I’m reading All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day by Jim Forest. The book was recommended to me by my husband. He thought that learning more about Dorothy Day would be right up my alley. He was right. Social justice and the plight of the poor have become….interests/passions/concerns of mine more and more since my own first child was born. Although in her youth she lived a bit more wild than my taste, she is an excellent example for all of us.
I came across one quote in my reading, though, that just won’t go away. It has been floating around in my brain all day, and I feel I may never be rid of it…(but that could be a good thing I guess). I’ve been struggling with having material attachments for awhile now. A new acquaintance and I were just talking about this at church on Sunday. It’s hard having to choose between spending time taking care of your child and having more money for your family. It’s hard to choose between hard work as a stay-at-home mom….and say, a bigger house with more space and a yard for my son to run around in.
So with this in the back of my mind, I read the following quote from page 71 of the book:
Sitting on the beach one day, Dorothy was reading The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James when, in a chapter on “The Value of Saintliness,” she came upon his proposal that the only way to undo the damage done by the ideal of wealth-getting was to respect poverty: “The praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung. We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul.”
After all, who was it who lived with no material attachments whatsoever? Oh yeah. Jesus. Because he knew what was really important. He knew that when the filth of all our material possessions is washed away, it is easier to see God.
So anyway, that’s what has been on my mind today. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, or how it will change me. For now I am content to let it percolate for awhile.