Progressive Christians Uniting

Dorothy Day: Faith Centered Activist Par Excellence

From Dick Bunce, past Executive Director of PCU:

I’ve always needed mentors, whether they are close at hand or far away, whether I know them or not, whether they are living or have passed to the “great beyond”.  Life is difficult, as Scott Peck famously announced, and life is especially difficult when we want to make a difference for justice and peace in a world of hurt and heartache.  Some people negotiate the difficulties better than others, and I need such people in my life.

One of my mentors, for some years now, has been Dorothy Day.  I’ve had a love relationship with her for quite some time.  My good wife understands this and is unthreatened.  For one thing, Dorothy died in 1980 at the age of 83.

To be honest, if I’d been young when she was young and we had met, she would not have brought out the best in me nor I in her.  As an activist, she was something of a dilettante. She hung out with the bohemian set, she had her share of lovers, and she was floundering.  She had dropped out of college, was often unemployed, and ran with a fast and footloose crowd.

But she changed.  She really changed.  So much so, that she exemplifies ways for us to persist and prevail in the struggle.

Before looking at the qualities we might emulate, let’s review a few of her accomplishments.  With the important help of Peter Maurin, she established the Catholic Worker Movement which routinely and fearlessly challenged the Catholic Church, its hierarchy, and the larger society.

This lay movement was anchored by the newspaper, the Catholic Worker which has been widely read, especially in the darkest years of the depression.  She was an accomplished journalist and she wrote for it regularly – and she wrote books expounding on her ideas for a far better world.  She gained expertise on Catholic social teachings and based her calls to justice on this and on key passages of the Bible.

The Catholic Worker movement was also anchored in houses of hospitality established in cities all across the land where the poor where served in myriad ways.  Communal farms and retreat centers were established as well, and she was one of a small cluster of people that founded the organization now known as Pax Christi.  All the while, she lived among the poor in a tenement building and protested side by side with the poor.

The newspaper and houses of hospitality, despite various ups and downs, persist to this day.  The Catholic Worker Movement is not perfect – no movement is.  Yet it has retained “street cred” by being right there on the ground with people in greatest need while also connecting abject need to the larger systemic injustices and calls for reform.  She believed you change things right in your own neighborhood and work outward to the macro from there.

Dorothy emerged over time as a prophet who had a profound effect on the Catholic Church and the larger society as she hammered at the very foundations of poverty, war, violence, racism, and an economic system she considered fundamentally unjust.

How did she do it?

First, she listened to the promptings deep within that she believed to be the promptings of God.  These are the tugs at the heart and soul that come to us in the wee hours or when we’re reading the paper or boarding a plane.  She listened and it must be said that she resisted as we all tend to do.  But she eventually responded.   Once she responded, there was no turning back.

Second, she studied the sacred texts and listened to the better voices within her faith tradition.  She looked for the wisdom that would ground her day in and day out.

Third, she had a daily discipline of prayer, reading, and reflection.  She also took part in the sacraments very regularly. In the midst of a strenuous life, she wanted to be able to love God and sustain a deep gratitude for all of life as a sacred gift.

Fourth, she recognized that she could not live a joyful life of faith apart from people who are poor.  She chose a life of poverty and resided among the poor until the end of her life.  She chose solidarity as opposed to speaking down from above.

Fifth, she knew that she had a lot to learn, so she had mentors too – especially Peter Maurin, who was a theologian and visionary thinker.  Here was someone who had large intellectual and spiritual capacities in areas where she was quite limited.  Having teamed up with him, she often called attention to his huge contributions.

Sixth, she knew that to be an agent for social change brings suffering.  Her pacifism through WWII brought widespread derision and a huge drop in the circulation of the Catholic Worker newspaper.  She was suspicious of all forms of violence and took Jesus at his word as he called his followers to love our enemies.  She was relegated to the lunatic fringe by the very church that in later years embraced in principle much that she had stood for.

Her protests often landed her in jail.  While still something of a dilettante at age 20, she went to jail seeking women’s right to vote, and for the last time at age 75, as her health was failing, protesting nuclear arms.  She placed her body in the middle of the action again and again.  She knew she had no choice but to suffer.

I do know that I for one and perhaps you also need to be reminded about the utter importance of …

• hearing that still small voice,
• being deeply informed about our own faith tradition,
• practicing the spiritual disciplines that keep us grounded day by day, even hour by hour,
• being in genuine solidarity with people who are sinking in the swamp of injustice,
• seeking out the mentors who will take us beyond our carefully circumscribed lives,
• accepting that we cannot stay in our comfort zone forever and still have justice.  There comes a time to put our bodies, even our very lives, on the line.

Above all, Dorothy Day was a searcher who learned from her mistakes. She came to understand that there is no quest more important than the quest for full integrity before God.  All else flows from this.

Somehow she learned to take off her shoes and to kneel again and again in the presence of that burning bush in all its legendary brilliance and power.

And we in turn can learn from her.

Posted under: Reflections