My hero, Francesco Bernardone, My guy, John Edwards
Cross-posted from: http://blog.johnedwards.com/user/Guadalupe59
user icon Guadalupe59 in Diaries Feed of Guadalupe59's Diary
1/22/2008 at 3:56 AM EST
My parents moved from Mexico City to southern California with their first three children and number four on the way in the 50s. The first house I lived in backed up to a farm. I remember running outside to watch the neat old bi-plane crop-dusters flying so low over that farm. How cool that was! My younger brother was conceived in that house. My younger brother was born with Spina bifida. That birth defect was later linked to DDT, that's right, the stuff the cool crop-duster was spraying.
I'm not sure if that's what pushed Dad into being environmentally aware, but along with that, he became very involved in farm worker's rights, organizing huelgas, and he also became very active in the anti-Vietnam war movement.
My mother was in many ways a typical Mexican, Catholic mom. Where we had one image of Jesus on the cross in the house, we had images of the Virgin de Guadalupe all over the place. And in the garden, my mother's special place, St. Francis stood.
Mom would be out there tending to her plants and would talk about what an amazing man "San Francisco" was. Born to Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy Assisian cloth merchant, he was Christened Giovanni Bernardone by his mother Pica. His father later altered his name to Francesco. Francis, not happy at home land feeling a call to a greater good, left a life of comfort to aid the poor and down-trodden. "Can you imagine anyone doing that these days?" my mom would ask, in Spanish, rhetorically.
americancatholic.org:
St. Francis of Assisi, lover of all creation, champion of justice, patron saint of animals and the environment.
My mother loves all of Earth's little creatures and allowed her children to have many pets. As long as we were kind and tended them properly, pretty much anything went. I can't count how many wounded birds we took in in the hopes of making them well enough to return to the wild.
My father, a self-proclaimed agnostic, also admired St. Francis greatly. Dad says things like, "...now if these so-called Christians were more like St. Francis..."
americancatholic.org:
He walked away from comfort and wealth and declared himself "wedded to Lady Poverty", renounced all material possessions, and devoted himself to serving the poor.
"...that woudn't be too bad."
Hardly Christ-like, Francis rejected the wealth and corruption of the Vatican too. As Francis's popularity grew, he was seen as a threat. Pope Innocent III reluctantly gave verbal sanction to the Franciscan Rule, thus founding the Order of Friars Minor.
My parents taught my five siblings and me to be respectful of other people, animals and our Earth, and to join the struggles of those less fortunate than we.
americancatholic.org:
Through his example, St. Francis reminds us that we are called to bring about justice and peace in our world, to end violence and war, poverty and oppression and to protect our fragile planet.
Convinced that violence and war were wrong, St. Francis believed in peaceful dialogue with all our brothers and sisters. He calls us to be instruments of peace and healing by turning from weapons of violence to acts of love. "Happy those who endure in peace."
So how did all of this shape my choice for a presidential candidate? Let's see, poverty, the environment..., I'm for John Edwards. And when I say that I really wanted to be for a fellow Latino, a fellow woman or just a person of color, I really wanted to be. But no. It is John Edwards who speaks to the issues that matter most to me.
The biggest being the environment.
grist.org:
John Edwards is running left. He was, on climate and energy as on many other issues, the prime mover, staking out strong, comprehensive climate and energy positions that the other Democratic frontrunners later adopted. He's stumping for 80 percent cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, with 100 percent permit auctions, and fleshing that goal out with detailed proposals for big boosts in renewables and fuel efficiency, changes to the energy grid and efficiency standards, a green-jobs program, and more. Edwards can no longer claim to be the greenest Dem frontrunner -- that's a tight competition -- but he gets credit for getting there first.
The Friends of the Earth endorsement in October spoke was great too. Yeah, he had me at the environment.
His very smart Rural Recovery Act tackles other issues that are important to me. I work with small family farmers and their livestock in my very ag oriented, semi-rural area of California. Edwards proposals are well thought out and could really help here.
Poverty. It is the issue with which he launched his campaign, and it wasn't for popularity! Many people thought that it was in fact, a losing proposition. I didn't and I'm not alone.
Do I think John Edwards is another St. Francis? No, not close.
But is he speaking truth to power? Is he standing up for those less fortunate than himself? Is he standing up for family farmers and even the hogs they raise?
Yes to all of the above and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment