January 18, 2012: Dorothy Day: Made in USA Christian Anarchist and a review of ALL IS GRACE
[
Related Background: January 11, 2012: It's ALL a God Thing ] It
takes a deep faith in Jesus to speak the truth about Jesus, and only one with
the deepest of faith will dare to speak the truth that Jesus spoke. One who did
was Dorothy Day [1897-1980] who founded
the Catholic Worker Movement and is a current candidate for canonization. Author Jim Forest knew
Dorothy as a coworker and friend and his recent release, “ALL IS GRACE: A
Biography of Dorothy Day” draws from Dorothy’s personal letters and diaries to
presents us with a ‘saint’ who knew herself to be “a mean impatient soul”
although others called her holy.
In her early twenties, Dorothy
hung with playwrights, socialists, communists, anarchists, bohemians, chain-smoked,
drank and wrote an autobiographical novel based on her passionate love affair
that broke up the day she had an abortion and rebound into a marriage to a man
sixteen years her senior that broke up when she realized she was using him.
Not long afterwards, as an unwed mother she shocked her progressive friends
when she announced she was entering the Roman Catholic Church and from the
inside, she also began to critique it and agitated church as much as state in The
Catholic Worker newspaper she founded in 1933.
In her penny a copy paper,
Day publicly proclaimed her faith and commitment to the poor, to seek social
justice and struggle for a green revolution and new society “where it is easier
to be good.” Day understood that only the
works of mercy could lead to justice and peace and she readily challenged the
works of war. The works of mercy include
feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the needy, visiting
prisoners, sheltering the homeless and caring for the ill. Day is famous for noting that
“all our problems stem from our acceptance of this dirty rotten system” and it disturbed
her deeply that more was done to provide a degree of relief for victims of
social evils then was ever done to rid society of those evils. “There were day nurseries for
children, but why didn’t fathers get money enough to care for their families so
that mothers would not have to work? Men with all their manhood drained out of
them by industrialism [and debt.] Where were the saints to try to change the
social order, not just minister to the slaves but to do away with the slavery?”
Dorothy is also famous for
proclaiming, “Don’t call me a saint, I won’t be dismissed so easily” meaning
she believed we are all called to be saints and all a saint is, is anyone who
attempts to follow Jesus and live according to the Sermon on the Mount. Dorothy Day understood that
God is Love and "Love is not the
starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love
is not killing. Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we
will try to be peacemakers." Dorothy used labels like
“pacifist” and “anarchist” in describing herself. By pacifist she meant a
rejection of all war and by anarchy she meant taking personal responsibility
and NOT expecting the government nor needing the state to solve our problems. Dorothy’s concept of
anarchy was a “religious one stemming from the life of Jesus on earth who came
to serve rather than be served.”
For this struggling
Christian anarchist, anarchy
for me means Rebellion against UNJUST laws.
The Yang/male force of
anarchy resists authority and causes disorder and is socially and politically
incorrect by the norms of the status quo for it seeks the higher ground of
justice.
The Yin/feminine force of
anarchy births a new order out of the chaos and chaos is creativity in action.
Dorothy also called
herself a “personalist” a term coined by cofounder of The Catholic Worker
Movement, Peter Maurin who defined it as a person seeking to reform himself and
not one seeking to reform the state. Gandhi knew one had to
become the change one wanted to see in the world before the change can come and
Maurin instructed, “Don’t criticize what is not being done. See what there is
to do, fit yourself to it, then do it.” Maurin also wrote that he
“was not afraid of the word communism” but that it should not be imposed on
anyone. Maurin proposed a green revolution in the 1930’s to encompass “houses
of hospitality where works of mercy could be practiced to combat the taking
over by the state of all those services which could be built by mutual aid; and
farming communes to provide land and homes for the unemployed.”
In his series of “Easy
Essays” published in The Catholic Worker during the Depression, Maurin provoked
comfortable Christians as he challenged the state:
People go to Washington asking the government to solve their economic problems,
while the Federal government was never intended to solve men’s economic
problems. Thomas Jefferson says,
“the less government there is, the better it is.”
If the less government there is, the better it is; the best kind of government
is self-government…
People who are in need and are not afraid to beg give to people not in need the
occasion to do good for goodness sake. Modern society calls them
beggar bum and panhandler and gives them the bum’s rush, but the Greeks used to
say that people in need are ambassadors of the gods. As God’s ambassadors you
should be given food, clothing, and shelter by those who are able to give it. Mohammedan teachers tell
us that God commands hospitality. And hospitality is still practices in
Mohammedan countries.
But the duty of
hospitality is neither taught nor practiced in Christian countries. Maurin and Dorothy challenged
the corruption of the gospel [good news] that Jesus taught was non-negotiable
for his follower's: that one must forgive to be forgiven and love-even those
who do not love back and to always remain nonviolent.
Both worked “as though
everything depended on” them and prayed, “as though everything depended on
God.” ALL IS GRACE tells the story
of how after years of struggle Dorothy gave up her addiction to cigarettes via
persistence in prayer. For decades Dorothy’s day had begun with lighting up and
her big sacrifice for Lent had become quitting smoking for 40 days. But because
her deprivation made her incredibly irritable everyone around her would be
praying she would go light up and inhale deeply. One year a priest urged her
not to give up smoking for Lent but instead to pray, “Dear God, help me quit
smoking.” Years went by without any
impact on her addiction until one morning as Dorothy reached for her first
cigarette of that day, she realized she didn’t want it and never smoked again. ALL IS GRACE also sheds more
light upon her addiction to Forster Batterham, the man she called her husband
although they never legally married.
Battherham was as rigid in
his anarchy as he was in his atheism and although he loved the daughter he and
Dorothy shared, he refused to marry and Dorothy finally ended their passionate
sexual encounters because of her Catholic conscience, but their friendship and
love endured their lives. Dorothy said anyone who
failed to see Christ in the poor was an “atheist indeed” and that a saint who inspired
her was Joan of Arc because Joan was a “saint of conscience” and it was Dorothy’s
conscience that led her to speak out after Pearl Harbor, when even “the most
committed pacifist might have been forgiven for maintaining a discreet
silence…There was nothing discreet about Dorothy Day."- Erwin Knoll, The
Progressive, 1994. On the day after the Japanese
attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor Day stood at a microphone and
announced:
"There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American
and European colonialism in this same area. We, the British, the French, and
others set up spheres of influence…control national states-against the
expressed will of these states-and represent imperialism.
“We dictate to [all] to where they can expand economically and politically, and
we declare what policy they must observe. From our nationalistic and
imperialistic point of view, we have every right to concentrate American
military forces [everywhere we chose].
“But I waste rhetoric on
international politics-the breeding grounds of war over the centuries. The
balance of power and other empty slogans inspired by a false and flamboyant
nationalism have bred conflict throughout 'civilized' history.
"And it has become too late in human history to tolerate wars which none
can win. Nor dare we quibble about just wars. “All wars are, by their very
nature, evil and destructive. It has become too late for civilized people to
accept this evil. We must take a stand. We must renounce war as an instrument
of policy.
“Evil enough when the finest of our youth perish in conflict and even the
causes of these conflicts were soon lost to memory. Even more horrible today
when cities go up in flames and brilliant scientific minds are searching out
ultimate weapons.
"War must cease. There are no victories. The world can bear the burden no
longer. Yes, we must make a stand. Even as I speak to you, I may be guilty of
what some men call treason. But we must reject war: Yes, we must now make a
stand. War is murder, rape, ruin, death; war can end our civilization. I tell you that within a decade we will have
weapons capable of ending this world as we have known it."
In the spring of 1955, a New
York state wide civil defense drill “Operation Alert” was announced with a
warning that anyone refusing to take shelter-such as going into subways,
basements, or under school desks-during the drill would risk a year in prison
and a $500.00 fine.
Day was among a few other
pacifists who converged in front of City hall in lower Manhattan on the day of
the drill, “In the name of Jesus, who is God, who is Love, we will not obey
this order to pretend, to evacuate, to hide. We will not be drilled into fear.
We do not have faith in God if we depend on the Atom Bomb.” As 679 warning sirens wailed
and millions of New Yorkers ducked and covered, Day and a few others who dissented
from partaking in a rehearsal for a nuclear war pretending that such a war
would be survivable, were arrested and bail was set at $1,500.00 for “defying
the White House, Pentagon, governor, the national mood, the habit of war and
refusing to get ready for war.” Dorothy said, “Silence means
consent and we cannot consent to the militarization of our country without
protest. Since we believe that air raid drills are part of a calculated plan to
inspire fear of the enemy [instead of the love which Jesus told us of] we must
protest these drills. It is an opportunity to show we mean what we write when
we repeat over and over that we are put on this earth to love God and our
neighbor.” Dorothy and others were
arrested annually, growing numbers of individuals and groups throughout the
state refused to comply and the press finally reported the war drills were “an
exercise in futility” before Civil Defense officials and politicians admitted
defeat and ended the compulsory drills. Dorothy was a prolific writer who knew how hard writing is
“because you
are giving yourself away, but if you love; you want to give yourself. You write
as you are impelled to write, about man and his problems, his relation to God
and his fellows…The sustained effort of writing, of putting [words down while]
there are human beings [with] sickness, hunger, sorrow…I feel that I have done
nothing well, but I did something." I know that feeling and doing something is one of my mantras.
One thing I
have done is spin the Christian Manifesto-The Sermon on The Mount for the 21st
Century this way:
About 2,000 years ago, when
Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat down under an olive tree and
began to teach the people;
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."
In other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their own
limitations and 'sins' honestly and trust God loves them in spite of themselves
who already live in the Kingdom of God.
How comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven't got a clue, as to the
depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of The Divine Mystery of The Universe.
God's name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as much as Mommy and
He/She: The Lord has said, "My
ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not yours." -Isaiah 55:8
Christ proclaimed more: "Blessed
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
The essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and never
hold a grudge. In other words: how comforted you will be when you also know
humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for both cut through
every human heart.
"Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, they will be filled."
In other words: how comforted you will be when your greatest desire is to do
what "God requires, and he has
already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your
Lord."-Micah 6:8
"Blessed are the merciful, they
will be shown mercy."
In other words: how comforted you will all be when you choose to return
only kindness to your 'enemy.'
"For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured
back to you" Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of
karma in Luke 6:27-38.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God."
In other words: how comforted you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is
already within you, within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme
Being is everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The
Universe -and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.
"Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of
God."
And what a wonderful world it would be when we all seek peace by pursuing
justice; for there can be none without the other.
"Blessed are those who are
persecuted because they do what God requires, theirs is The Kingdom of
Heaven."
And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb and man will make war no
more; and create a sisterhood of man.
PS: Maybe the only 'sin' is selfishness.
January 11, 2012: It's ALL a God Thing
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