Re-Calling Dorothy Day

READINGS FOR THE 29TH OF NOVEMBER

COMMON PRAYER POCKET EDITION

A LITURGY FOR ORDINARY RADICALS

SHANE CLAIBORNE & JONATHAN-WILSON HARTGROVE

            --for Pastors Jim Engel, Obispo Medardo Gómez y Abelina Gómez, Ron Moen, Shane Claiborne, Paul Benz, Jill Ross, Mike Scheid, Eduardo Cabrera, Ladd Bjorneby, Emilio Benitez, Esau Cuevas, Mary Bosell, Eric Anderson, Alex Schmidt, Abiut Fajardo, Carol Nelson, Carroll Hinderlie(s), pastors all, Lars Claussen, Paul Palumbo, Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez, Chris Wogaman, Harvey Blomberg, Caroline Hellerich, Ron Marshall, Kerry Kesey, Phil Nesvig, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Dean Stewart, Martin Wells, Susan Briehl, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and especially for Pastor Harald Sigmar;

            --for Fr. Stanley Marrow, S.J., Pastor Rudolf Bultmann, Fr. Thomas Merton, Fr. John O'Riordan, Fr. Dean Brackley, S.J., Brother David Steindl-Rast, Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria, Fr. Rutilio Grande, Fr. Jon Sobrino; for the Mary Knoll Sisters of Chile and El Salvador; Sister Elizabeth, Sister Mary Ellen Robinson, SNJM, Kathleen Ross, Sisters of the Holy Name, SNJM, and Sister Roberta Rorke, Sisters of Providence, Mary Rita Rohde, SNJM, Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary, and those classmates from SUMORE at Seattle University.

            --for those poets with begging bowls and without collars, and in other traditions, monks all; all catholic workers, inside and out.

I. PRAYERS FROM THE POCKET EDITION

"We dream of a holy village in the midst of the urban desert"

"Advent is the season when Jesus put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood."

"Becoming the answer to our prayers: A few ideas"

"3. Dismantle a bomb. Or dismantle a theological argument that dismantles bombs."

"With his coming, we learn that the most dangerous place for Christians to be is in comfort and safety...Places that are physically safe can be spiritually deadly."

To find each day's scripture readings for the morning office, consult the following table. For information regarding the person or event commemorated on a special day, consult the 'Annotated List of Special Days.' pp. 105-151.

II. MY TAKE ON THE READINGS

11-29 Dorothy Day.  Psalm 139: 10-16. Micah 7: 1-10. Mk 13: 24-31

Micah first, post-harvest, gleaning.

Woe, woe, woe. To men and MSNBC.

My desire for first fresh fruit.

In your lover's arms, don't open your mouth.

50 years ago, when I was 23, newly married,

I found William Stringfellow's book

in Jerroll's bookstore in Ellensburg,

My people is the enemy.

Salmo 139: 10-16. Lo contrario!

Aun allí, tu mano me guiaria

ni las tinieblas serían oscuras para ti,

y aun la noche sería clara como el día.

Sabe todo de mi, Señor.

Aprendí esto como joven

en el estado de Dakota Norte

en mi pueblo. Supiste todo

de mi, incluyendo que yo

identicaba con los indígenas.

Begin by reading the wrong verse

in Mark. Go back to it this morning,

perhaps rushing now. Do I have

to do my lesson over? Fig branches

in spring. Sap running. Time--time

is urgent. It is when you're hungry.

If you're out in the cold

chances your neighbor knows this,

are high. You got it.

You're the neighbor.

What you gonna do, bro?

III. DOROTHY DAY AND THE ANGELS AT THE SPA

            8 Nov 1897--29 Nov 1980

Entertaining Angels, title of the Paulist film,

doesn't Paul show up in the unexpected places?

An image from a friend in a moment of doubt,

You never know when you're entertaining

an angel. When you're working at this level

like Miss Day, you're blind to elevated talk.

It must come as epiphany, lifting and sustaining.

My take: she didn't see herself this way.

This film can be rented at Amazon

immediately for two dollars, 97 cents,

and for seven days, it's mine. Karen

says she's going to the fabric shop

to look for material. Epigraph on black

screen opens the movie: I wanted the abundant

life. I didn't have the slightest idea how to find it.

Moira Kelly plays Dorothy Day. 1996 movie.

Film opens with young black woman

screaming in chains--jail cell or mental hospital--

can't tell, Day with her, Camel cigarettes

and a Zippo lighter--I can still hear the click

from mine--set in NYC, 1963, year

I graduate from high school. Martin Sheen

plays Peter Maurin, who (I find out later,

Googling, wrote Easy Essays in verse,

If we are crazy, then it is because we refuse

to be crazy in the same way that the world is crazy.)

Eugene O'Neill, all the artists, right there.

Alcohol and cigarettes. Artists looking for more.

Day writing, wanting that. The unprinted stories,

looking the other way. Love at the beach,

and a daughter, Tamar--there's a good

Old Testament name. Tamar won't go away,

and she won't get off Scot-free. Children

off the obsessed may learn a better way

but they'll pay a price. Day write.

(After watching the movie, wondering about Tamar,

I discover her youngest child, Kate Hennessey,

has this year--2017--published her book,

The World Will Be Saved by Beauty.)

Day's granddaughter Kate says,

All of  us are inside Catholic Workers,

outside the Church. Inside/Outside.

I think Buddhists the only ones to get this.

Whatever we'll have, we'll have,

all the great talk, passing the nun on a bicycle.

looking back at the old man, startled.

Shucking oysters. Cutting the hands

looking for pearls, what else?

Cynicism. The poor people--

they seem to like the church.

How the best stuff cuts both ways.

To be an honest woman.

Who says I'm not honest?

We have a good life, the three of us.

Why isn't that enough?

Who are you?

I am a Catholic worker.

Who are you?

You drink, you wet your pants, you vomit.

How could anyone love you?

I am not who I thought I was.

You look awful. That word. Awful.

I've been thinking about who God

wants me to be in a very lonely life.

(Title of her autobiography.

How faithful we are

serving the poor.)

Peter Maurin will lose the language

that I find online,

that I'll end with--

some unfinished business

for me at home--

The coat that hangs in your closet

belongs to the poor.

Jim Bodeen

29 November--1 December 2017