Unless you are a spiritual genius, you probably would have
no idea this title of this inspirational piece references Dorothy Day. Some may not even know Dorothy Day---who she
is or why she might be important. I have
known about Dorothy Day since my graduate schools days. She is someone I wished I had met, but I
content myself with having known someone who knew her. So allow me to spend a little time using her
to make some spiritual points.
Dorothy Day was born just before the twentieth century
began. During her teenage and twenties,
she lived a rather bohemian life. There
would have been little reason to guess that in our own time, many folks would
be lobbying the Pope to make her a saint.
I laugh, because for some of my friends, she is already considered a
saint. They have decided not to wait for
the Catholic Church to act officially.
Even in her early years, Dorothy did have a spiritual bent,
in spite of growing up in a family for whom religion was not important. Her father was a journalist and so writing
became rather second nature to her. When
she became much more serious about her life of faith, writing became the way to
express that new path through life.
In 1926 Dorothy had a daughter, Tamar. This seems to deepen her religious conviction
and within a year Dorothy had not only baptized Tamar, but she also was
baptized and joined the Roman Catholic Church.
Along with her faith development she nurtured her almost life-long concern
for society’s “cast-offs,” as she called them.
In this concern we can see the seeds of her social justice commitment in
life and other related themes that soon are lived out in her faith.
Dorothy chose to live a life of near poverty. In 1933 she founded The Catholic Worker newspaper to publicize her views on religion
and culture and call for a radical discipleship in order to bring justice and
love to the fore. It was not long before
“houses of hospitality” also grew up.
The houses were places where the down and out could find a place to
sleep and a meal to eat. Similar houses
grew up all around the country and, then, worlds from the one original in New
York City.
Dorothy Day was doing all this not as a do-gooder, but as an
obedient response to the God who called her to live the Golden Rule, to bring
justice and build communities of love.
Naturally, this meant she also was a pacifist during the Cold War,
Vietnam War and until she died in 1980.
Reading her is always a challenge to my own spiritual complacency.
Having provided this context allows me to use one
representative text from Dorothy’s pen that I believe sums up her perspective
and challenges me to be more authentic and bold in my own spiritual
perspective. Dorothy says, “Most of our life is
unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning till night. But when it is transformed by love it is of
interest even to the angels.” When I
read this, it adequately describes my own life, but also intrigues me by what
can yet be of my own life.
It
is an accurate description of life for many of us when she recognizes most of
our lives are unimportant. Of course, we
probably are not thinking that is true as we live life. But when we dare stop and examine our lives,
it is easy to see most of what we have been doing is unimportant.
She
also warns that too much of our lives is filled with trivial things. I am tempted to confess, “guilty!” While we may quibble over what is “trivial,”
I would not feel comfortable arguing nearly everything I do is of long-term
importance. Sometimes, I stop to ask how
is God viewing me and what I am doing? I
understand that trivial things are not the same thing as bad or sinful
things. But still…
The
good news is Day has the antidote to unimportant, trivial things. She says we can be transformed by love. When this happens to us, our lives become a
totally different matter. Who we are and
what we do take on importance. No doubt,
if we live out of this love, we become difference-makers. We become ambassadors of God’s work in this
world. We also will become instruments
of justice and love. In fact, we might even become a thorn in someone’s life,
just as Dorothy did.
She
is clear about the result of just such a life.
If we become transformed by love, then our lives become of interest to
the angels. That is such a cool way to
put it. I do not think currently my life
is of too much interest to the angels.
But it can be. However, my
motivation to become interesting to angels is not that. My motivation is to become the instrument of
love that I know, deep down, God really wants.
What
stops me from doing this is I.
Unfortunately, I have too much commitment to my unimportant, trivial
life. I appreciate God’s patience. Maybe soon I will be ready to allow love’s
transformation and actually become interesting to angels.
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