On The Other Hand: The Balance of Beauty, Ugly, and Utility

On The Other Hand: The Balance of Beauty, Ugly, and Utility

World Hunger - Solution or Problem?

Did I hear it right yesterday – that Bush is suggesting that we spend $750 million of taxpayer money to help the hungry in the world? I don’t have any details – just heard the headline.

This sure sounds good – makes a good soundbite – but is it possible that we really want to do this?

Let me understand the lay of the land with regard to what we do as a nation to impact food supply around the world:

• The government takes my tax money, and subsidizes farmers to not grow food, in order to try and keep food prices higher.
• The government keeps food prices higher by controlling trade with higher prices as a goal, taking yet more of my money.
• The government takes my tax money, and subsidizes the use of food crops to create ethanol. This uses the tax money I give to them to subsidize something that I don’t believe in, with the result being higher food prices that I must pay at the store.
• I haven’t even gotten into the subsidies that they pay to the big agricultural firms and the big oil firms, all combining to continue the cycle of high prices that they have created.
• I haven’t even gotten into the moral implications of our habits and practices in this country with regard to how we produce and consume food.

I could go on, but from a purely fiscally conservative perspective, it would appear that the government uses a lot of MY money that they take from me in the form of taxes, and they use this money to ASSURE that food prices remain high, and that food availability around the world remains low. Then they want to act as though this is a problem that they want to solve, and of course, their solution to the problem is to take yet more of my tax money and throw it at the problem.

This is absurdity. What takes it from absurdity to the realm of moral crime is that they will most likely assure that most of this tax money of yours and mine that they say that they want to use to solve this problem will most likely go right into the pockets of the big agricultural firms to assure that the problem continues, rather than into programs and policies that might actually encourage independence on the part of poor regions of the world.

Can someone find a more clear example of moral bankruptcy?

The Balance of Beauty, Ugly, and Utility

I design and build gardens for people. It is a dream job in many ways – the ability to use as your palate beautiful plants that will evolve and grow each year.

As a result of this vocation, people often want to talk about plants, and get ideas on which plants are the “best”. Of course, as with most things, “it depends”, right?

Each plant brings its own particular beauty, expressed in many different ways. Some plants compliment one another, some will always clash. Each has its own “hardiness” for cold, or heat, or sunlight, or shade, or soil, or moisture. And of course, they each have their own “ugliness” too.

Right now I am looking out my office window at the purple Delosperma that lies drooping over my rock walls. It looks brown and dead – starkly unattractive really as the Colorado springtime is exploding in the garden around it. However, I know that by the time that June gets here, those ugly masses of drooping brown will have transformed once again into beautiful bright drapes of purple and green dressing-up the granite walls.

So, I accept this little period of ugly, knowing the beauty that is to come once again.

Our relationships with others are like this too I think. Perfection is pretty hard to find in anything – particularly in people it seems. I know that the gap between me and anything approaching perfection is too great a distance to see on the clearest of days. So, the people who are my friends, family, lovers, or whatever, must have decided that even though I have my seasons of ugly, the beauty and utility that I offer makes the ugly season worth overlooking. No accounting for that…

What is it that makes this possible – this ability to overlook the ugly season that a person displays in order to see the beauty when that season is upon us? I have to say that when I am gardening, there is truly some level of connection that I have with the plants that I put into the ground. I know that plant, and I know its many phases, and I know what it is finicky about, and I know that if I treat it right, and place it right, and assure proper care, that it will – once again – wash the garden with the beauty that I know so well.

My friends are like that too I think. It is that connection that you develop with a person that allows you to rest assured that you understand the balance of beauty and ugly and utility in this person well enough to deal with them, and to help them grow as they are meant to grow. The tighter and closer the connection is, the more in harmony we become with each other, and the thing that once seemed only ugly, can now become balance and harmony.