Love & Betrayal

Love & Betrayal

Peter the Shepherd: When they had eaten their meal, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"
'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'you know that I love you.'
"Then feed my lambs, replied Jesus"
A second time the Lord asks, 'Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, replied Simon Peter.' 
Jesus replied,'then tend my sheep.'
A third time Jesus asked him, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' Peter, hurt because he asked a third time, replied,'Lord, you know everything. You know well that I love you'.
Jesus said to him, 'feed my sheep.' When the Christ had finished speaking to him, he said," follow me."
John 21:15-19

Many of us are familiar with what happens at the end of the Christ story, even if we have not ever heard these words spoken to Simon Peter by the Christ. The Bible in its whole is a story of love, foretold by betrayal at the hand of one who loves. So it seems this particular story serves to address one of the greatest of paradoxes, the intersection of great love and its betrayal by one close to us.

In our modern, western world, we have been raised to the ideas of science and technology, among others, and to the notion that we can not only shape events but control them through knowledge and other means. In his book, Church and Revolution, author Thomas Bekenkotter explores modern political philosophy and traces its context within a civil religious society. He writes about critical thinker, French philosopher and Catholic theologian, Jacques Maritain. A champion for the advancement of social justice and human rights, Maritain developed during the war years 1939-1945, parts of his beliefs while living in the United States as an exile from Nazi occupied France.

Maritain wrote in response to the human condition: let them not kill in the name of Christ the King, who is not a military leader, but a King of grace and charity for all.
Further he opposed the growing bourgeois belief of man's chief value being for labor and what he may produce.
Maritain moreover held that capitalism and consumerism were the ultimate betrayal of the common good with respect to the social order.
It was these beliefs that formed the whole of the 1948 United Nations document as adopted on Human Rights, and still today forms the majority of thought regarding human rights and the personalism of mankind.
It was this personalism which became part of Maritan's answer for the call of the Christ 'to tend my sheep'.

US Government Okays Reduced Ethanol Output in 2014

" We may not like the health or environmental toll it will take over time."

Recently the United States government has authorized the reduced output of the gasoline additive, ethanol from US stocks for the year 2014, citing reduced support for the program which the Congress passed in 2007 to reduce dependence on foreign oil and to (ostensibly) improve the quality of air in the continental United States. However with the droughts of 2011 and 2012, public outcry over the use of important food grains such as corn for fuel has caused some to rethink this issue.

In a twist of marketing, on November 15 the United States  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it would propose reducing the 2014 mandate for blending gasoline with corn-based ethanol to between 12.7 billion and 13.2 billion gallons, down from the current legislated mandate for next year of 14.4 billion gallons. This reduction would be about 500 million bushels, with one bushel of corn producing about 2.8 gallons of ethanol. Ethanol has less available energy output per gallon than petroleum based fuels.

Meanwhile over at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in its November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, projects 4,900 million bushels of corn may go into ethanol production in the 2014 fiscal year. But some analysts also suggest the lower ethanol mandate may have less of an impact on corn demand than indicated by the market’s reaction.
They note that recent low corn prices have spurred ethanol production as margins have improved to at least $1.00 a gallon. Several ethanol facilities that have been out of service for months now have been brought back into production recently. If the current market conditions hold, ethanol production and thus corn demand would remain strong-- with excess ethanol output likely to be targeted for export, analysts predict.

In the twisting, turning ways of inter-governmental agencies, two competing statements are now made: From the environmental side, the EPA, there have been several important, unintended consequences of the ethanol legislation noted, the first of which is taking food from people in need around the world and converting it to ethanol (a type of grain alcohol) to burn in cars while some around the world starve in drought years, as recently experienced in the United States. Additionally there are the issues of deforestation, loss of native species' habitat and soil erosion to name a few.
Joel of the Bible warned in ancient days,

"The field is devastated;

the farmland mourns,

Because the grain is devastated,

the wine has dried up,

the oil has failed.

Be appalled, you farmers!"

 Joel 1:10-11

And based on rosy forecasting by the USDA, and in a resulting effort to make more profit, many farmers are cutting and eliminating any and all forested areas to create more land for growing crops. This activity takes no consideration about how big or small the wood lots are or have been.
It leads to an overall reduction in oxygen producing foliage and the loss of habitat for native species of animals. There is increased tillage of prairie lands, land once idle and evironmentally balanced.
In addition the now increased plantings adds to soil erosion due to tillage, and the increased pressure for use of chemicals required for intense farming practices--everything from fertilizers and pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.

The American farmer by and large is no friend to the environment. They are driven by profit motives and are unlikely to change their habits until there is lack of profit to continue.The "family farmer" is figured into this equally.  It is up to the average person to be the call for the end to ethanol production in this country. Without knowledge, the 98 per cent of Americans (who have minimal to no contact with food production) remain idle while profit motives urge farmers into unsustainable agricultural practices. This call goes beyond supporting local sourced food, beyond "slow food" and beyond community gardens.

The two percent who produce for the other 98 per cent have their pocketbooks front and center; we may not like the health or environmental toll it will take over time. Urge best practices in farming, practices that preserve air, soil and water quality; practices that provide food for the most in a way that protects wildlife and creates a cleaner future for all.

Beggars From Calcutta

Carl Anderson writes boldly in his book, A Civilization of Love, "there is no gap between love of neighbor and justice." Attempts to contrast justice and love, serve to distort them both. Within justice is the meaning of mercy itself. To pursue justice without love is to engage in revenge. Love is not about revenge. From the earliest time, religions have pursued the liberation of the self, and the collective from every type of oppression and evil; they have promoted in degree, the dignity of the individual.

Within the civilization of love, there comes the realization that love is not mere sentiment, it is not mere feeling. Love is action, it is active; it includes the necessity of vocation, so that a civilization founded upon the dignity and value of all Creation may be realized. The sharing of love is basic to human life.  A heart which 'sees' and directs itself accordingly is one of the first actions taken in a civilization of love; priority must be given to the formation and re-formation of human hearts-- all hearts. The heart that 'sees' is one that has learned to see its own history, thus it knows how to recognize the other. Indeed, when the moment arrives that the heart in charity recognizes an experience of love and gift, it can no longer be perceived without awareness of one's own history. That is, the awareness of the loves that came before us: our parents, our family, the Divine, who loved us first and most.

There was, at one moment, a great act of Creation that begot us from seeming nothingness; we were brought into the world. In the civilization of love, someone's love is revealed as the initial source of our existence. The heart now awakened is able to see with 'eyes'. With the heart, events are viewed not only from one perspective, but from the greatest perspective of the acts of a co-creator in creation. The one who is blind, who does not see, then lives as if the divinity rests solely within them. Others may easily be forgotten or omitted. And yet it is not divinely demanded that we, as individuals, produce a feeling, or any feeling that we are not yet capable of producing. In the civilization of love, all are called to action for hope that our sight shall illuminate the way of the other. This is what is also called charity. Thus is the founding principles for actions such as those of the Missionaries of Charity, first of Calcutta, Blessed Mother Teresa, its foundress and now present in 133 countries including Peoria county, Illinois.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta modeled her life upon this civilization of love. She called all to it; divinity and love are inseparable. She was well-seeing into the truth that loving one's neighbor was a central task of the heart in action. It is this which will form a better society for the common good, she wrote.