Love of the World

Long ago, at least it seems a long time ago, I decided my theme for Lent would be Love, I would move in concentric circles inwards, starting with Love of the World and ending with Love of Self and ultimately Love of God, which is both the most inwards and most outwards circle. This means that on Sunday I will be talking about the love of the world and how that relates to our lives as Christians.

As I am sitting here in a coffee shop thinking about this one of things I see is a sign by the restrooms that reads "support our local economy" with a web address encouraging people to buy local. I am always concerned about the tension between thinking global and yet also working locally. The two do not need to be exclusive but unless wrapped up in something larger I think they easily can be. One example that comes to mind for me is the question of Buy American, do we spend our money supporting local workers and in turn not helping out foreign producers? If this is done for the sake of making sure we are better off financially and to improve our own standing that is worrying to me, because the motive really becomes one of greed. On the other hand, one reason to support local efforts is the poor labor conditions/standards in foreign countries. Buying products from countries with a good record of supporting the workers can be a good reason to buy American instead of from say China. The same to me is true of an effort to buy local, if we are buying local just to support the people we know instead of the people we do not know, I feel we are ignoring the needs of others and privileging those around us simply because of proximity. Conversely buying local as an environmental effort to support less trucking/shipping costs and the resulting pollution is a good thing.

What it comes down, in my opinion is making sure we are thinking global for the right reasons, understanding that a love of world is a love of all people everywhere, and literally a love of the whole planet. We cannot talk about love in a more local sense until we ground it in that. Things like buying local are important, but only as long as they are not grounded in regionalism and nationalism, issues of false pride, and instead are about building a better more sustainable future for everyone, for the whole world. Well, that is a start to what I am thinking/wrestling with today.