Go outside and play Falls and fresh air can teach kids the most
important lessons of faith and life. If you want peace,
cultivate creation," Pope Benedict XVI said in his 2010 World
Day of Peace reflection, arguably a message not just for the new
year but for the new decade. With one sentence Benedict adroitly
tied together a gang of the major preoccupations of Catholic
social teaching with Pope Paul VI's radical 1972 admonishment:
"If you want peace, work for justice." Peace is not merely a
cultural goal of human longing and endeavor but an integral part
of creative unity, respecting and securing human dignity
indivisible from esteeming and protecting the gift of the
natural world. How do we cultivate creation? We could start by
being better stewards of that part of creation we are most
powerfully connected to: our children. A study from Britain
reports that kids there have enjoyed a declining rate of
childhood injury. You know, the scuffs and cuts and breaks from
falls from trees and crashed bikes and climb