My sister graduated from the University of Phoenix last weekend. As a graduation present, I bought her a book of phrases and prayers for graduates. Before I put the book in the gift bag, I flipped through a couple of pages. There were inspirational and titillating quotes, passionate prayers, and prayers meant to give comfort in times of need. One kind of prayer seemed missing, though: praises. I have always been told that praises are the best kind of prayers, and I always personally felt they may give God something of a break from all of the complaints and requests offered up around the world.
In response to this realization, I thought it would be appropriate to not just defame situations around the globe that relate to ethics, but to pause for a while on an issue that has been, in my opinion, handled in an ethical manner. Kind of like trying to send praises to God more often than we ask for or complain about something.
When the BP oil spill first happened, everyone was horrified. I was in Nebraska at the time, among Northerners who had never seen the Gulf Coast. It felt like a part of me, of my childhood and the world around me, had been wrenched away, leaving nothing but slick, unctuous residue behind. I watched CNN in the morning during breakfast, listening to the reports of the various attempts at halting the flow of oil and of rescuing the wildlife, and felt at the same time utterly isolated from the event and right there with the citizens living on the coast of Louisiana.
Today, I read another article about the BP spill in the New York Times, which describes how many scientists are coming to the conclusion that the effects of the oil spill have not been as bad as previous ones (e.g. the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska) or as severe as was predicted:
True, the main motivation for BP to be trying to fix their mistake is probably business-related, but it is still commendable, I think, that humanity is concerned enough about the welfare of the world's ecosystems that we not only try to fix what we have done to hurt wildlife, but to continue to work even when the whistles stop blowing. My grandpa, who ran a stucco company, always said that you had to watch the workers. The minute he left the work site, they would often take a "break" until he came back, sometimes hours after leaving. Although scientists are not sure how the oil spill will affect the local ecosystems in the long term, the media and many scientists seem to be essentially leaving the work site. But BP and other companies are still working.
I recognize that BP is required to administer measures to counteract whatever consequences arise from the oil spill, but I still think that they deserve some recognition for their willingness to own up to their mistakes and go above the required measures to ensure that everything be righted. The world needs more of this, I think. We have heard too much about banks and other businesses that have played the system, cheated taxpayers of the government's money, and refuse to own up to their shortcomings. I'd like to hear more about companies honestly working to make our world better, if only in righting their mistakes.
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