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Easy Essays from From Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement:

BIG SHOTS AND LITTLE SHOTS

http://www.easyessays.org/book_2/index.html

America is all shot to pieces
since the little shots
are no longer able
to become big shots.
When the little shots
are not satisfied
to remain little shots
and try to become
big shots,
then the big shots
are not satisfied
to remain big shots
and try to become
bigger shots.
And when the big shots
become bigger shots
then the little shots
become littler shots.
And when the little shots
become littler shots
because the big shots
become bigger shots
then the little shots
get mad at the big shots.
And when the little shots
get mad at the big shots
because the big shots
by becoming bigger shots
make the little shots
littler shots
they shoot the big shots
full of little shots.
But by shooting the big shots
full of little shots
the little shots
do not become big shots;
they make everything all shot.
And I don’t like
to see the little shots
shoot the big shots
full of little shots;
that is why
I am trying to shoot
both the big shots
and the little shots
full of hot shots.

Link to more of Peter Maurin’s Easy Essays
http://www.easyessays.org/

Blow the Dynamic

Writing about the Catholic Church,
a radical writer says:
“Rome will have to do more
than to play a waiting game;
she will have to use
some of the dynamite
inherent in her message.”
To blow the dynamite
of a message
is the only way
to make the message dynamic.
If the Catholic Church
is not today
the dominant social dynamic force,
it is because Catholic scholars
have taken the dynamite
of the Church,
have wrapped it up
in nice phraseology,
placed it in an hermetic container
and sat on the lid.
It is about time
to blow the lid off
so the Catholic Church
may again become
the dominant social dynamic force.

Christianity Untried

Chesterton says:
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Christianity has not been tried because
people thought it was impractical.

And men have tried everything except Christianity.
And everything that men have tried has failed.

God and Mammon

Christ says: “The dollar you have is the dollar you give.”

The Banker says: “The dollar you have is the dollar you keep.”
Christ says: “You cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon.”
“‘You cannot.’ And all our education consists in trying to find out how we can,” says Robert Louis Stevenson.
“The poor are the true children of the Church”, says Bossuet.
“Modern society has made the bank account the standard of values”, says Charles Peguy.

Share Your Wealth

God wants us to be our brother’s keeper.
To feed the hungry,
to clothe the naked,
to shelter the homeless,
to instruct the ignorant,
at a personal sacrifice,
is what God
wants us to do.
What we give to the poor
for Christ’s sake