Unpacking Ideas

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”   – The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Nobel Laureate, Peace, 1989 “What matters today is not the difference between those who believe and those who do not believe, but the difference between those who care and those who don’t.”   – Georges [...]

I think effective immigration reform belongs in the middle. For me as a Christian, immigration reform makes perfect sense. And there’s good news. A middle-way approach to how we respond to our immigration crisis is being embraced by an ever-growing centrist group of religious leaders.

So, what are we to do with Haiti’s children? How do we clearly care about them? Let’s start by not scorning them. Let’s start by not hauling them away from their parents or relatives. Duh. Let’s feed them. Let’s clothe them. Let’s give them water to drink. A famous member of our Church once said something about caring for the least of these…you know, the most vulnerable among us. Who said that? I thought he was fairly clear.

“Women are ultimately the key to development, they are the key to the eradication of poverty.  Once you empower them, you empower a nation.”  — Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate, Peace, 1984  This is a true story.  An omen, perhaps.  When I woke up after an apparently restless sleep I saw that the book had toppled onto my laptop keyboard.  I [...]

The principles of a just war were first articulated by theologian Augustine of Hippo in the 4th C. and later refined by theologian Thomas Aquinas in the 16th C. These principles describe what needs to be true before a nation enters a war (jus ad bellum), and what needs to be true about how the nation does the war (jus in bello).

It’s simple. Let’s say we will protect our children and babies. Let’s say we will feed all of our children enough. Let’s say we will do whatever it takes to keep more of our babies alive. The rest we’ll worry about later.

The impossible takes longer, whether we are talking about kitchen garbage or personal garbage, worms or the transforming power of God’s love. My personal garbage requires a few worms too. And it takes a bit of time because I have plenty of garbage accumulated over the years. Can my garbage be transformed into something rich? Sometimes we call this redemption, when God consumes my personal garbage and makes something good out of it. Seems impossible, and it might take a little longer. I’ll wait.

The idea of economics is not new. The word is taken from the Greek oikonomia, which in the first Century roughly meant “household management”. Today, while we are managing more than a household, the question is the same: How do we manage the limited resources available to us? I.e., How do we run our economy?

A Nobel Laureate is a special person, selected from a short list of nominations in their category from all over the world. To be chosen as the recipient is amazing, making their mothers very proud I’m sure. To be chosen twice is extraordinary. Double winners are rare.

Who are these people? Beyond their technical prowess, I wonder about their everyday lives, their thoughts, their work ethic. I wonder about their opinions, especially about a topic outside their area of expertise. Like the chemist Paul Boyer and his opinions on children. Boyer won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. I wonder about the circumstances that provoked him to say, “If we fail to teach our children the skills they need to think clearly, they will march behind whatever guru wears the shiniest cloak.”