"All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth,our mother!" from "The Canticle of the Creatures".
Starting by praising God for the earth and for all the elements of the earth is a beautiful way to begin our celebration of Earth Day.
In addition to our usual practical efforts of recycling and looking at how we can reduce consumption, we also might want to reflect on how our economic development relates to the earth, to sharing the planet with all who live on it and to social sin, particularly as Pope Benedict has enunciated the new seven deadly sins for the twentieth century.
Because it is an election year, we have a unique opportunity to tie this together in a very concrete way by our voting. I have long felt that we need a much more thorough overhaul of our economy than any current politicians are suggesting and we need it soon. We could make it happen with the power and fluidity of the internet.
After watching a number of news stories on world hunger recently I have come again to doubt the validity of commodity trading. I would like to know the history of this for it clearly affects prices of food and oil (which in turn affects food prices because the food needs to be transported.) We are paying today the speculated price for the product of a month from now--or later. That doesn't seem like a just or useful calculation of price to me, but merely a formula for speculation.
Yesterday I read another friend's Live Journal blog and was pointed to this article in Vanity Fair on the giant chemical company, Monsanto,
I found this article chilling in that it seems to be a model of how agriculture should not be done and a model of how a giant business can overrun its industry and all of the people in its wake. This is monopoly capitalism run amok. It is a good read for reflection on Earth Day and I recommend it.
I spent a good part of the weekend loading images on my cafepress store, so that I have a few pretty things to offer for Mother's Day, which is also coming soon.
Happy Earth Day! Let's give thanks for and take care of our Earth.
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