Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

I wrinkled my nose and shook my head in disbelief as I read the life of Dorothy Day. This is going to be a very long two years studying the life of this woman so different from me. Maybe I should switch to another inspirational spiritual person.

In the first year of my two-year program to learn to be a spiritual director, each of us chose someone from history to be our spiritual mentor. We studied their lives. Read books about them. Gave presentations about how they discerned God in their moments and how walking with someone of faith changed our own spiritual journey.

My instructor suggested Dorothy Day to me. I recently found information about my great Aunt Anna whose life paralleled Dorothy’s, so at first she sounded like a good idea. But as I learned more about Dorothy’s early life – she was nothing like me. Please let me switch to someone else.

Dorothy’s life reflects some of the major events in the 20^th century. As an eight year old, she and her family were in San Francisco during the great earthquake. She said later she began to learn compassion as she watched her mother care of others injured and homeless after that terrible disaster.

Later as young writer/journalist, she lives the bohemian wild life of the 1920s – with drinking, smoking, hanging out with anarchists, Socialists, and Communists. She got pregnant and had an abortion. She walked in protests with women suffragists and was arrested. She later lived with another man and had daughter out of wedlock.  Why am I spending time with this person?

Have you ever read the Hound of Heaven? The poem describes how God continual searches for us throughout our lives and wherever we stray.  Dorothy loved this poem and how the Hound of Heaven weaved His love into all the threads of her life. Her family rarely attended church, though she occasionally participated in some practices. She looked back and even in her darkest times, God still loved her and waited for her to return.

The birth of her daughter changed everything and when she decided to have Tamar baptized, her common law husband left.  Dorothy made the choice – she would live for God.  Mmmm, maybe I could learn something from her.

Always with a heart for social justice, she continued to work for the poor and for peace. After several other key transformational events, she and Peter Marin began the newspaper, The Catholic Worker and created Catholic Workers Houses to feed the poor and house the homeless during the Great Depression. Catholic Workers Houses continue even today in the poorest sections of major cities.

Her writings made her well known. She met with popes and bishops and even Mother Theresa. She often would speak at large events during the afternoon and spend her evenings serving soup and scrubbing toilets. She lived a life of voluntary poverty.

Dorothy committed to following Jesus by taking to heart the message in the Sermon on the Mount. She served others in poverty and loved the poor, rejected, marginalized in life and actually followed what Jesus taught.  She measured her life in how she fed the poor, gave drinks to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothe the naked, cared for the ill and visited those in prison.

Loving your enemy and practicing non-violence are not always popular decisions. Many people disliked her stance for peace during World War II and her later protest against nuclear weapons and marches for civil rights. Yes, even in her later years, she spent brief times in jail for her protesting.

What drove this woman’s passion?  Dorothy spent time in daily prayer, worship, fasting, and studying the Bible. In her later life she often went on retreats and encouraged others in this practice. A person of holistic spirituality balances the inner nurturing of the soul with the serving of others, all grounded in Jesus’ words.  Mmmm, I am learning much from this woman.

Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned from Dorothy is love. She wrote, “Love is the measure” and “Your love for God is only as great as the love you have for the person you love the least.”

My journey with Dorothy began in 2004 and she now has a special place in my heart. She was fully devoted to God and followed His word with her whole heart, mind, soul and strength. She lived the greatest commandment.

Additional quotes from Dorothy Day:

Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions”

"My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. "

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.

There is plenty to do, for each one of us, working on our own hearts, changing our own attitudes, in our own neighborhoods.

Anne Frank (1929-1945)

Anne Frank wrote one of the world’s most famous diaries.  Since I keep a journal, she, of course, has to be one of the women I mention during Women’s History Month.  On a sad note, March is also the month of her death from typhus while in a concentration camp in 1945.

Many of us know her story:

      Born on June 12, 1929, Anne Frank was a German-Jewish teenager who was forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust. She and her family, along with four others, spent 25 months during World War II in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After being betrayed to the Nazis, Anne, her family, and the others living with them were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps.  She died in March 1945, just a few weeks before the camp was liberated.

On Anne’s 13^th birthday, her father gave her a small cloth covered book with a lock on the front. It was meant to be an autograph book, but Anne decided to use it as a diary. Three weeks after her birthday, the family was forced into hiding.

In March 1944, Anne and her family in the annex heard on the radio that diaries and important documents would be collected after the war as a record of what had happened to the Dutch people.  Anne immediately set about editing and revising her diary.  A true writer knows rewriting is as much as a part of the process as writing.  They were arrested in August of that same year and deported to Auschwitz.  Friends found Anne’s papers and kept them safe.

Lots of lessons in Anne's story: the hopes of a teenager, the tremendous tragedy of the Holocaust which we can never forget, and the value of recording our thoughts, dreams, and prayers in a journal as a legacy for the others.

Selected quotes from Anne Frank:

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be. 

THE SEARCHING AND SURPRISING GOD - Lectio Divina - March 14, 2010

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

     "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.  After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.  So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.  He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

   "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father.
      "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

   "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

   "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

   "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.  So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.  'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'

   "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.  But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'

   'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "  Luke 5: 11-32

One of my favorite parables and difficult to chose which line speaks to my heart. Today, Lord, though, is the the sentence:

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

I love the concept, Lord, that you not only forgave the son,

You not only received him back, you celebrated his return

You didn’t wait until he came all the way home

You didn’t let him even say anything at first.

Your first reaction was run to him while he was still far away and love him.

Reminds me of the song by Phillips, Craig and Dean with the chorus:

“Was when He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said,
“Son do you know I still love you?”
He caught me by surprise when God ran”

Or the book by Henri Nouwen, The Prodigal Son where he writes his reflections on the painting, the characters, the painter and the scriptures. Nouwen said the he could no longer think of God as being hard to find. God is the one doing the looking; we are the ones lingering outside or even hiding.

God, while I drift away, linger in far off corners, away from You, You watch over me. Thank you for searching for us and surprising us with your love. .  

Sojourner Truth (1797- 1883)

March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

Feisty is a word to describe Sojourner Truth.  I had to admit I didn’t know much about her, but my world is richer now that I have read her story.

Sojourner was born a slave in New York state in about 1797 and was named Isabella Baumfree. At the age of nine she was auctioned off to another owner and over the next few years she was sold several other times. She later said that her first owner once whipped her with "a bundle of rods, prepared in the embers, and bound together with cords." It was during this time that she began to find refuge in religion -- beginning the habit of praying aloud when scared or hurt.

Between 1810 and 1827 she had five children with a fellow slave. She was dismayed when one of her sons was sold to a plantation owner in Alabama.



New York State abolished slavery in 1827 and Quakers helped her win back her son through the courts. After a religions conversion in 1843, Isabella took the name Sojourner Truth. With the help of a white friend, Olive Gilbert, she published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. In an introduction to the book, William Lloyd Garrison wrote that he believed it would "stimulate renewed efforts to liberate all those still in slavery in America". 



Quite the public speaker she toured the country making speeches on slavery and later women’s rights.  When a white man told her that her speeches were no more important than a fleabite, she replied, "Maybe not, but the Lord willing, I'll keep you scratching." 



In 1864 she moved to Washington where she organized a campaign against the policy of not allowing blacks to sit with whites on trains. As a result of this, President Abraham Lincoln received her in the White House.

Truth died on November 26, 1883. Her last words were "be a follower of the Lord Jesus."

What an activist against all odds and a witness for our Lord.

Selected Quotes

   

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again”

“Truth is powerful and it prevails.”

Hannah More (1745-1833)

March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

Hannah More was an English author, poet, playwright, and philanthropist who lived in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

At the age of sixteen, Hannah composed a drama, “The Search After Happiness”, which was later published and widely read. She continued to write plays and poetry.

Around 1779, she felt God called her away from the stage and she increasingly turned to more distinctly Christian work. With Pastor John Newton, author of the hymn “Amazing Grace”, as her spiritual mentor, she went on to pen such works as “Sacred Dramas”, a satirical tale, “Florio”, and “Religion of the Fashionable World”. All of Hannah’s writings were infused with strong moral purpose. She wrote a series of popular essays encouraging Christian leaders to establish moral laws.

In 1787, dismayed at the depravity and poverty of mining towns, Hannah and her sister began establishing Sunday Schools in many area villages. She founded several schools and soon extended her charitable efforts for the education of the poor into all the surrounding country.

Within ten years she was supporting and administering over sixteen schools, teaching destitute children how to read, learn Christian morals, and acquire life-skills that they would keep with them forever. Hannah wrote many of the books used in the schools because she felt that Christian teaching should be the foundation of all education.

In 1795 she began a monthly journal while living in Bath called the “Cheap Repository”, consisting of short moral tales that she composed. This periodical attained a very large circulation and one of her most popular stories was “Shepherd of Salisbury Plain”, which went through many editions and was translated into several languages.

Her writing brought her much personal fame and financial success. She was able to save about $150,000 from her writings, one third of which she bequeathed for charitable purposes. Hannah More died in Clifton on September 7, 1833 at the age of eighty-eight.

Look at her quotes below.  Couldn’t this woman be speaking to us today?

Selected quotes:

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

Love never reasons, but profusely gives; it gives like a thoughtless prodigal its all, and then trembles least it has done to little.

Obstacles are those things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

Procrastination should not be excused, but noticed.

Indecision – it is not so often caused by reflection as by the lack of it.

Who's the Boss? God is - Lectio Divina - March 7,2010

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"
    declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 8-9

Lord, these two verses, every word, brings relief to my soul.

Thank you for not running the world on the condition of MY thoughts and MY ways.

Though You know at times, a part of me thinks I could do better or have doubted Your wisdom, I do know You know best.

Your ways shine the light so humans’ ways can follow.  We get lost. We wander. We make bad decisions. We let our ego rule. Thank heaven, Your ways exceed ours.

Your thoughts transcend us beyond our greatest imagination. 

I smile thinking of the movie “Bruce Almighty” and all the mistakes he makes when God leaves him in charge. We have messed the world up enough NOT really being in charge. What devastation would humankind do IF we did have Your power.

Lord,  humor me here. I hereby, hand you back the world. Please take along with that my thoughts and my ways.  Just take all of me. You are the boss and I sure am glad you are.

Perpetua and Felicity

March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

This coming Sunday many church we commemorate Perpetua and Felicity

Who?  That was my reaction.  I didn’t know anything about these two women!

No saints were more honored in the early Christian era than Perpetua and Felicity. The two women were arrested and imprisoned Carthage in 203 A.D. Perpetua was 22-year-old noblewoman with a son a few months old; Felicity a slave with a child not yet born. Their crime was defying Emperor’s prohibition of conversions to Christianity.

They were taken to prison where Felicity gave birth. Fellow Christians adopted her child.

At their trail, they bravely announced their belief in Christ – a certain death sentence.

Much of what we know about this story comes from a unique source - The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity  - a diary and first hand account of early martyrs, Perpetua herself wrote the middle chapter about her experience in prison and her impending martyrdom.  This account represents one of the earliest known pieces of Christian literature written by a woman.

In one section Perpetua tells about her visions that give her hope as she leaves her infant son and his future to God.  Imagine this young woman of considerable wealth and education, not allowing these bleak circumstances to defeat her. The prospect of torture and death could not break her spirit.  Perpetua refused repeated opportunities to deny she was a Christian and so hand in hand Perpetua and Felicity bravely faced martyrdom together. They were charged by wild animals and then beheaded. Observers noted she went joyfully as though on the way to heaven. The story is told that their faith led prison guards and others watching in the arena to Christ.

I have often wondered if I had the courage to die for my faith. These two women went against the norm, stood together facing death, and left their families including their children, for their belief.  They never denied Christ and kept their eyes and hearts on heaven. I am sure God honored them.

 

Selected quote:

When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel—waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’”   Perpetua