Dorothy Day Tribute Weekend

Here is the headstone of Dorothy Day, at Resurrection Cemetery in Staten Island, New York. Yesterday I sat and visited Dorothy with my dear friend, who I met during my first semester of college—20 years ago.

The day felt blessed because straight away we spotted my favorite animal, sunbathing:

I think about Dorothy all the time, as she is one of my role models for community work. I especially think about her when there are personalities in conflict in community work, and when a group is trying to decide what to be. When organizations or jobs end. When I am unsettled and unsatisfied but I cannot quite name why.

In a strange bit of symmetry, I first read DD’s work during the last total solar eclipse in the US. (The first one since is happening today.) It was 2017 and my dream job was out of funding. Not only did I have to find a new job (and spend six weeks unemployed, which it turned out I enjoyed!), the org I had worked at for five years dissolved. It’s a grief I still feel, and will maybe always carry.

I checked The Long Loneliness out of the library that summer, and nothing could have been more of a comfort. The longing is for purpose, for community, for meaning.

Dorothy’s headstone has a carving of the loaves and fishes, a miracle of Jesus from the Bible. My friend and I talked about the many meanings of this symbol: Of faith, but not in a despot or cult leader, and also not originating in a detachment from reality. (Like saying, “It’ll all work out,” while not taking care of the details.) Faith from people who know what scarcity and hunger feel like, but who still don’t riot or hoard resources. Does making a little feed many only happen when everyone in the group has agreed to wait their turn, and not gripe over what other people are getting? Are humans even capable of living in community without comparison thieving joy, and peace?

Which always brings me back to why I constitutionally cannot practice any religion: I just can’t believe that my group is better, or that in-group and out-group people could ever exist. I was bullied and brutalized by adults and kids in the religious community I was raised in. It never brought me comfort, only pain.

But I still have faith in secular community. And the Catholic Worker community’s foundation in the Beatitudes and the Corporal Works of Mercy sound about right to me. I’ll leave the rest, thanks.

Phew! Just some lighter topics on a Sunday.

But these are my favorite times: good food, long walks, deep conversation.

I love to introduce folks to East Coast Italian bakeries. Watching someone eat a rainbow cookie for the first time: priceless.

I also used both babka and stromboli in conversation, and needed to be reminded that Not everybody knows what those things are. (Kinda like when I moved to South Jersey and learned what a panzaratti is.)

This weekend, being outside in the sunshine was a joy!

Here’s a look at the same corner of my own neighborhood, three months apart: