2 Chronicles, Chapter 19, Verse 5-7
5 He appointed judges in the land, in all the
fortified cities of Judah, city by city, 6 and he said to them: “Take care what you
do, for the judgment you give is not human but divine; for when it comes to
judgment God will be with you.7 and now, let the fear of the LORD
be upon you. Act carefully, for with the LORD,
our God, there is no injustice, no partiality, no bribe-taking.”
This was Jehoshaphat
said to the judges that he was appointing. Reform always includes justice. The
Holy Spirit calls us to be just and merciful to human needs. Today pray for
those who are in need and may not ask for help. Today, look for and act to
address the real needs of all humans.
A
team of researchers at Arizona State University, led by evolutionary
psychologist Douglas Kenrick, has noticed that most people really like being
parents. Despite the challenges of child-rearing, Kenrick
reported that the warmth, the love, the creativity, the sense of purpose and
belonging—all of these factors and more make parenting the most enjoyable of
all activities. Kenrick’s team reported this breaking news, which is just a
ho-hum factoid to loving parents, in the journal Perspectives on
Psychological Science. Kenrick and his group proposed a revision to
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which takes into account our deepest
biological drives. In the new Need
Hierarchy, Maslow’s fifth-tier need Self-Actualization has been supplanted at
the top by a motivation which Maslow hadn’t even mentioned:
Parenting.
What Is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs….and Do I Need It?
In
my undergraduate days at the University of Michigan, the darling of the Psych
Department was Abraham Maslow. A psychologist and motivational
researcher, Maslow believed that humans’ most basic needs are inborn; and he
developed his acclaimed Hierarchy of Needs in the 1950s to
explain how these needs motivate us all. According to Maslow, our most
basic needs for survival (food, water and shelter) must be satisfied before we
can turn our attention to higher-level needs such as influence and personal
development. If there is a threat to our lower-level needs (a house fire,
for example, or job loss or nationwide famine), we will no longer be concerned
about higher-level needs but will instead focus on rebuilding the base of
security that we require.
Maslow’s five-tier Needs Hierarchy ranked the categories of needs, bottom to top, as follows:
- Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
- Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
- Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
- Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
- Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
In
the 1970s, behavioral scientists slipped in two additional categories after Esteem
needs:
- Cognitive
needs (knowledge and meaning), and
- Aesthetic
needs (appreciation and search for
beauty, form).
And
in the 1990s, scientists took one more step toward a benevolent view of Need
Hierarchy by topping Self-Actualization
with an even higher need, the need for Transcendence. Once an
individual achieved personal potential (Self-Actualization), scientists
claimed, he or she would then seek Transcendence by helping another to achieve Self-Actualization—for
example, through volunteer work in a disadvantaged community. What has emerged
now, though—based on research studies conducted in 2010—is a new understanding
that devoted parents find the deepest satisfaction in shaping the hearts and
souls of the children who have been entrusted to their care. While
non-parenting adults may expect the rigors of child-rearing to be an impediment
to happiness, the opposite is true: Those who have actually experienced
the joy of giving selflessly to a helpless infant achieve a level of wellbeing
that is unmatched in human experience. Those who patiently teach a
toddler to tie her shoes, or help a middle schooler to make friends in the
classroom, report greater satisfaction than do those whose focus is personal
fulfillment through career, marriage or other adult relationship. Next in the
pyramid, according to Kenrick and team, is Mate Retention– a marriage which
lasts– and before that comes Mate Attraction (finding that special
person). It would appear that all of our deepest longings derive from the
complex biological urge to reproduce.
Rogationtide Monday[2]
Rogation Days are a
Roman Catholic "baptism" of the Robigalia, a pagan procession
to gain favor from the Robigo, the Roman god of grain. Since the Church had no
objection to praying for the harvest, it threw out Robigo while keeping the
procession and prayers. Today would be a good day to reflect on what we want to
harvest this fall; so like farmers we must till the soil of our soul reflecting
this day on our use of our TIME and look at in what ways we may offer our time
to Christ to help build a harvest for His Kingdom.
International Day for Biological Diversity[3]
The International Day
for Biological Diversity aims to raise awareness and understanding of
biological diversity and issues surrounding it. The day also serves to
highlight possible strategies to protect biodiversity, which refers to the
variety of life on the planet. Today, habitats are degrading and leading to a
reduction in biodiversity, a problem that directly affects human well-being,
poverty reduction and global sustainable development. The International Day for
Biological Diversity was proclaimed in December of 2000 by the United Nations General
Assembly. It is celebrated annually on May 22, a day that commemorates the
adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992.
International Day for Biological
Diversity Facts & Quotes
·
The 2016 theme for the day of International
Biodiversity Day was Mainstreaming Biodiversity; Sustaining People and their
Livelihoods.
·
According to the UN, more than 3 billion people
depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods and 1.6 billion
people rely on forests and non-timber forest products for their livelihoods.
·
Habitat degradation and the loss of biodiversity
are currently threatening the livelihood of over 1 billion people who live in
dry and subhumid climates.
·
Over 50% of the world’s plant species and 42% of
all terrestrial vertebrate species are native to a specific country and do not
naturally exist elsewhere.
·
We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity
as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to
humanity. – E. O. Wilson, American biologist, researcher, theorist and author.
International Day for Biological
Diversity Top Events and Things to Do
·
Watch a movie or documentary on the importance
and irreplaceability of the world’s biodiversity. Some suggestions are: The
Cove, Oceans, Plastic Planet and the 11th hour.
·
Spread awareness on social media by using the
hashtags #InternationalDayForBiologicalDiversity, #IDBD and
#BiologicalDiversity.
·
Join the international Day for Biological
Diversity Google Hangout where you can video stream yourself and with other
people to discuss biological diversity with like-minded individuals.
·
Organize or participate in a local cleanup
effort. Biodiversity is very negatively impacted by human trash and pollution.
·
Donate to the center for biological diversity.
All funds are put towards securing a future for all species hovering on the
brink of extinction with a focus on protecting lands, waters and climate that
species need to survive. Consider funds like WWF, the Animal Project and
Defenders of Wildlife.
Why should Catholics care? The Church’s social teaching calls on
Catholics to uphold the life and dignity of every human person, to be in
solidarity with our brothers and sisters worldwide, and to care for God’s
creation. Since the extraction of oil, gas, minerals, and timber affects the
poor most acutely, the Church has been addressing issues related to extractive
industries around the world. Catholic agencies and affected people have been
engaged in advocacy with their own governments, international financial
institutions, and extractives companies, urging them to become more
transparent, to reduce the negative impacts of resource extraction on people
and the environment, and to increase benefits for the poor most especially. In
the U.S. bishops’ first statement on environmental matters, renewing the Earth (1991),
they draw attention to the ethical dimensions of the ecological crisis,
exploring the link between ecology and poverty and the implications for human
life and dignity. Bishops of every part of the world have expressed concern
regarding extractive industries. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI, expanding on the
issue of the environment in Caritas in Veritate, stated: Let us hope that the
international community and individual governments will succeed in countering
harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the
competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and
social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with
transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or
future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the
climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a
readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity
with the weakest regions of the planet (No. 50).[4]
Daily Devotions/Prayers
[4]http://www.usccb.org/about/justice-peace-and-human-development/catholic-social-ministry-gathering/upload/2012-02ExtractivesBackgrounder-final.pdf
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