Spam Spirit

I’m not an economist but, according to my indicators, the American economy is facing a crisis unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

My analysis is not based on Citigroup’s announcement of 50,000 layoffs on Monday (a number I assumed CNN had reported inaccurately), or the 3 million jobs U.S. automakers predict will be lost unless Congress does something about it, or the 40% losses my very small stock portfolio has posted.

My analysis is based on this:
In its Sunday edition, the New York Times ran a two-page story about Spam.
Yes that’s right, the Depression-era, gelatinous concoction of salt, nitrites and pork by-products held together with housing insulation -- or at least that’s what the color suggests!

Now granted, the Spam story, complete with featured menu items from Johnny’s “Spamarama,” did not run in the Food section of the Magazine. Johnny’s was not the featured restaurant in Dining and Wine. Yet a year ago the Times ran no less than five stories on a different slab of goo – foie gras. New Yorkers, and the rest of the country, are about to eat a lot less goose and a lot more gristle.

The Times reported that union workers at the Hormel factory (makers of Spam) pumped out 150,000 cans of the gelatinous pink creation last week. And it’s not just the pink stuff that’s selling. Kraft, maker of all things powdered and cheap, is also seeing a visible uptick in sales -- of its Macaroni and Cheese, Jell-O, Kool-Aid and Velveeta.

I don’t want to belittle the economic crisis we’re facing, but I see a silver lining – or in this case a salmon-colored streak... Because life has charming ways of making us humble.

To quote the famous Monty Python skit, “I don’t LIKE Spam!” But grandma served it up nonetheless during the family camping trips of my youth, and I cherish those memories. Growing up, Mac and Cheese was a delicacy, a delightful laziness allowed only on special occasions (at $0.49 a box!) Jell-O squares were offered after homework was done, and man that Red Dye #6 was yummy!

In this time of lack, perhaps we can return to a simpler life. A life where a family of five shared one car, and vacation meant piling every one of those family members into that car and driving its precious contents across the country. Could we do it? Could we go back to a time when a purse held a wallet and some slightly used Kleenex, instead of screaming status alerts to the world? When mothers cherished the lines on their faces instead of zapping them away with toxic chemicals? When kids had two pairs of shoes – one for school and one for play -- and neither cost more than a kitchen appliance?

Could we go back to eating Spam?

The classic Chinese text of philosophy, the I-Ching, reminds us that:

"Indecision regarding the choice among pleasures temporarily robs a man of inner peace. After due reflection, he attains joy by turning away from the lower pleasures and seeking the higher ones."

Maybe during this time of lack, we’ll accept that Spam feeds us -- even if we’d like to go in search of the perfect foie gras – and turn our attentions to pursuits of the higher pleasures. The pursuit of knowledge, the joy of family, respect for our neighbors, reverence toward our God.

It won’t be easy. Since the beginning of time humans have craved extravagance, honored abundance, killed for possessions. A great teacher of the Catholic church, St. Teresa of Avila, saw the greed and excess of her 16th century Spain. She saw her fellow nuns accepting financial favors from wealthy benefactors, and chose to denounce her status and return her religious order to one of poverty and seclusion. In her autobiography she said:

“We have such stingy hearts that it seems to us we’re going to lose the earth if we desire to neglect the body a little for the sake of the spirit.”

And that is the salmon-colored lining. We can stop our search for worldly possessions. We can neglect the body a little, foregoing lowly pleasures. We can eat that Spam. In return, we might find our spirit.