​In my last blog post, I shared the beginning of Dorothy Day’s journey toward faith and her distinct leaning toward social justice. It was the integration of these two aspects of Dorothy’s understanding of the world that shaped both her work and life. There was something about her desire to know God and her view of people on the outside that brought her mission in life into focus.
 
A primary driving force for Dorothy was seeing those who were oppressed in the systemic divide created during the industrial revolution and the depression. The world experienced great suffering as the gap grew between those in power, business owners, and their workers. Unions were viewed as an affront, linking them to feared socialism. This was a tumultuous time where people were either thrown into poverty or looking out for their own self-interests. Those who were different from others were seen as the enemy. The church navigated this growing divide between the haves and the have-nots with a thrust toward evangelism, “saving souls,” over taking care of basic needs.(1) 
 
Dorothy continued fighting for social justice through journalism and protests. This mission in her life gave her purpose, but she desired to love and be loved. She became involved in a controlling romantic relationship, but when she became pregnant, her boyfriend wanted to end it. Dorothy had an abortion to try to keep him, but he ended the relationship anyway. Dorothy became depressed and suicidal. As she looked back over her life, she could see that her desire to love and be loved was a guiding influence in her search for God. After her abortion, she continued to have gynecological problems and feared she would never be able to become pregnant again.(2)
 
Dorothy moved to Staten Island after selling the movie rights to her first book.(3)  She sought a restful space to continue to write. During this time, she met and fell in love with Forster, an anarchist and biologist. Forster did not want to commit fully, so they were never married. He cared for Dorothy yet lived as if he was single. In spite of this, Dorothy experienced a greater happiness than she had understood was possible. Living with Forster awakened in Dorothy an understanding of her desire to be loved, leading her to pray.(4)  It seemed living with Forster awakened her desire for more of God. Forster was against religion and argued that Dorothy’s preoccupation with faith was “morbid escapism.”(5)
 
This was an arrangement that Dorothy could live with until she became pregnant. At 29, she felt she would never be able to become pregnant again, and she experienced this as a precious gift. She wanted to raise her child with religion and was also aware of the cost if she did so. She didn’t want this baby to wonder and wander through life, as she had, without knowing about God.(6)
 
After Tamar Teresa, named after Teresa of Avila, was born, Dorothy was in conflict over what to do. Yet, she knew all along what choice she would make.(7)  A nun helped her go through the process to have her baby baptized, learn about Catholicism, and to become baptized herself. Forster left her many times during this time. Dorothy became sick with the stress of wanting two things that couldn’t coexist, following her desire toward God and living with Forster.(8)  She was falling in love with God and desired to be united to her Love, as obedient, chaste, and poor.(9) 
 
After Forster left, she left Staten Island and took up journalism jobs once again. She became incredibly lonely, realizing that neither child or husband met her need for deep community. Through this time, her spiritual life deepened.(10)  She discovered that women, even all of humankind, desired community. One experience that supported this understanding was becoming severely ill with the flu in Chicago. There wasn’t a supportive community available to her as a single parent in illness.(11)
 
Dorothy continued to be passionate in her stand against social justice issues and was bothered by the absence of Catholics in the struggle. She participated in a hunger strike in 1932, a march organized by the Communist-led Unemployed Councils; demanding relief and condemning evictions.(12)
 
In her confusion, Dorothy met a Peter Maurin. He had been told Dorothy was someone he needed to meet, and he became a teacher and mentor for Dorothy. In reality, they were a gift to one another. Peter brought the background Dorothy needed in Catholic history and a vision forward for the Catholic Worker Movement. Dorothy brought the energy and perseverance necessary for the work ahead.(13) 
 
Peter’s vision was “building a new society within the shell of the old.” He saw more for the world, and he believed that the way to God was through humankind. Humankind could do great things, if only it were open toward God. The gift rooted deeply in both Peter and Dorothy was their understanding of seeing and loving the Christ in others.(14) 
 
Together they formed the Catholic Worker Movement, developing a paper to help inform the worker and the unemployed. They taught the importance of living in community like Jesus did, individual action for social justice, pacifism, and voluntary poverty. In their teaching, they spoke against many of the political issues facing 20th Century America.
 
In the first issue, Dorothy writes that the purpose of the paper was to inform the reader that there was a social program in the Catholic church concerned not only about the readers’ spiritual but also their material welfare. Dorothy continues to ask the question of the possibility of being radical within a belief in God. That one would not need to become an atheist to care about others. The first edition was published by donations and scrimping from their monthly expenses.(15)  The paper to this day is still run on donations, and a copy may be purchased for a penny.(16)
 
In 1933, when the paper started, there were 13,000,000 unemployed people.(17)  Dorothy saw a need and worked diligently, within her faith of God, to meet people in their need. In Dorothy’s desire for God, she was moved to live out the incarnation with people, those who were oppressed on the sides of society. She was not content to only help those in need. She desired to be right in the midst of life with those who were on the outside. In my next post, we will take a look at her ministry as it developed.

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(1) Nancy Koester, Introduction to the History of Christianity in the United States, Kindle (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), loc. 4892-4916.
(2) Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography, 138–40, 181.
 (3) William D. Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982),163.
 (4) Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day (Chicago, Ill.: Thomas More Press, 1989), 135, 139-142.
 (5) Miller, Dorothy Day, 188.
 (6) Day, The Long Loneliness, 165.
 (7) Ibid., 165–67.
 (8) Miller, Dorothy Day, 190.
 (9) Day, The Long Loneliness, 177–78.
 (10) Ibid., 187–88.
 (11) Miller, Dorothy Day, 208, 211.
 (12) Albert J. Raboteau, American Prophets: Seven Religious Radicals and Their Struggle for Social and Political Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 71.
 (13) Day, The Long Loneliness, 202.
 (14) Ibid., 203-204.
 (15) Dorothy Day, “To Our Readers,” Catholic Worker Movement, May 1933, http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/articles/12.html.
 (16) Raboteau, American Prophets, 77.
 (17) Day, The Long Loneliness, 218.

Dorothy Day authentically lived out her faith in tangible ways that mattered. Yet, she faced opposition by the society she served. Her contribution has been recognized by those who had distanced themselves during her lifetime. In 2015, Pope Francis singled her out as one of four prominent Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day.(1)
           
Even though Dorothy had no theological training and no positional authority in the church, she has become one of the most significant and influential people in American Catholicism.(2) She had walked away from all that mattered in American culture; family, education, prestige, power; and purposely lived among the poor.(3) Her life, before she accepted Catholic faith, was one fueled by a love for social activism and a struggle to be in a place where she could love and be loved. Her journey through life was one of struggle, loss, pain, and searching. She defined herself as a Bohemian. “She was an unwed mother, a disillusioned citizen, a poor woman, a disaffected churchgoer, an unemployed observer of the human race.”(4) It was through this intense loneliness of searching that she discovered the answer for the long loneliness all humans experience, as love. Dorothy began to understand that love was experienced by living life in community.(5)  

As I was reading about Dorothy Day through my summer church history course, I was taken with her spunk and tenacity in life. Over the next couple of posts, I would like to share part of her story with you. The image at the top of this post is from a wood carving created by Fritz Eichenberg as a homage to Dorothy.(6)

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn in 1897 as the middle of five children. Her father was a sports writer, covering horse racing, and her mother was a homemaker. Her father was a confirmed atheist who, oddly enough, also carried around a Bible. Dorothy’s family moved to California before the 1906 earthquake shook the area. Due to the loss of her father’s job in the devastation from the quake, they moved to the East Coast. However, it was the kindness of people coming together during this tragedy in California that had a longstanding impact throughout Dorothy’s life.(7) 
           
In her young adult years, Dorothy became involved with social justice, anti-war, and the socialist party. Against her father’s wishes, she pursued a position as a journalist. She wanted to experience the life of those in poverty. To do so she purposely lived on five dollars a month and wrote about it as a means to experience life from this place of hardship.(8)
           
Something about the kindness of people that Dorothy witnessed after the earthquake and her desire for social justice, helped her discover a desire to know God and to live authentically with the people she experienced in life. In this desire, she pursued many different journalist assignments. She often joined others on picket lines in her concern for social justice. The first time was in support of the suffragists in Washington DC. Women arrested earlier were treated as ordinary prisoners, instead of political activists, and taken to a workhouse. Dorothy, along with 34 other women, decided to protest their unfair treatment. Dorothy’s group was arrested and sentenced for 30 days. They made a pact to engage in a hunger strike to influence fairer treatment. As they reacted to the harsh treatment they received, it was falsely reported that the women were combative.(9)
           
They continued steadfast in their hunger strike. The lack of food combined with the harsh treatment and isolation caused Dorothy to go in and out of consciousness. During this difficulty, she identified herself with other prisoners and felt a deep need to escape her situation. However, she chose to endure until her 30 days were over. During day six, she was taken to the hospital. After a full 10 days, these persistent women received their demands and were taken to the city jail instead of the workhouse.(10)

Dorothy began to understand from this experience that it didn’t matter if you willed yourself to see the best in someone, they always showed their worst. She didn’t believe in prayer or religion, but she seemed to always place herself in places of prayer. Dorothy experienced prayer as peace. She felt that the “life of nature warred against the life of grace.”(11)

As we discussed in the last blog post, George Fox moved from an understanding of God formed in Calvinism to a new way to understand, know, and experience God. When Fox started preaching in 1647 people gathered to seek something new due to their dissatisfaction with religion. Fox wasn’t trying to build a church but to share the message he felt God had given him for the whole world. He believed the world would hear this message and become the True Church with Christ as the head. All the deceit he saw in the church came from people betraying the basic principles of Christianity. The only way out, in Fox’s opinion, was an inward submission to God, acceptance of God’s grace, and listening to Christ’s voice in the inner self.(1)

Fox focused on people and not on forming a theological doctrine. He felt Christ, the Light within each person, would teach each person, just as Christ had taught him. As Christ met people, they would be convicted of sin, which would lead to true repentance. The work was God’s. Fox understood the Light within is the one who “guides, warns, encourages, speaks, chastens, cares.” (2) It illumines the Scripture and is the Christ we seek. Fox’s understanding comes from John 1:9 and 8:12.(3)

In contrast to Puritanism, Fox believed it didn’t matter if you had a pure heart or agreed outwardly to doctrine. What mattered was how one responded to the Light. So, Fox didn’t point people to Scripture or the cross but to the inner light, bringing their lives to this Light.

Puritanism, on the other hand, taught a morality code without assurance of salvation. People did not know if they would gain eternal life since it was uncertain if they were one of the “elect.” Puritanism was a response and reaction to the hierarchical churches’ actions due to power and control. Yet, they created rules, a form of control, in their desire for people to do “right.” This may seem like it comes from good intentions, but acting as morality police for other people doesn’t work. One of Fox’s main complaints with the Christian church was their interest "in a savior who could forgive sin but not in a Christ with moral power to overcome sin.” (4) Unfortunately,  judging others in this way often leads to dehumanizing those who are not like us.

Fox believed we all the Light of God within us. We have different measures of light based on our own journeys. Some teach we have just a fragment of God, but Fox states it is a presence of God. There is only one true Light, and we enjoy this fullness of God in community. We can’t practice our faith journey in isolation but we need community around us. (5) As we become reconciled to God and creation, this Light is the source of truth, the power to act on that truth, and unity with God and others.(6)

If every person has the Light within, then all are created equal without regard to race, gender, or anything else. Fox criticized meetings that didn’t allow women to speak and supported many women in leadership roles. This understanding was also behind his unwillingness to fight since “that of God” was in every human. The social inequalities so firmly in place were abhorrent and needed to be eliminated. This understanding led to a different way of speaking to one another without the social constructs formed to keep people in place, such as titles and removing one’s hat.(7)

Fox sensed God revealing things to him, “openings.” He experienced this Inner Light through seeking God and studying the New Testament. His understanding of God changed. Fox taught the physical practice of the sacraments remaining in Protestantism kept people from experiencing the real meaning represented. He didn’t disagree with the historical creeds but rejected them since they were formed for political and diplomatic reasons. Those who held to them used them as a test of orthodoxy and killed those who disagreed. Fox felt these practices were not from the spirit of Christ but were in actuality “devilish.”(8) Due to these doctrinal issues, Fox spent time in prison for having beliefs outside of what was considered orthodox during this time.

It is entirely impossible to speak to all the aspects of George Fox’s ministry or of the efforts of his followers. It was a movement that spread from living out the implications of what Jesus lived out among us. This goes well beyond what we know to be right by allowing the effect of God’s gaze of love to impact those around us. For Fox, and those who were affected by his life and teaching, it made a difference. They lived out that difference in ways that had harsh implications for their own lives. Yet, they lived out precisely what they believed. They did not follow rules or debates over doctrine but stood courageously in knowing that there is “that of God” in every human and that that statement of truth matters.

Quakerism has struggled since this time to remember this truth and to live in a non-hierarchical understanding of leadership and worship. Throughout history, Quakers, like other denominations, have split and split again. We all still struggle with perceptions that have impacted Christianity all through history. What is the authority of Scripture as we understand who God is, who we are, and who is the “other?” Are some on the outside based on our understanding of Scripture? I would have to say that I have found a home in Quakerism and even more so after studying George Fox, even in this limited time. His understanding of church, of God, and of humankind resonates deeply in my heart, as home for me.

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(1) John Punshon, Portrait In Grey: A Short History of the Quakers (London: Quaker Home Service, 1984), 43–44, 46.
(2) Ibid., 36.
(3) Ibid., 48–49.
(4) Wilmer A. Cooper, A Living Faith: An Historical Study of Quaker Beliefs (Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1990), , 13.
(5) Punshon, Portrait In Grey, 50.
(6) Cooper, A Living Faith, 13.
(7) Rufus Jones, “Introduction,” in George Fox, An Autobiography (Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach, 1903), 34-35.
(8) Punshon, Portrait In Grey, 47–48.