6/14/2026 – On this first Sunday following the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, celebrated this past Friday, we would like to bring forth two concepts that are typically not thought of together: compassion and imagination. The French stopped receiving the sacrament of Communion, the Eucharist, because they became crippled with fear, the Jansenist heresy. They stopped receiving the bread of life out of fear of sin and death. Their imagination narrowed to defeat their own salvation. Like fear, greed can also rob us of our imagination. It can trap us into thinking that is neither beneficial to us nor to others. Greed can narrow imagination to defeat innovation.
As a gardener, we would like to offer a pro tip to other gardeners: think of your garden as layers that interlock and interact. The vulnerabilities of one plant can be compensated for by the strengths of another. Their combined ecosystem thus becomes the product of both of their weaknesses and of their strengths to create something more ecologically stable, healthy, and productive.
Capitalism with its strict focus on efficiency at the expense of other considerations often lacks layers and imagination. In its ruthless focus on immediate return to the detriment of workers, animals, or the environment, it might be getting less gain than if it had exercised more imagination, using layers to cultivate a mutually beneficial economic ecosystem.
Are pigs or chicken tortured for the sociopathic satisfaction and the greed of their owners beneficial to the planet, humans, animals, our relationship with them, or our collective soul? Is it beneficial on a long-term basis? No, obviously not. But this approach is also likely not the most efficient economic approach.
It would be one that includes compassion, not necessarily motivated as Jesus’s love, selfless and sacrificial, but motivated by an understanding of how individual inputs can become multiple outputs simply by wise pairing and layering to yield even greater return in the short- and the longer-terms for all parties. Today’s economic heresy is the idolatry of efficiency. Its exclusive focus is neither optimal nor wise, and the lack of compassion and imagination is impoverishing our planet, the only one we will ever have to live on, and our souls.
What the Cult of Efficiency Costs Us
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