September 15th entry by Dan Leckman: ....When our needs become our top priority...

In today's entry, Brother Daniel will be looking at paragraphs 20-22, where Pope Francis continues his analysis of "what is happening to our common home" by concentrating his attention on one of his main themes ("reviewing certain aspects of the ecological crisis" (LS 15)) but also discusses two of his sub themes: our throwaway culture, and the "intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet" (LS 16)

A good image for our sense of culture in the West

That we in the West are a culture of want and need is no secret to anyone. If we're really honest with ourselves, we'll go as far as seeing our culture as a culture of waste. However, when the Church and the activist community begins to speak of the throwaway culture, this makes many rather uncomfortable. But it's an uncomfortable reality we need to appropriate, because we don't limit ourselves to throwing away stuff that could be recycled (LS 22) or to generating millions "of tons of waste... every year, much of it non-biodegradable" (LS 20)...we also (as one blogger reminds us) "throw away our ozone layers, our oceans, our compassion for mankind in times of war, and any semblance of civic pride along with these careless actions." Seeing how many countries have dealt with the influx of Syrian refugees (treating them not as human beings, but as an object we don't wish to have) is a painful reminder of that. Dealing with painful or uncomfortable does however, seem to be one of this pope's specialties!! He is certainly rather effective at it, reminding us that it's by looking at the less pleasant aspects of our common narrative that  we can become even more aware of the gravity of our planet's situation, and will (hopefully)better learn how to respond to it. (LS 19)

 This is why Pope Francis  takes the time to explore how our throwaway culture (and the consumerist mentality  that has spawned  this culture) has been directly involved in creating this mess we find ourselves in: It's not enough to simply say 'we have an imperfect economic system that has prioritized technological development and economic growth at the expense of the health and well being of human beings, especially the most poor...and we need to change that for something more fair!'.  This is true, but we need go a little deeper people! I feel Francis does that by stating that this economic system " in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others". (LS 20). 

This may seem obvious, but it points us back to one of the core messages of his encyclical: The world, the economic system within this world, many cultures within that system, seem to have forgotten how truly connected we really are. This simple,quasi utopian statement is both an invitation to be more aware of the deep spiritual bond between us, and a reminder to be conscious of how our actions impact the world we live in. If we treat our common home as "an immense pile of filth" (LS 21), then there's no limit to how neglectful we can be towards those with whom we share this home. Worse, we are faced with the reality that our actions are having more and more of negative impact on the (already) fragile ecosystem that sustains us. ( See paragraph 22 for a more detailed analysis of this particular problem).

There may not be a simple answer to this problem, but Francis does suggest again and again that a good starting point would be this feeling of connectedness that would make us more conscious of the needs of others, and more careful about our own actions. The challenge of course is that, while many people are walking around in our world with positive intentions and desires to live in such a connected way with creation,this will always be hard for us to do. Hard...but not impossible. This is the core of Francis' optimism, and it's something we would be wise to pay attention to!