WITHOUT GRANDCHILDREN
By Paul McCaw
Corporations are people; we all know that!
God knows that too, and He loves them the same as all His children.
Sometimes it must be hard for God to love His corporations when Union Carbide commits monstrous crimes at Bhopal, or BP despoils the Gulf of Mexico, and Exxon spills oil willy-nilly all over the world.
But God forgives and understands. And there are reasons why we should too.
Imagine, for instance, young Exxon's barren childhood with no parents. No one to kiss him and tell him "there, there...". No one to tuck him in at night. He never had a brother or sister. Or a pony. No dog. Not even a chicken. Denied the chance to attend Sunday school, where could he ever learn compassion, empathy, honesty and responsibility?
Without a mother, young Exxon had no one to remind him, or nag him about finding some nice girl and having babies. Babies beget grandchildren. Without them, he would have little reason to imagine a happy and healthy future for his progeny, or the "land of the free" of patriot dreams, or purple mountain majesties, spacious skies, fruited plains, clean water and pristine air.
Grandparents pray for a peaceful future with decent jobs, health care, freedom from fear and want, comfortable retirement, and a protected environment.
Without grandchildren, a corporation becomes comfortable with the world of "Oliver Twist", "Little Dorritt" and the poorhouse. He's not bothered by a world of continuous warfare, where someone's children are systematically sent away to be maimed, traumatized and killed. He can dismiss a neighbor, dying because he is too poor to live. Nor is he bothered when thousands of multi-millionaires blithely share their country with millions upon millions of fellow citizens who can't afford to feed their children or take them to a doctor.
How easy it must be for BP and Enron to sit in their boardrooms and obsess about stock options and profits, to anticipate destroying their competitors or buying their next federal judge, or to relish the thought of their name on another sports stadium.
Without grandchildren, a lie becomes as reasonable as the truth, and pollution is simply a means to an end,
Posthumously submitted for Paul McCaw of Prescott, WA who died of cancer shortly after this writing.
Photo: www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org
Mr. McCaw had a real talent for the unvarnished truth.
ReplyDeleteIf I might answer the question, “When does a lie become reasonable?” The answer is when the truth blocks the path to self-interest.
And while I’m the last person in the world who should be quoting scripture, the phrase, “To thine own self be true,” seems inescapable during these dark days.
That was Shakespeare, not scripture, so you're OK.
ReplyDelete