MSNBC, via Reuters, has the story of Brother Nikanor who,

Five years ago, after failing to find happiness in the life he lived, the Christian Orthodox who hadn't practiced as a child quit the New York-based market for a dilapidated Bulgarian monastery that once served as a communist labor camp.

Retaining one luxury — a mobile phone, which connects him with both potential donors and former trading colleagues — he has brought the rigor of his broking experience to his faith.

He has helped to raise hundreds of thousands of levs (dollars) to rebuild the monastery — a hard task in a country where charity is not part of the mentality and building shopping malls and golf courses is a priority.

"Many people... in the world do not realize that they have not earned the food they eat, that they take without giving," Mishkov told Reuters. "But if someone consumes more than they have earned, it means someone else is starving.

"It is right to see people who consume more than they deserve shattered by a financial crisis from time to time, to suffer so that they can become more reasonable." ... more

I haven't exactly wanted to make this known other than to my wife and a few of my closest friends, so they won't think I am mean, rude, or crazy, but in the past few months I have been seeing the bright side of high priced oil and a stuggling economy.

First let me iterate that I hate poverty. But I also hate affluency and greed. Sometimes economies struggle because of the manipulation of governments to exploit people. Other times it is when corporations or juntas (sometimes I can't tell the difference) impose their iron fists on people and treat them like capital instead of like human beings created in the image of God. There is a lot of that going around these days, some of it even in the United States, but for the most part, I think the American people has done this to themselves. We live in a country where we are not forced to buy or consume anything. We can be as frugal as a hermit or as materialistic as a debutante. We open credit cards and we choose not to pay them off. We choose to buy houses to big for us, and buy food that is both expensive and un-nutritious, mostly because it is not food. We choose to live in such a way that runs counter to the Christian life as it was handed down to us by the ancient church. ... more