A Statement of Philosophy (Sort of)

by Katie Cook

Back in 1991, when I first began editing what was then Seeds Magazine, the Council of Stewards asked me to publish a statement of my editorial and social philosophy. Now that the magazine has metamorphosed into Seeds of Hope Publishers and produces a variety of hunger publications, people are still interested in the editorial philosophy that lies behind all of our work. The musings below compose an updated version of the original statement.

I still find it difficult to articulate a definitive statement of philosophy, perhaps because my social philosophy is such an integral part of me that I can’t just take it out in one piece and look at it.

Someone asked me several years ago for a file of graphics and clippings on stewardship. I was stymied; I didn’t have one. I discovered soon, however, that the reason I didn’t have one is because almost all of my files involved stewardship. So perhaps the reason it's hard for me to just whip out a statement on Seeds and hunger is because almost all of me involves what Seeds is about. Perhaps it would be easier to try to describe some of that involvement.

I think I should begin by saying that the realities surrounding hunger and poverty make up the central issue in my life, and have for two or three decades. Since I was seventeen years old, I have had a keen interest in ministries to the poor. At that time I interpreted that interest as a call to specific missions in the United States; and, although I have since reinterpreted it, I’ve never doubted that sense of call. No matter what happened, I always found myself returning, again and again, to some kind of contact with and response to poverty populations.

It seems that everything I have done in my adult life has prepared me for this decade of work for Seeds -- working in radio, freelance writing and editing, oral history, church ministries in rural and urban settings, and -- finally --working at Caritas of Waco, an interfaith, ecumenical agency that serves the poor in many ways. Even my graduate studies, which involved spending a year researching the life of Francis of Assisi, cemented my determination to stay in the occupations that serve the poor.

In fact, that year spent with Francis drew me toward some drastic lifestyle commitments. In 1986 I took covenant promises to become a part of a Franciscan-based lay order. This perhaps made my involvement with poverty issues more visible; I somehow found myself to be one of the “simplify your life and feed the poor” spokespersons for my community.

The protagonist in Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea Trilogy, the wizard Ged, tells one of his disciples that one’s path, if one listens and follows closely enough, narrows until there is clearly only one path to follow. I think this describes my pilgrimage. It includes many strange things that may not seem to fit, yet they all somehow do fit. It becomes more and more focused, until the only thing that really matters to me is what Jesus says in the latter part of Matthew 25.

I have two motives for wanting to continue producing Seeds publications. The first is that I am convinced with all my being that we are all put on the earth to help each other, and I think that Seeds can still enable and inspire those who have chosen the most difficult task. The second is that I love to write, and to design publications of different kinds.

One of the things I have endeavored to do since leaving work in direct assistance is to keep in touch somehow with low-income folks in my own community. I pray that their reality will never become to me just a bunch of letters on a piece of paper. I hope to avoid ever hearing myself one day saying to a hungry sister, “I haven’t got time to help you; I have to go write an article about hunger.” -- lkc