Happy New Year to each of you! I hope that you had most blessed celebrations of Christmas and restful vacations and are ready for a new year ahead. It feels so strange to visit this blog again; I have not been to this website since I signed off some 5 weeks ago and come back now to this ministry feeling clear-headed and rested. I had a lovely Advent silence, with the simplicity of fasting, cleaning, listening only to Advent music (not easy, let me tell you), and prayer. I added the Liturgy of the Hours to my Advent devotions and remembered that I love praying the LoH so much that I am keeping the habit even after Christmas.
The Holy Father greets the thousands of peace marchers from his window
As for this new year, I very much hope to become a farmer. Speaking of farming, yesterday, as well as celebrating the octave day of Christmas and the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, the Church kept the World Day of Peace with peace marches and special events. The Holy Father spoke beautifully about peace in his homily and, what struck me most about his words was his economic good sense. He said the following, “It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism.” Unregulated capitalism=bad.
What the Church proposes instead is distributism, loosely defined as the economic system where as many people as possible possess private property (i.e. the means of production), beyond simply owning their labor, and, hopefully, their capital. In speaking about economics, the Holy Father said the following, “In many quarters it is now recognized that a new model of development is needed, as well as a new approach to the economy. Both integral, sustainable development in solidarity and the common good require a correct scale of goods and values which can be structured with God as the ultimate point of reference.” Unbridled capitalism values constant growth, even if such profit means that workers are away from their families 10-12 hours/day and so forth. Bad. What our dignity as humans requires is an economy where family comes before work. In addition, a little later, the Holy Father mentions the major problem of unemployment and stresses the good of human work, as well as access to work.
Which makes me think of farming. Okay, girls, stick with me. I know that this economics stuff sounds terribly boring and makes you want to say, “Katie, this is not my idea of fun. Let’s put the ‘fun’ back in IFTBAG.” But, dear ones, this matters to you. Our country is in trouble economically, and our Congress is handing to our children a debt bill of 16+ trillion dollars. The problem, of course, is unbridled capitalism, which seeks to make ever increasing profits by convincing us that we need to buy ever more pairs of shoes (among other things). We citizens have the same spending habits that Our Congress has, namely, we bet hopefully on those ever increasing profits and spend money that we don’t actually have.
Which makes me think of farming. You see, my husband and I want to have a little homestead with a big garden and a cow and a pond and a beehive and a fruit orchard and maple trees so that I can make my own maple syrup. That way, when the economic bubble bursts and unbridled capitalism comes to a screeching halt in the United States, each of you can come to our farm and help work in the garden and we will have enough food. You can be a distributist, too, and, when the Holy Father speaks about farming, you’ll know he’s cheering for you; he says, “To face this crisis, peacemakers are called to work together in a spirit of solidarity, from the local to the international level, with the aim of enabling farmers, especially in small rural holdings, to carry out their activity in a dignified and sustainable way from the social, environmental and economic points of view. “ By multiplying the number of small rural holdings, we can help ensure food sources for our local communities, especially if the industrial food system that currently supplies our grocery stores continues to weaken. (Not familiar with the industrial food system? Watch “King Corn”, “Food Inc.”, “Fresh”, etc.)
Happy New Year, dear friends. You each will be most welcome at my farm in the year ahead.
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