{"id":5233,"date":"2015-11-30T03:04:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T03:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?p=5233"},"modified":"2015-11-30T03:04:20","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T03:04:20","slug":"celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves.<\/p>\n

PBS created a wonderful short documentary on her life and work in 2013, available here:\u00a0The Life of Dorothy Day<\/a>. I have written about her before<\/a> but feel that the battles she fought are still very much with us today. As with many people I admire deeply, she took from her religion a strong conviction to help those around her, taking seriously the Christian commandment to \u201clove thy neighbor as thyself.\u201d And as the shopping<\/s>\u00a0holiday season settles in upon us once more, let us think first about the humanity in the world connected to all of the material goods around us, the people suffering near and far for whom a few dollars or a sympathetic ear can bring respite.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t already subscribe to PBS\u2019s\u00a0Religion and Ethics News Weekly<\/a>, I highly recommend that you do. This story alone is worth it.<\/p>\n

It focuses on the life of\u00a0Dorothy Day<\/a>, a devout Catholic, a socialist, an anarchist, and, perhaps one day a Saint.<\/p>\n

Dorothy Day has always loomed large in the back of my mind. Growing up Catholic, to two very liberal parents (my mother marched with and had dinner with a member of\u00a0the Chicago Seven<\/a>), I was drawn to the idea that Catholics could also be radicals.\u00a0My parents faded away from the Church, sometimes recalling that the most vicious people they had ever encountered were Catholic nuns in primary schools<\/strong>. And as they faded they focused on direct action through social work for my mother and volunteering and simply helping those who needed it for my father \u2013 sometimes including giving cars away to people who needed one. Meanwhile, I faded as well drawn to science, atheism and existentialism, then humanism, and eventually Buddhism<\/a>, all the while doing volunteer work of one sort or another on the side.<\/p>\n

\"\"The very name of Day\u2019s movement, the\u00a0Catholic Worker Movement<\/a>, clearly echoes her Communist sympathies (or at least shared interests)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 noting that we humans are\u00a0workers<\/em>\u00a0as much as anything and that work deserves respect and the recognition of the dignity of each and every one of us. Of course this is distinguished from the way we all are typically described, as\u00a0consumers<\/em>. Here our value is determined by how much we take, not by what we give.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no orthodox Marxist, but I believe Day was on to something. We need balance, and these days things seem far from balanced.<\/p>\n

At Day\u2019s Catholic Worker soup kitchen I am heartened to see (in the video) that one of the volunteers interviewed openly admits to not being a Christian. Yet his ability to work, to give, is still valued. He is accepted based on that, on his practices rather than his beliefs.<\/p>\n

Others, Christian and not, Socialist and not, were drawn to her\u00a0\u00a0\u201cpacifist anarchist movement\u201d through their own conscience as much as to holding any particular beliefs, and it has been this common conscience, a shared sense of the rightness of helping those in need, which has kept the movement alive for 83 years now.<\/p>\n

When I mentioned this on facebook, a friend reminded me of\u00a0Thomas Merton<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Simone Weil<\/a>, two fellow radicals and inspirations to all of us from the 20th century.<\/p>\n

If you would like to pray for Day\u2019s intercession,\u00a0a website<\/a>\u00a0has been set up to guide you. But keep in mind this is the woman who reportedly said,\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t trivialize me by trying to make me a saint,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0and in her own words\u00a0about miracles in 1934 wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Our lives are made up of little miracles day by day. That splendid globe of sun, one street wide, framed at the foot of East Fourteenth street in early morning mists that greeted me this morning in my way out to mass was a miracle that lifted up my heart. I was reminded of a little song of Teresa\u2019s, composed and sung at the age of two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll sing a song,\u201d (she warbled)
\nOf sunshine on a little house.
\nAnd the sunshine is a present for the little house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunshine in the middle of January is indeed a present.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed. Sunshine any time is a present.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful short documentary on her life and work in 2013, available here:\u00a0The Life of Dorothy Day. I have written about her before but feel that the battles she fought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":5234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[203],"class_list":["post-5233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","tag-catholic"],"yoast_head":"\nCelebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Buddhist Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-30T03:04:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/83\/2015\/11\/Dorothy-Day.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"738\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"699\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html\",\"name\":\"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-30T03:04:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-30T03:04:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9\"},\"description\":\"Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/\",\"name\":\"American Buddhist Perspectives\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9\",\"name\":\"Justin Whitaker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/817b6fba8ae056aaff4f9bdc84347d72?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/817b6fba8ae056aaff4f9bdc84347d72?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Justin Whitaker\"},\"description\":\"I am an almost-life-long Montanan; a baptized Catholic; an ardent Atheist; a practicing Buddhist; a lover of Wisdom. I have a BA and almost an MA in (Western) Philosophy from the University of Montana-Missoula, an MA in Buddhist Studies from Bristol University, UK, and I am currently working on a Ph.D. in Buddhist Ethics at the U of London. My main academic foci are early Buddhist ethics and Kant (odd combination, I know). I also study Western ethics, Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada, Comparative philosophy, and Environmental ethics. I also like photography, running, drinking wine, and eating peanut butter (often in that order).\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/author\/justinwhitaker\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist","description":"Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist","og_description":"Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html","og_site_name":"American Buddhist Perspectives","article_published_time":"2015-11-30T03:04:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":738,"height":699,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/83\/2015\/11\/Dorothy-Day.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Justin Whitaker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Justin Whitaker","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html","name":"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-11-30T03:04:20+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-30T03:04:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9"},"description":"Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. She lived a truly remarkable life, but one that has not earned the recognition it deserves. PBS created a wonderful","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2015\/11\/celebrating-the-life-of-dorothy-day-catholic-anarchist-socialist.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Celebrating the life of Dorothy Day: Catholic, Anarchist, Socialist"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/","name":"American Buddhist Perspectives","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9","name":"Justin Whitaker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/817b6fba8ae056aaff4f9bdc84347d72?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/817b6fba8ae056aaff4f9bdc84347d72?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Justin Whitaker"},"description":"I am an almost-life-long Montanan; a baptized Catholic; an ardent Atheist; a practicing Buddhist; a lover of Wisdom. I have a BA and almost an MA in (Western) Philosophy from the University of Montana-Missoula, an MA in Buddhist Studies from Bristol University, UK, and I am currently working on a Ph.D. in Buddhist Ethics at the U of London. My main academic foci are early Buddhist ethics and Kant (odd combination, I know). I also study Western ethics, Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada, Comparative philosophy, and Environmental ethics. I also like photography, running, drinking wine, and eating peanut butter (often in that order).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/author\/justinwhitaker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}