Life!!!

[KathleenElsie]

PART TWO

1. Pray with lectio divina over the Holy Scriptures relating to justice and peace.
2. Practice kindness everywhere.
3. Make your own bread and teach others how to do this. Build an outdoor bread oven as a community project.
4. Move to a poor or working class neighborhood.
5. Give books to a library.
6. Donate stuff to thrift stores.
7. Make intelligent use of pre-evangelistic techniques and materials, i.e. advertising, bumper stickers, tracts, prayer cards, greeting cards, stickers, etc.)
8. Make friends with poor people; be a good neighbor to them.
9. Adopt voluntary poverty as a lifestyle. Seek a certain indifference about material things and a humble gratefulness for the bounty of Creation.
10. Make intelligent use of pre-evangelistic techniques and materials, i.e. advertising, bumper stickers, tracts, prayer cards, greeting cards, stickers, etc.)
11. Make friends with poor people; be a good neighbor to them.
12. Adopt voluntary poverty as a lifestyle. Seek a certain indifference about material things and a humble gratefulness for the bounty of Creation.
13. Help students apply for college/job training and help them navigate the financial aid process.
14. Help students with their homework. Provide educational opportunities.
15. Give fish as necessary, but also teach fishing. Help provide fishing gear and tackle, and build fish ponds.
16. Give a pregnant unmarried mother a home in your own home. Treat her as though she was your own daughter.
17. Avoid economic reductionism.
18. Support political initiatives that protect a place for the economic activity of poor people, such as allowing vending/food sales at highway rest stops, public stadium parking lots, sidewalks, lawns of public buildings, also deregulation of personal transportation for hire (so that poor people can operate cabs, jitneys and buses); home businesses, food delivery, garment-making, crafts, and other microenterprise endeavors. Necessary reforms include regulatory/zoning/tax relief, loan funds/access to credit, an end to urban policies that destroy poor and working class neighborhoods, hiring people who live in poor neighborhoods to work on community development initiatives in their neighborhoods.
19. Support affordable housing: oppose redevelopment and tax increment financing schemes, support Single Room Occupancy hotels, enact affordable housing building codes that allow for alternative (and less expensive) construction methods such as straw bale, rammed earth, COB, oppose fake privatization schemes that benefit corporate interests and destroy housing for the poor.
20. Produce a public access cable show or a video on economic justice and peace.
21. Give away cassette tapes on economic justice and social peace issues.
22. Don’t give your kids toy guns.
23. Learn, practice, and teach non-violent conflict resolution alternatives.
24. Start a Catholic social justice publication, e-zine, list-serv, webzine, or website.
25. Tear up your credit and debit cards.
26. Learn to sew and teach others.
27. Practice a regular discipline of fasting and abstinence.
28. Teach people how to cook tasty, frugal, and nutritious meals. Prepare such food for your family and share it with others.
29. Be prepared for emergencies.
30. Avoid the television news except during emergencies.
31. Eat with your neighbors, regularly. Pot luck dinners provide immediate instant gratification for practicing distributism.
32. Compost.
33. Don’t waste energy.
34. Support ballot access for minor parties.
35. Take in stray cats and dogs.
36. Join an intentional distributist community. (Or start one.)
37. Encourage your catechists, priests, and bishops to provide proper formation in social justice.
38. Create yard and neighborhood shrines.
39. Speak at government meetings.
40. Listen to and learn from elders. If you are an elder, share your wisdom and experience.
41. Call in to talk radio programs and discuss issues from the perspective of justice and peace.
42. Smile at people you meet and leave them with a blessing of peace.
43. Drive kindly.
44. Oppose corporate welfare.
45. Support debt forgiveness for poor countries.
46. Welcome legal and illegal immigrants with hospitality.
47. Include global concerns in your participation in justice and peace.
48. Help the Church be just in its actions and relationships, and to make its resources available to support distributive initiatives. E.g., encourage parishes and dioceses to purchase from microenterprises, to make church buildings available for food banks and shelters, and church properties available for community gardens. Encourage composting at all church properties. Advocate that dioceses and parishes make capital investments in distributism, such as building community canning kitchens.
49. Breast feed your babies.