I am a practicing Catholic who is raising a family with my husband. We choose to send our four children to excellent public schools. A long time ago I had to choose how to live out my Catholic values when interacting with families deemed "not traditional" and certainly not "Roman Catholic," and I found the answer provided by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew (22: 36-40). It is called the Greatest Commandment, or the Summary of the Law, and to paraphrase it: Love God and your neighbor as yourself.
Karen Waters contributes an Op/Ed to the Minneapolis StarTribune, titled "Bullying goes against my Catholic faith":
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Caille Millner writes a challenging article titled, "The real reason some won't take the bus." She talks about distinctions between forms of public transportation in San Francisco, and why many rationalize away why they avoid the public buses. I watch people's faces when they see me waiting at a bus stop. Many of them, especially drivers, look at me like I'm doing something vaguely unsavory - like I'm drinking out of a paper bag or flashing "designer" watches for sale.... If this is true for any of us Christians, what does this mean when we follow Jesus, who famously hung out with the poor and always advocated for them?
Photo by lensovet on Wikipedia. Sojourners reports on an ecumenical Christian community (including Lutherans, Catholics, and Mennonites) in Minneapolis who have covenanted to pay a voluntary "tax" on their gas purchases. They collectively decide where the money will be contributed. The photo on the left, by Andreas Solberg, shows gas prices in Norway. Gas prices outside the United States are significantly higher. Why intentionally pay more for gas than it costs? According to CSM members, this is precisely the point: The price of gas in the U.S. doesn’t reflect the actual costs that U.S. society and the global community incur as a result of the country’s dependence on oil. Those costs include fossil fuel’s contributions to air pollution and global warming. Also hidden at the pump are the costs of U.S. strategies to maintain an inexpensive supply of oil, often through political or military interventions in oil-producing regions—not to mention $4 billion a year in tax credits and subsidies to Big Oil. Grist.com has published an interview with Elizabeth Kline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. Kline outlines how the clothing industry and shopping has fundamentally changed, with far-ranging effects we don't realize.
"[S]he set out on a nearly three-year journey behind the scenes of the fashion industry, traveling from sweatshops in China to overflowing Goodwills to a mostly shuttered New York garment district haunted by ghosts of U.S. industry’s past. The resulting book... is a revealing look at how fashion arrived at where it is today. Before you write off apparel as low-hanging Fruit of the Loom, keep in mind that clothing is easily the second largest consumer sector, after food." Woody tells his story of recurring cancer and how that became a motivation for him to make a difference in this humorous and engaging TEDxMileHigh talk titled, "You Are Here." More on BoingBoing. BillMoyers.com reports: "Last week, the research and advocacy organization Demos held a policy conference in Washington on 21st century poverty issues.... The inspiration for the gathering was the 50th anniversary of Michael Harrington’s seminal exposé The Other America. Even before the recession, millions of Americans were living in poverty. Now, with many more out of work, economic inequality on the rise and proposed cuts to the social safety net, the issue is more relevant than ever." The infographic highlights some findings presented at the conference. Newsweek reports on new research about how technology and our online activity contributes to loneliness, depression, and compulsive behavior. "The first good, peer-reviewed research is emerging, and the picture is much gloomier than the trumpet blasts of Web utopians have allowed. The current incarnation of the Internet—portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive—may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic. Our digitized minds can scan like those of drug addicts, and normal people are breaking down in sad and seemingly new ways." "People tell her that their phones and laptops are the 'place for hope' in their lives, the 'place where sweetness comes from.' Children describe mothers and fathers unavailable in profound ways, present and yet not there at all. 'Mothers are now breastfeeding and bottle-feeding their babies as they text,' she told the American Psychological Association last summer. 'A mother made tense by text messages is going to be experienced as tense by the child. And that child is vulnerable to interpreting that tension as coming from within the relationship with the mother. This is something that needs to be watched very closely.' She added, 'Technology can make us forget important things we know about life.'" |