Friday, July 29, 2016

Credit Unions: Lunatic Asylums...?


The tides - shaped by the Moon.
What shape is water? Ever thought about that? Probably not; and if you did, the answer is difficult to clearly fix. 

Water is weird; it comes in all shapes, forms, and sizes.  Highly unusual, different.  How strange!    

Every now and Zen it occurs to me that those people we label as less than mentally complete may be getting the short end of the stick. Perhaps, just perhaps their state of mind results from an inability to overlook reality, an inability to "rationalize", an inability to equivocate. 

Could their thinking be too clear?

... just different, too clear?

Perhaps, just perhaps they have never been desensitized and still can feel shocked, appalled, disgusted, and surprised. Perhaps, just perhaps they continue to unflinchingly notice that the world is not overburdened with logic nor compassion.

Perhaps, just perhaps they read their daily newspaper at full attention and watch television with their eyes and their minds wide open.  Perhaps, just perhaps they think the blood on the ground in a Syrian marketplace is real and that they are actually watching as a glazed-eyed child in Somalia dies of starvation.

And most maddeningly, perhaps, just perhaps they still think they ought to try to do something about it, even though they are aware that their best efforts may not alter the course of events.  
... or sit and object.

Is theirs' a continuing self-delusion that a sense of humanity demands that one try?  In the face of injustice do they still imagine that one is required to stand and object?


Well, what shape is water... ?


Water, that most precious of commodities, essential to life, adapts its shape to the times and to the necessity.  Yet, the value and importance of water remain unchanged, even when shaped with infinite variety by climate, container, or circumstance.
... melting away?

  
Like water, a credit union of value and importance is a financial well-spring for its members.   Credit unions, which serve well, shape themselves to quench the special thirst of their unique membership.


Credit unions offer financial asylum for many. The need is great - and growing.

Let's change! But let's not change our minds... 

... nor change our hearts!



Face the Heat !!

2 comments:

Anthony Demangone, NAFCU said...

Perhaps your best one yet. Good stuff, sir. Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

There is so much talk that credit unions, in order to survive and prosper, must change and do things differently. They must appeal to the young and the old. They must offer every financial service imaginable and in a way that members can get those services by the touch of a button or a screen. They must appeal to the young technological member as well as the older brick and mortar individual who help build the credit union by faithfully staying with it over the years. The challenge to do this is massive and requires thought, resources, innovation, ideas, energy, leadership and money. So the question becomes how many credit unions can and will be able to address this challenge and actually come out victorious. The honest truth is that many, rather than even try, will just go on as they do now because the effort is too great and too hard to take on. And the result will be that the number of credit unions will continue to decline as mergers and dissolutions take place. I would hope one of the so called national trades would take this project on as the most important the industry faces rather that playing the game of trying to see who talks to more Congressmen and NCUA board members that the other. Until such time we see a true leader come forward to revitalize what credit unions do and reshape the water that they swim in, we are destined to watch more credit unions go away, banks continue to dictate the playing field and credit union experts throw out the jargon and rhetoric to make people believe that everything is fine and there are no problems.