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)