{"id":18930,"date":"2020-06-05T09:15:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T13:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18930"},"modified":"2020-06-05T09:15:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T13:15:55","slug":"loaves-and-fishes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18930","title":{"rendered":"Loaves and Fishes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Alternative Community<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Loaves\nand Fishes<\/strong><br>\nFriday, \u202fJune 5, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3mm4K9JW_Yo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned\nthat the only solution is <em>love and that\nlove comes with community<\/em>. \u2014Dorothy Day<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone\nrelies on community in some way or another, no matter what our personal,\nsocial, or economic circumstances. No one can do it all\u2014feed, clothe, heal,\ncomfort, house, employ, and educate\u2014for ourselves or our families. Despite our\ncurrent obsession with independence and individualism, we were never meant to\ntry! From the very beginning of the evolutionary process, species have worked\ntogether in mutually beneficial ways to survive. Mammals particularly have a\ntrack record of fostering the young of others within their species and kinship\ngroup, but it happens across or between species as well. Even the \u201cfittest,\u201d\nbiggest, and strongest do not survive without the cooperation of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nAyni Institute, an organization that envisions systemic changes through\nreciprocity and mutual aid, points out that human societies have worked this\nway for thousands of years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In hostile\nenvironments and less than ideal situations people came together, cooperated in\norder to survive, and continued our legacy of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As tribes we\ncollaborated, traded, and built cultures around our collective identities. We\ncreated federations and large and loose organizations of reciprocity across\ngroups. . . . Those arrangements created practices, rituals, wisdom that\nsustained life for thousands of years. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our history is\nnot a history of competition, rather a history of collaboration. We must\ndevelop alternatives that have memory, that seek to bring the evolutionary\nwisdom of the past in relationship to our current reality. . . . [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our\nown Christian scripture and tradition teaches this insight. All four Gospels\ncontain some version of the miracle of the \u201cloaves and fishes,\u201d where Jesus\nfeeds the multitudes from only a small amount of food (see Matthew 14:13\u201321,\nMark 6:30\u201344, Luke 9:10\u201317, John 6:1\u201315). However, without the willingness of\nthe few who shared the little they had, the miracle could not have taken place.\nMany have proposed that, in reality, the \u201cmiracle\u201d was the generosity lying\ndormant within the crowds. The resources were there waiting to be called forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\u2019\nexample of mutual aid was so inspirational to Dorothy Day (1897\u20131980), the\nfounder of the Catholic Worker, that she called her book about the movement <em>Loaves and Fishes<\/em>. She wrote, \u201cYoung people say, What good can one person\ndo? What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one\nbrick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the\none action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our\nhearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know\nthat God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and\nfishes.\u201d [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May we all pray\nfor an \u201cincrease of love in our hearts\u201d that will awaken, transform, and\nmultiply the impact of our actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alternative Community Loaves and Fishes Friday, \u202fJune 5, 2020 We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community. \u2014Dorothy Day Everyone relies on community in some way or another, no matter what our personal, social, or economic circumstances. No one can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18930"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18931,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18930\/revisions\/18931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}