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A New Housing Policy

Cleaning up after the fight
They have this really good idea at The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem:  "If you clean it, you own it!"  As a consequence, the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic priests clean as much of the floor as they can, every year.  


Actually, each of the three groups think they own it, but they have worked out a rough, but contested, agreement about who cleans what part of the floor.  They have also worked out rough, and contested, attempts to clean a little bit more of the floor, each year.  The result is not pretty.


They get into broom fights.  And fist fights.  And they say damnable things to each other.  


This year, again, the police had to get into the church through that little door of humility to break up the fight.  The police said they didn't arrest anyone because all of the participants were priests.  


The roof leaks, too, and has done so for a long time, but the priests can't agree who should pay to fix the roof, so the art work is going to hell in a hand basket.  A lot of it has already gone, as have a lot of the priests.  


But we shouldn't scorn the men of God who are just doing their best to protect what is said to the the location of Jesus' birth.  We should, instead, recognize that the principle, "If you clean it, you own it!", might be a way our of our housing crisis.  Our cities are littered with empty houses, not exactly owned by the banks.  The banks have bundled the mortgages into those magical-money-making-derivatives that nobody seems to own. 


Maybe we should take a lesson from the holy men in Bethlehem, and say, "If you want to move in and clean it, it's yours!  And if you won't keep it clean, you can't have it!"  


Of course, we would have to work out a better roof policy.  But that is probably not insurmountable, either, if we can keep the Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic priests out of the way.  They aren't good at roofs.  

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