it for "traditional" reasons or aims). Now the way things are going, looks like there's a shift to healthcare/education/social work...and there were always cousins who were pretty artistic so a fair amount will be writers, musicians, and graphic designers. Point is, with all this stuff going on, I'm a focal point in my grandfather's mind. He's always asking me, "Hey, have you cleaned up Wall St yet?"

To which I usually laugh off. Of course, he's half joking...but I wish I could answer him with what I really think about this stuff. Mainly that the crisis is all of our faults, coming out of a general brokeness of all things man made and there is none that seeks God, not one. I wish I could answer "Well, have you forgiven and made peace with your siblings yet?...No?...then not yet for me either."

I'm writing about this because Nouwen in "Reaching Out" mentioned it in a way I haven't heard anyone else do so. Most of the media are too busy placing blame and most people are interested in punishment. It's really affirming to know that another Christian thinks similarly about widespread crisis/suffering.

This quote is in the context of the civil rights activists of the sixties. It's a long one, but all of it is important.
"...If any criticism can be made of the sixties, it is not that protest was meaningless but that it was not deep enough, in the sense theat it was not rooted in the solitude of the heart. When only our minds and hands work together we quickly become dependent on the results of our actions and tend to give up when they do not materialize. In the solitude of the heart we can truly listen to the pains of the world because there we can recognize them not as strange unfamiliar pains, but as pains that are indeed our own. There we can see that what is most universal is most personal and that indeed nothing human is strange to us. There we can feel that the cruel reality of history is indeed the reality of the human heart, our own included, and that to protest asks, first of all, for a confession of our own participation in the human condition. There we can indeed respond.

It would be paralyzing to proclaim that we, as individuals, are responsible for all human suffering, but it is a liberating message to say we are called to respond to it. Because out of an inner solidarity with our fellow humans the first attempts to alleviate these pains can come forth.

It is this inner solidarity which prevents self-righteousness and makes compassion possible."

I'm obviously not a policy maker, so don't misunderstand where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to say. I'm just saying our attitudes need to change. And this has implications from the macro level to the micro everyday. I'm just tired of the self-righteousness both from within and without. Stop reacting and start responding creatively to the problems of this world that can only come from a solitude that works out your faith and dependance on God.