Community

Over the past few weeks I've been reading from Wisdom from Dorothy Day, a selection of her past articles in books and in The Catholic Worker newspaper, pulled together by editor, Patricia Mitchell.  If anyone knew a lot about community, it was Dorothy Day.  

Dorothy wrote in October, 1950:  "Writing is an act of community...comforting, consoling, helping, advising on our part, as well as asking it on yours.  It is a part of our human association with each other...an expression of our love and concern for each other."

I was tempted not to write today.  Feeling very scattered, anxious, worried.  My son was taken to the hospital in West Palm Beach, FL on Thursday and lies in the medical ICU, diagnosis undetermined at this time.  In an earlier post I referred to his illness seven years ago, and I can only hope that this isn't a repeat.  Anyway, my conscience urged me not to forsake at least this short piece today, so here it is.  In the spirit of community, may I ask for your good thoughts and prayers for Andrew.

"Essentially each one of us is alone," says Dorothy, "and that makes us first realize our helplessness and then our need of each other and responsibility to each other..."

COMMUNITY:  a nine-letter word, and what holds it together is "U"!

Dorothy Day sums it up: "We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other...We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community." (From The Long Loneliness)

(Photo of Dorothy Day from the Milwaukee Journal)