The name of Dorothy Day has been popping up in my readings lately. She’s a religious role model for the Catholic Church, and a writer. I decided to look into this person<\/p>\n
I just finished reading Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty. <\/em> It was written by her granddaughter, so there were a lot of personal stories. Dorothy started as a Bohemian and communist in the early part of the 20th century. She was politically active and involved with the union movement and then a communist.<\/p>\n But she surprised her friends when she took a turn in the middle of her activism and joined the Catholic Church. As a convert, she took her Catholicism very very very seriously.<\/p>\n For her, the religious devotion and the social activism formed an alchemy that led her to start hospitality houses–basically homeless shelters–for down and out people who needed a place to go.<\/p>\n She had a never-ending soup kitchen in her hospitality houses, and she fed and sheltered people. She had a newspaper called The Catholic Worker<\/em> that put forth her religious and political philosophies. It’s still going.<\/p>\n She wrote essays and newspaper pieces. She published books. And she shared what she had with people who needed it.<\/p>\n A lot of people admire her, and right now she is on the shortlist for sainthood.<\/p>\n I tasted ash in my mouth after I finished the book. What about her daughter? Didn’t a mother have some responsibility to keep her child safe and give her a good chance in life?<\/p>\n I don’t romanticize communes. I spent time in and around them and it seems a very messy solution. The book underlines some of that mess.<\/p>\n I knew I didn’t have the picture of Dorothy Day that most people did. This book didn’t give me the reasons why so many admired her. I needed to read more. I picked out Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion<\/em>.<\/p>\n That sounded like admiration. The author Robert Coles had known Dorothy, and he wrote the book with a lot of conversations that they had. So there were stories and her self-interpretation of her life. The picture emerged.<\/p>\n I did like her humility and her intensity. She believed intensely in what was right, but could back away from taking herself too seriously just in time. Holding a high standard in one hand and mercy in the other.<\/p>\n That could create a crowd of admirers. Faithful readers of a column, that might not ask too deeply about how her daughter had not been given enough options in her life to make good choices.<\/p>\n But life is messy. And Dorothy Day was trying hard. She was actively looking to help the needy.<\/p>\n The needy aren’t so easy to help. The needy will steal and drink all the alcohol. Sometimes.<\/p>\n I could see how she made some ultimate sacrifices. And also how in more than one sense, the sacrifices were pointless. The need was too great.<\/p>\n That’s they mystical part, how she believed in what she was doing despite all evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n I’m not convinced that her methods work. But I am not convinced they are worthless either.<\/p>\n I’ve spent a little time looking at her life. She was very intense. I would not make the same choices that she did. And her choice had very broad effects. She lived a marvelous life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The name of Dorothy Day has been popping up in my readings lately. She’s a religious role model for the Catholic Church, and a writer. I decided to look into this person I just finished reading Dorothy Day: The World … Continue reading