loaves and fishes

We're reading Loaves and Fishes by Dorothy Day in class. With Peter Maurin, she started the Catholic Worker Movement, which emphasized love, community, and voluntary poverty as a means to combat poverty. There were so many great parts of the book, but specifically wanted to share this poem by Peter

A Case for Utopia – Peter Maurin

The world would be better off

if people tried to become better,

and people would become better

if they stopped trying to become better off.

For when everyone tries to become

better off

nobody is better off.

But when everyone tries to become better

everybody is better off.

Everyone would be rich

if nobody tried to become richer,

and nobody would be poor

if everybody tried to be the poorest.

And everybody would be what he ought to be

if everybody tried to be

what he wants the other fellow to be.

I think it's a great elaboration of Jesus' view of love to all people (Luke 6:27-36, Matthew 25:31-40, Mark 12:29-31)

lists

We just had an Intercordia meeting last weekend in preparation for the summer. One of the activities we had to do was to make lists. Here's a couple of examples in no specific order.

what I think I will miss most:
1. friends and family
2. home food
3. predictability of a familiar schedule
4. my own church
5. conveniences like personal computer, cell phone

my biggest fears:
1. getting sick or hurt
2. homesick
3. people not liking me
4. not being able to adjust or adapt
5. not making a difference

I know that part of the experience is to be without those comforts and learning to adjust -- yet it's precisely those things that I fear. What if my stomach just can't handle the food there? What if my host family doesn't like me? I guess it's those things that you have to overcome. It would be pretty pointless if everything was easy and exactly the same as what I have here! It's scary yes, but I am still incredibly incredibly excited for my trip.

poor teddy

So I think everyone agrees that today was an altogether slushy mushy gloomy day. I came home with my socks and boots soaked thoroughly through from all those failed attempts to leap over those 2 feet wide puddles at street intersections. (You know... those puddles by the curb that cars love to drive through just to make pedestrians miserable)
But I saw one that was in an even worse situation than me. I was walking by OCAD toward Chinatown, and as I crossed the street, I saw a little teddy bear in the slush. A poor white teddy bear with red and green decorations in the path of all the traffic - obviously feeling the post-Christmas blues.
I wanted to pick it up and clean it off, but walked on because it was cold and cars were waiting for me to cross in order for them to turn. Isn't it sad how things like that are left there? Sometimes buying a new one would be easier than going back to search for where you dropped it and then having to wash it and clean it and maybe try to unflatten it.
I don't like it but I still am an active member of the materialistic and disposable culture. Seems futile to go against it sometimes. Maybe I'll go see if the teddy bear is still there tomorrow...

$50

It's really exciting when I see "A donation has been made through your CanadaHelps GivingPage" in my email. The other day my internet was going on and off and I received one of these messages. So I tried to sign on to my giving page to see who it was. Now, it was taking forever to load (when my internet is messed up, it's REALLY messed up.) But I kept trying and trying - reloading, opening a new browser, unplugging and replugging my router, etc...
I think what would have frustrated me most is an anonymous donor. I won't know who to thank. And I would always be wondering, is it a modest friend? someone that I don't get along with but silently extending a kind gesture? a mysterious benefactor? a secret admirer?
After waiting an hour or so, I was able to get in and see who it was. Thank you so much! And I also want to thank everyone else who has been generous in donating :)