Economics & Communion
This month's livingCity offers its readers a lesson on how relationships and economics, reciprocity and profits can work hand in hand - July 2009
01/07/2009
Looking in depth at the experience of those involved in the Economy of Communion in Freedom, exploring just what the term 'relationship capital' might mean to a serious business owner, learning of the academic groundings for this new way of doing business... we hope our readers will find in this six article series a vision for a new economy which is based on the human person but at the same time is exceptionally profitable.
Here is a peek at some business owners and researchers featured this month in Living City...
An Indiana-based environmental consultant service, Mundell & Associates, has opened its doors to an internship program for youth who hope to start EoC businesses. The company’s new building has become the focal point for a number of the local community’s activities. The company’s relationship capital has brought unexpected additional business: a contract with the largest pipeline in the U.S. and a geothermal project developed by a university that is of interest to the U.S. Department of Energy
Linda Specht, a business professor at Trinity University in Texas, offers credit courses in EoC business principles. Last month she co-authored a paper for a management conference in Liverpool, England. (see Trinity University EoC or the EoC Facebook)
Benedict XVI in the Holy Land
A picture that will live on in history's memory, taken at the close of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Middle East, highlights a journey that at times was perilous but yet, in the words of Jerusalem's papal nuncio, breathed new hope into the dilemmas that afflict the area.
Rabbi Rosen spontaneously grabbed the pope’s hand and held it high, inviting the pope to do the same with Sheik Muafek Tarif, the Druze spiritual leader in Israel.
The pope said in his address that day, “Our different religious traditions have a powerful potential to promote a culture of peace.”
Read more of Benedict's Mideast travels and the three fold sphere of dialog in which the pope reached out, offering his hopes and prayers for peace.
Three Currents of Spiritual History
Contemplation, Action and Community - three ways yet one. Michele Vandeleene continues his series on the church as communion. Reflecting on the three historical paths to finding God, Vandeleene shows how they are in fact the same, with each leading to 'The Way' - Jesus. Vandeleene shows how it is a balance between making a personal choice of God and living mutual love in a community.
This is the essence of the spirituality lived by Chiara Lubich and her followers in the Focolare Movement. A community where each member's personal choice of God leads each to love the other.
This then leads to mutual love among the community. And in this community God can make his presence known and real, helping many others to find the true peace and happiness only found in God.
Read the whole series written by Michele Vandeleene, a professor of theology at the Teresianum Pontifical Institute in Rome
Sharing Your Story
Posting Online Comments
You will remember from last month our series of stories on the Jewish-Christian Encounter in Jerusalem, Walking Together in Jerusalem. An online reader, Giovanna, left a very touching comment to one of these stories. You can read it below.
We encourage all of you to share your comments, impressions and experiences with us online. It's easy. Just open any story online at livingCity and click 'comment' at the bottom of the page. You can comment on the current issue's stories or look at the back issues for inspiration. This way we start to build a publication together and live mutual love right away.
Here is what Giovanna had to say....we look forward to your stories soon...
Submitted by giovanna on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 3:08pm
I read this sitting shoulder to shoulder with my Israeli sister-in-law, who was visiting us in the US for a couple of days during a longer trip that encompassed the two Americas. During the Gaza attacks she had been critical of her own government for attacking civilians. We read this in silence. In spite of her original opposition, she seemed to appreciate very much that neither testimony expressed hatred for or even criticism of Israel. When she got to the passage in which one of the writers says, "we realized that the soldiers, too, were people we must love with all our hearts," she asked me what it meant. I asked, "What puzzles you?" she said, "what does the author mean by 'loving' the soldiers?" I told her about Jesus’ commandment to love everyone. She nodded thoughtfully. I was struck by how these stories that were originally told in Jerusalem circled the world and reached someone who lives right there, but would not have encountered them if they hadn't been published in Living City. Love -- the love of the writers and the love of the people who make Living City possible -- ripples and spreads in unforeseeable ways."
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