Our Voices Should Not Be Silenced

I had taken a break from blogging, because I became overwhelmed and frustrated at the hatred being spewed in the name of Christianity. But I recently began reading Dorothy Day-Selected Writings edited by Robert Ellsberg, and I realized the voice of love and reason cannot and should not be silenced. At times, her writings reveal frustration but her solid faith in the love of God gave her the strength and courage to continue her work.

For those who don’t know, Dorothy Day started the Catholic Worker Movement. She believed in and worked to bring peace and justice to the society which surrounded her. Long before Mother Teresa of Calcutta advised us to “bloom where we are planted”, Dorothy did just that. She started in small steps, first offering free coffee and toast to the homeless and unemployed who walked the streets desperately looking for work. Eventually there was a string of Hospitality Houses across the nation, some rural working farms growing food to help supply the urban houses.

This morning during my devotions I read about the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign that arrived in Washington, D.C. This kindled memories of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement which spanned our country last year. This quote from a Mississippi civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, struck a nerve, “Christianity is being concerned about your fellow man, not building a million dollar church while people are starving right around the corner. Christ was a revolutionary person, out there where it was happening. That’s what God is all about and that’s where I get my strength.”

There are two ways of looking at the writings for Dorothy Day and other activists which span the decades from the Great Depression to the present. We can become frustrated and overwhelmed because of the continued presence of the inequalities in our country, where “all men are created equal”, or we can become empowered by the true presence of the Creator of the Universe inside each of us, allowing us to see how it could be.