Thomas Merton, Catholic monk and spiritual writer, reflects here on the way a market environment shapes everything – including our concept of love.

Our philosophy of life is not something we create all by ourselves out of nothing. Our ways of thinking, even our attitudes toward ourselves, are more and more determined from the outside. Even our love tends to fit ready-made forms. We consciously or unconsciously tailor our notions of love according to patterns we are exposed to day after day….

Love [Merton begins to examine one of these patterns] is regarded as a deal. The deal presupposes that we all have needs which have to be fulfilled by means of exchange. In order to make a deal you have to appear in the market with a worthwhile product, or if the product is worthless, you can get by if you dress it up in a good-looking package. We unconsciously think of ourselves as objects for sale on the market. We want to be wanted. We want to attract customers. We want to look like the kind of product that makes money. …In doing this we come to consider ourselves and others not as persons but as products, as “goods,” or in other words, as packages. We appraise one another commercially. We size each other up and make deals with a view to our own profit. We do not give ourselves in love, we make a deal that will enhance our own product, and therefore no deal is final. Our eye is already on the next deal, and this next deal need not necessarily be with the same customer. Life is more interesting when you make a lot of deals with a lot of new customers.–Thomas Merton

From “Love and Need: Is Love a Package or a Message?” in Love and Living (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985)

“The trouble with this commercialized idea of love,” write the folks at The Merton Institute, “is that it diverts your attention more and more from the essentials to the accessories of love. You are no longer able to really love the other person, for you become obsessed with the effectiveness of your own package, your own product, your own market value.”

You are are not a commodity. You are a human being – distinct and lovely and greatly loved in the eyes of God.

On this blog in January, I reported spying random bits of environmental art in Rock Creek Park. “Stone bee hives,” I called them.

Apparently, Fox News also spotted the art cairns and followed up with an article and video. Here’s an excerpt:

Sculptures are popping up in Rock Creek Park. In fact, they’re right in the middle of the creek itself.

Some people might not even notice at first, but once they see the sculptures made of stone and twigs, they are intrigued. One jogger told FOX 5, “Someone’s probably just trying to express themselves a little bit.”

We have no idea who’s creating these sculptures, but a little detective work reveals a few clues. Nearby someone’s written some letters – a K and a U. Then just a few feet away you can see the spot where somebody was breaking large rocks into pieces to make them just the right size.

Watch Fox’s video here:

http://www.myfoxdc.com/video/videoplayer.swf

Check back in for a revelation of who this mystery artist might be.

While many a gay poet has held the high post of UK poet laureate, a woman now has that chance too. And a Scot, to boot! Ah, yes. The pen IS mightier than the sword (or the claymore, as the case may be).

Congratulations to poet Carol Ann Duffy who was recently named as the national poet laureate of Britain — after 350 years she is the first woman to hold a post that has been filled by William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Ted Hughes.

Duffy, a Glaswegian, is well-respected as a poetry advocate and teacher in the U.K. school system and has published more than 30 books. “Her work often displays a sly, feminist take on history and contains a strong vein of social commentary,” according the AP story.

“A truly brilliant modern poet who has stretched our imaginations by putting the whole range of human experiences into lines that capture the emotions perfectly,” said Prime Minister Gordon Brown about Duffy.

Here’s a poem from her Selected Poems:

Shooting stars
By Carol Ann Duffy

After I no longer speak they break our fingers
to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca Rachel Ruth
Aaron Emmanuel David, stars on all our brows
Beneath the gaze of men with guns. Mourn for our daughters,

upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me.
You waited for the bullet. Fell. I say, Remember.
Remember those appalling days which make the world
forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened

his belt. My bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear.
Between the gap of corpses I could see a child.
The soldiers laughed. Only a matter of days separate
this from acts of torture now. They shot her in the eye.

How would you prepare to die, on a perfect April evening
with young men gossiping and smoking by the graves?
My bare feet felt the earth and urine trickled
down my legs. I heard the click. Not yet. A trick.

After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.
After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.
After the history lesson children run to their toys the world
turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra…

Sister, if seas part us, do you not consider me?
Tell them I sang the ancient psalms at dusk
inside the wire and strong men wept. Turn thee
unto me with mercy, for I am desolate and lost.