Gilbert House Catholic Worker

The Distributist's Camera: Snapshot in a small town

2011-11-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Distributist's Camera:

Snapshot in a small town

by Miki Tracy

"I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found it good. When I depart from it, evil results follow. I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living….[T]o be in direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to want no extras, no shields; to find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more satisfying than a gift of tropic fruit; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest, or over a wild flower in Spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life."

~John Burroughs, from Leaf and Tendril

Just beyond the fifty-seven glistening, verdant hills, in the far "nort"-eastern corner of St. Croix County, in west-central Wisconsin, around a lazy bend of sweaty, shimmering corn fields, past a fragrant swath of deep, dark alfalfa, and just a quarter-mile ahead of the granite-strewn knoll where so many of the local ancestry rest beneath a canopy of ancient creaking maples beside the old railroad track, there is a place called Kuehl's (think the keel of a ship), named for it's owners, sandwiched between the old dilapidated brick building that houses Mr. Cronk's tractor garage and the rural post office.

Most every weekend afternoon, I take a Benadryl and an aspirin to trick my sinuses and prevent my blood from curdling due to the assault of tobacco smoke I'm about to subject myself to, and I travel the three miles from my little house to Kuehl's to hold court with my friend Travis, the proprietor's son, and while the day away.

Travis is convinced that this geography and its people (which we have affectionately christened "Flannel Land") are going to crush his dreams and kill his soul if he does not flee…quickly. Like every young man with half a brain before him, he's got itchy feet, wings to fly, and lint in his pockets. I tell him that the only thing standing between him and Scotland, or Syracuse, or Spain, is his own front door--but he's not yet convinced.

Honestly, though, who needs to travel when you've got all of Tolkien and Dickens' motley brood living right here on Main Street's stoop? Who needs a ticket to the opera when there are juicy dramas fomenting right under your nose?

…Kuehl's is one of those magical places that hides its true self from all but those who are really looking for it. One of the last truly tenacious Mom&Pop shops, it sells gas and liquor and all the sundry stuffs that one might need on a fishing trip, including worms. It boasts a hot, steaming kitchen from which emits the curling lilt of country music on the radio, the delicious smells of onions and searing meat, and piles of the best fried chicken and potato logs (called "broasted" and "jojos" in the local patois) that you will ever find. Jim Kuehl, a proud, gruff, soft-hearted Mason (who reminds me so much of my own grand-dad) mock-begrudgingly owns this place with his equally soft-hearted wife, Mickie, and does himself a serious disservice by keeping his prices lower than most other businesses in the region. But in doing so he has also been of great benefit to his neighbors who will gladly drive out of their way to patronize him.

High atop the soda cooler sits a small television, which always seems to set the agenda for conversation during a lull, be it politics, the current headlines, a horse race or the weather.

And, so, here I sit with Travis and my needlework on lazy afternoons, watch the people come and go, listen to their many stories and do what one cannot, or does not, do in the Big City….I spend time with my neighbors and share in a life lived the way it should be.

Around the chipped white formica roundtable under a wall tacked with peppered sheets of all the local happenings, calling cards and smarty-pants signs ("Caution: Old Grump Crossing"), vociferous discussions play out over the ever-changing clutter of beer and soda bottles, coffee cups, and deli wrappers filled to brimming with luscious things that are supposed to kill us because they taste so good. Veterans from the last five wars, a few bent and broken, others full of memories and sympathy, drift in and out and bless anyone who's willing to listen with their own hard-won experiences. Teachers from the local school, the publisher of the Tribune, the librarian from two towns over, the local Lutheran pastor, and the state trooper who lives down the road--all appear at varied intervals to purchase gas or bread or a bottle of spirits, and stop just long enough to hear the news and tell what they know.

Did you hear that the Obermeuller girl is taking her calf to State?...Pray for Josh; he's going to be in rehab for the next six months….Mr. Jeske died the other night; would you make a hot-dish for his wake?...Natalie got kicked whilst gelding a horse....Mandy is finally getting married!

It seems that the more time passes, the more varied and layered the lives of these people appear to me. Like the patchwork of fields that roll away out beyond the glass door of this storefront, the lives lived around this valley are pieced together with relationships and interests and talents and beliefs as varied as the hues of a brilliant crystal prism. They weave in and out of one another, blending here and there, contrasting at short intervals, some shiny, others dull, each with its own character, all interesting and lovely to contemplate.

…Marcella arrives with Eleanor to sit in the corner booth, have their lunch, and talk quietly for hours about whatever it is that little old ladies talk about; Nelson the Anarchist Beekeeper rails against the perversities of big government before running out the door to his next project; Lloyd blows in like a small storm, all glower and snark, tanned and sinewy from tending the golf course under the wide, blue sky, to flirt sheepishly with Natalie; Carly has dyed her hair an ungodly shade of black, and sits quietly, dark eyes watchful under long, heavy bangs whilst she chews absently on that cupid's bow lip of hers….Sharon straggles in with a weird expression behind her brow to tell me that she has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and it doesn't look good; might she "borrow" our dog, Daisy (that she loves so much), for company when she starts chemotherapy? Gail arrives to sit at our table because it's been a very long week at the factory and she just needs a good laugh….

What is supposed to be the hard-earned living of a single family in a small town, many miles of blacktop ribbon removed from the nearest large city, is, in fact, the proverbial kitchen table and confessional of an entire community. Out of this gathering place is borne the first word of births and deaths and accidents, weddings, separations, Darwinian mind-benders and so many fine accomplishments. From so many of these people come news of farmers in need of help, children in need of clothes, elderly in need of hot meals and anything else that might be important enough to broadcast via the Tin-Can Telegraph Wire which, as it just so happens, is pretty much anything and everything. And as I perch here, needle in hand, in this swirling, heady, smoke-filled store, raucous with laughter and music and near-constant chatter, I catalogue the memory of each bit of news, every story I hear, every prayer shot up, every Sven and Ole' joke, into the coloured cotton floss that pierces my linen canvas to remember where I was when.

Every Chesteronian who knows G.K. as their spiritual father knows well that the living of life is most often discovered in small, seemingly-inconsequential things. No need to pack a bag and go elsewhere! Entire, vast galaxies are contained in a word, a glance, a bottle of beer. I am peering through the lens of one who knows exactly why one should believe in the impossible, and why it is good to spend an occasional day lying on one's back, painting sweeping murals on one's ceiling with a broom and buckets of brightly pigmented paint. I consider afresh life in this too-small-to-be-on-the-map, dream-crushing, soul-killing town with a heart set ablaze with the realization that if I want to find faeries and castles and dragons to slay, I need go no further than the garden in my own back yard. Magic reveals itself in the turning of soil, the planting of seeds, the breaking of bread, the making of wine, picking wool off of fence posts by the roadside and flowers from the ditch, and in the hot, sweaty kisses of a play-wearied child. And falling in love--real, true, abiding love--happens all on its own, without warning, sitting at a chipped white formica table on a Saturday afternoon in the smoky, unassuming haze of all that is simple, sweet, common and holy, listening to tales told by one's neighbor and hearing in their voice the echo of GOD when you least expect it.

"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see."

Yep. I get it….

On the Supreme Importance of Family: A Love Letter to My Kids (and you all know who you are....)

2011-10-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

My Mother did not want me.

It's just as simple as that.

Not because of any really imperfection in me. Not because of any flaw or fault of hers...at least not any which were not imposed on her by circumstance or misunderstanding.

I was not tiny and delicate like one of her white-faced, ruby-lipped china dolls. I walked before I knew I could crawl, talked before I knew (or cared) not to speak bluntly, and preferred my daddy to her--a fact that she pointed out in aggravated prose in my baby book. Worst of all, I was not a boy, and I would pay for that wrong dearly for many years.

She can't be blamed, though. She wanted to be Daddy's Little Girl; that vocation was given to another. She wanted a brother; she, the dark little Indian girl found herself instead sandwiched in between fair-haired, blue-eyed, dazzlingly dimpled sisters who all seemed, to her, to be adored by everyone who met them whilst she waited unnoticed and un-missed (so she thought) in the shadows.

Life made her cold, quiet and envious. She worked hard, perfected her passions, made herself enviable. She became an artist, became mysteriously aloof, and when the time was right, she let me have no illusions that I might still be part of her life. She used me for what I could be used for, and when I no longer served her purposed, she shed me like an old coat.

Maybe that's why the last therapist I ever wasted good money on told me that mine is an orphan psychology? Maybe not. But, still, I know what it is to feel like you've been dropped into a stranger's family. Not to fit in. To be unwanted. Pushed away and pushed under by cold, hard unmaternal hands. I know what it is to be beaten down, called names and told that you're stupid, worthless, and a burden. I know what it is to be abused and neglected from whence you came.

I know that you know this too. And I want you to know something else just as strongly.

A couple of you were given to me by your own mothers when you were born because they knew that I would love you just as much as they did, should anything ever happen to them. A few of you I rescued as a matter of necessity from dark, screaming corners that the Devil himself could not tolerate. A few others I have found along the stony parts of the steep and winding trails of my life--places no child should ever have been left, even if it were to die.

I've trundled every single one of you off to the deepest, safest, warmest places of my own heart, and in there you will always have a safe and welcome home.

I will never care if you become a doctor or a bus driver or a clown in the circus. I will be blissfully happy with whatever you choose to do with your life as long as it makes you happy and gives service to the world you inhabit.

You are beautiful.

You are brilliant.

You are lovely.

You were made not to be comfortable, or popular, or rich in this life (though, sometimes, it helps to be all of the above!); You were born for greatness. You were placed in this world to change it for the better, to fulfill a divine purpose--a purpose that you will not even realise yourself until it has long since passed you by.

Obey the law, unless it is unjust. And if the law is unjust, fight to make it right. If you get arrested, I will not bail you out of jail. But I will bring you chocolate, bubblegum, colouring books, crayons and chalk, and The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton to while away the hours with as you do your time.

If you have no home or need to hide from the great big world, come home to me, and I will feed you and cry with you in bed and make sure you get kicked right back out the door when it's time to get off your ass and go do something productive.

If anyone ever hurts you, strikes you down, cheats you, or tries to take your life, they do not deserve to have you in theirs. If they tell you that you must stay, and that they love you because you "make them happy," RUN before they smother you to death like a wet, moldy towel. And you had better tell them, too, that your mama has a baseball bat...and she knows precisely how to use it if she needs to. >: (

I love you because you exist. I love you even when you do not please me, do not make me happy. I love you when you rage, when you make trouble, when you act like you've lost your mind, and when you are a royal pain in my ass. I love you even when you are at your worst, because you are, and because I love you, I hope for what I know you can be to your own self and to others.

DO NOT ever allow anyone to tell you that you are not good enough, bright enough, strong enough, thin enough or big enough. Do not ever let anyone tell you that you are not worthy, that your life is a mistake, an error or a waste. Never listen to those who hurt you for the sake of hurting you, keeping you down, or keeping you in your "place." People who say any of these things are bullies...and bullies always lie.

You have the power to save the world one soul at a time--starting with your own.

You are capable of changing society all by your self.

You have the very power of GOD within you, and because of that you can do any damned thing in this moment of time that you choose to do, so long as it does not harm you or anyone else.

Wash your face, brush your teeth, and go out each day with the knowledge that wherever you are, whatever you do, however you choose to do it, I am in your corner, and I love you more than life itself. And if anyone ever tells you different, tell them that your mother said that they can go get bent.

As long as I'm in this world, you *do* have family. As long as I draw breath, you have a home.

Current Request

2011-06-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

Dear XXX,

As you know, we failed in our attempt last year to criss-cross America and chronicle Homelessness and Poverty in a personal way. Carly fell in love with a newborn baby and never made it past Tacoma, Miki got septicemia in California, spent eight days in the hospital and struggled weakly through the rest of the summer, and the e-publisher who had promised us page space cut us off without any word or explanation.

We have not given up on what we think is an important story to tell. And, our vision has grown. We not only want to put a compassionate face on the poverty issue in America, we want to do "An American Family" scrapbook, dedicated to telling the story of one homeless person in every town and city we get to, and making them as well-known to you, and as well-loved, as any other relative you already know.

We've hit a brick wall. Many people have promised financial support to help make our vision a reality. None has actually followed through. For some it has been a matter of personal necessity, for others we aren't certain.

Miki was supposed to leave on this newly planned trip June 1st. She's still here at home working in the garden, working at a friend's farm, and praying desperately for an angel to help her.

We located a small camper for her to drive across America. We have the camper (if we can pay for it), and all of the materials she needs to do the photo-journalism part of things. We have a programmer to build us a new website, and a tentative offer to submit our articles to America Magazine for publication. At some point, we'd like to make this project into a documentary, and we have a couple of filmmakers who have expressed interest in helping us with this.

We need ten thousand dollars, last week.

It sounds like alot until you remember that everywhere Miki goes, she will be working voluntarily in shelters and soup kitchens across America, whilst chronicling the experience.

We also plan on using this trip as a way of getting a final commitment from other Catholic Workers to come and build a sister house to Gilbert House in Menomonie, Wisconsin as soon as possible. We have a friend of our house who has prayerfully put up the necessary seed money to fund that house's start up costs, all we need are the bodies to get it running.

Please help us.

Ten Good Reasons Why Christmas Sucks Rocks

2010-12-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

If you are Catholic and have had the uncommon privilege of halfway decent catechesis at some point in your life, then you are probably aware that Christmas is not the supreme High Feast day of the Liturgical Ordo. No, that honour, the crowning jewel of the Calendar of Seasons, belongs to Easter. It is the Day of Days; the celebration of Christ triumphing over evil and death forever. Yet Christmas has it's place, especially in modern culture, where the sacred presentation of the Nativity of Christ gives way to a flurry of privately held traditions, even if that means denying any tradition at all.

Christmas was always a kind a brutal tug of war in the family I grew up with. I had the very proper Eastern-bred paternal grandparents who threw lavish semi-formal parties in their home, complete with crystal chandeliers, a "don't even think about touching that" tree towering in every room, and fine linens protecting the mahogany table in the overly formal dining room, every horizontal surface crowded to excess with enough holiday food to feed a small town, and enough blended Scotch to keep all of the brothers and my grandfather very giggly and generous until everyone was exhausted and ready for sleep. Attendance was evidently mandatory and never really questioned - a situation that never sat well with my smoldering-tempered mother, who felt forcibly alienated from her own kin, and she made a point of saying so every chance she got.

On the other side of the familial fence there was my diminutive maternal "Gram." Hailing from a family of a dozen-or-so Nebraska-farm-reared siblings, five times married, and a veteran of the war-time entertainment stage, my Gram would pull out all the stops with parties where not a drop of alcohol was allowed, but guitars, banjos, singing, and games ran clean through the night and into dawn without respite, and not one person felt any need to argue about anything at all...which, if you've ever been within twenty miles of that family line, you know what a certifiable miracle is witnessed in such a feat.

Only once did my parents take my brothers and me to the latter family gathering. I was eight years old. Earlier that day, the Catholic church across the street from my Gram's house burned to the ground and, at some point, my Gram, my Great Grandma Grace, my mother, and I stood in the shadow of the carport under a clear black sky and just wondered at the acrid scent of dampened smoke in the air, and the sad, jumbled pile of dark grey granite stones across the way that had just one sunset before been the small fortress church where my mother had grown up and eventually found her conversion.

I stood under my Grandma Grace's shoulder just then and hugged her tight, breathed in the warm scent of lavender that permeated her tiny, soft, pearl-buttoned cardigan, and she held me close in return whilst she chatted quietly with her daughter and grand daughter. It was the first and the last time that I would ever get to spend Christmas with my great grandmother at her house; the following year she was in a nursing home and not long after her arrival, she fell, broke a hip, lost her left leg to sepsis, and faded quickly and quietly away in the Spring.

That last Christmas night, my Gram gave me one of her decorations; a tiny pearly-white plastic music box, shaped like a pipe organ, made festive with tiny sprigs of green plastic holly and a golden-winged angel sitting at the bench, tiny alabaster hands poised over imaginary keys that played, when the secret key in the back of the box was turned just so, a very tiny "Silent Night." The music stopped ages ago, but to this day, it is one of my favourite possessions. It reminds me of the night when my mother was home with her elder sisters and seemed almost happy--the only Christmas that I can actually remember when she did not loose her temper at some point, drag me into an empty room and paddle me silly for some indiscretion of manners, real or imagined. It is the only Christmas that I ever saw my Gram in her authentic, radiant element, playing the boisterous hostess to everyone she loved, whether related by blood or not. It was beautiful because it was simple, it was memorable because it was a night truly governed by peace in the midst of tragedy.

I was eighteen-years-old the last time I ever attended a family Christmas party. I stopped going because that year I tried to institute a new family tradition, and failed miserably. I came that night armed with a Bible, gathered everyone together in my grandparents' living room, and read the Nativity account from the Gospel of Luke. Three days later on Sunday morning just before I left for church with friends, my mother told me over the phone how embarrassed she was by such a "brazen display of hypocrisy" and she assured me with an unmistakable sneer that I had made a fool of myself by doing something so "stupid." The next year I just stayed in bed under the covers and read a book with a trusty box of chocolates at my side. The year after that I had the flu. Another year; I lived fifteen-hundred miles away and began a chosen pattern of working holidays so that others could go home to their own families.

...A decade more, and my paternal grandfather died; our family scattered silently to the Four Winds never to gather together in the same space again, just as my mother's family had done when Grandma Grace had left us. Over time misunderstandings and bitter tales of slights and crimes against egos would fracture, splinter, and eventually kill my family on both sides. In my immediate relations, after my parents divorced, sides were chosen, stories were told and scandalously embellished in the retelling, lines were drawn in concrete and, finally, there came that one empty, aching moment whilst watching the snow twinkle as it fell softly under the street lamp outside my window when I realised that the family that I missed and loved no longer existed, nor did anyone but me care to resurrect it. Not too many years ago I decided that it was time to call a spade a spade: for all practical purposes I am an orphan in this cold, massive world that my true mentor once called "the long loneliness," and there is no "home" to be at for Christmas in this or any other year.

I spend a lot of time with homeless people during the holidays, not out of any sense of devotion, but out of necessity. The holidays have a way of breeding guilt in the hearts of country club Christians who suddenly grow consciences that inform them (however wrongly) that condescending to some poor social lepers in the soup line for a few hours will expiate a mountain of sins against Charity. The poorest of the poor may be lacking in material blessings, but they aren't lacking in brains, or insight into human nature; they see the fraud afoot, and they graciously ignore it as best they can. What's the alternative?

I talk to many of these people during this season when city works departments start wrapping lamp posts in gaudy tinsel and glaring lights; they have often told me how grating the kettle bells are when they know that some nice bank vault will receive a fat, heavy bucket of guilt change that night whilst their own empty stomachs continue to gnaw and gurgle within them because they haven't got two dollars to spend on a cup of instant soup at the A & P.

Right now, at this precise moment, the Union Gospel Mission is turning men away because they haven't any room left to keep them. It's three degrees outside. I beg local donors for old blankets to stuff in our beaten wreck of a car so that we can go search for our friends who sleep down by the lake and the rivers where the police won't go looking for them. Every now and again, we luck out and someone dumps a black lawn bag of old mittens and hats and an occasional hunter's jacket on our covered porch without a word; it's not difficult to find barren bodies to put them on.

I have watched homeless men die of hypothermia whilst police officers mistakenly argue over whether they are just drunk or stoned. I have sat in our car and cried over weary mothers huddled in their own cars with children who do not understand that the reason that they cannot go home is because Daddy lost the rent money at the track or, worse, tried to strangle Mommy to death in a rage last week whilst they slept in the next room. I have had to run for cover in the face of one of the most obscene injustices I know: an honourably discharged disabled veteran returned from battle overseas, lying on crushed cardboard under the canopy of a tree in the Chancery park because our Congressional leaders chose to cut his pay and his benefits instead of their own whilst he was half a world away sacrificing life and limb for a war that should have never been waged in the first place....I am ashamed of what they have come home to, and I am ashamed to let them see me cry for their forgotten honour.

Often I ask these people if they have family; I am no longer disappointed when they tell me, "No." I used to be deeply bothered when a homeless person told me that they do not know whether their own parents, siblings, or children are alive or dead. I no longer wonder at the absurdity of someone telling me that they don't remember the last address their mother lived at, or that the last phone number they had for a brother or sister was disconnected ages ago.

In too many ways the homeless people whom I have come to regard as my family are veritable orphans. People in better circumstances are all too quick to assume that the bum on the street drinks or drugs themselves into a stupor out of selfishness or sloth. I know better. I know from first hand experience the dull, throbbing ache of the long loneliness; I know what it is to be so far away from kin that you know that you are a cipher in the deep, deep snow to those whom you love in absentia. I know what it is to weep over the loss of someone who you have only known in the exchange of a blanket and a kind word, or an hour in a warm, idling car over a shared cup of coffee and a cold sandwich.

Tonight one of our friends was found dead in a park. Flashes of smoldering piles of deep dark grey granite filled my mind as one of my police contacts told me that they "don't think he suffered much." I know that this statement is absolutely untrue, and I hate it that we live in a society that believes such lies. My friend at the police department asked me if our friend has any family that can be contacted. There is no one.

No one.

Another beautiful-but-nameless orphan in the world who was known to us and who will be known no more because he froze to death alone and unwanted in a public park. He's the tenth friend we have lost thus far this Winter, and Christmas hasn't even been and gone, yet.

I've decided that I absolutely hate Christmas, and this year I have ten very good reasons why:

Jonathan.

Katie.

Eddie.

Mark.

Uncle Jack.

Edith.

Badger.

Charles.

Tony.

Annual Appeal

2010-10-22T03:16:00.000-07:00

Usually, the 15th of October is when we send out our annual appeal letter. Suffice it to say that none of us has had the time or energy to focus on such a task.

But our needs are huge.

We need another vehicle, and we are looking for gas money to get the furnace going, and also to get one of our kids back and forth from counseling.

We have also been feeding more drop-ins than usual, so any groceries are appreciated, as is coffee, toothbrushes, and bathroom tissue.

And if anyone knows how to fix bicycles, please let us know.

The garden is finally put to bed, and Mary Alice dropped off the last fifty pounds of squash down at the food pantry. It's going to be a hard, early winter, and most of our pumpkins are still green--not good. But we're dehydrating apples and carrots and all of the herbs have been brought in and put up.

Pray for us. And give us a call if you need anything, as well!

Protest Planned for Los Alamos, NM--Join them if you're in the area!

2010-08-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Monday, August 02, 2010

Protest Planned for Los Alamos

By Phil Parker
Journal Staff Writer

CHIMAYO — Friday marks the 65th anniversary of the U.S. dropping
an atomic on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, an attack
meant to end World War II. Activists have mobilized on eight
acres in Chimayó with a plan to ensure that, on that day, Los
Alamos National Laboratory hears their calls for a nuke-free
world.

The 10-day event here — called Disarmament Summer Encampment — is
being organized by Think Outside the , a national nuclear
abolition group. Activists are camping on the grounds, owned by
Teresa Juarez, whose grandson Miguel Moreno lives there and is one
of Disarmament Summer's lead organizers. Seven of the family's
dogs run around freely during the daytime, and tents are
everywhere as nuclear opponents continued to fill up the camp on
Sunday.

The plan is to gather Friday at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos for a
rally that will incorporate performance art to tell stories of
nuclear power's damaging effects on communities around the
country. Then the group will march through the town and onto lab
property.

What the protest will look like has yet to be determined (there is
talk of puppets), but members of Think Outside the want the
whole procession carefully planned, so that when they take to the
atomic 's birthplace on Friday, they're armed with a group of
protestors educated on what exactly they're standing up for.

To that end, about 30 people gathered in a wide circle under a
tarp Sunday afternoon for a workshop called "Nukes 101." Speakers
from varying parts of the country took turns tackling a different
aspect of what they see as nuclear power's destructive legacy.

Twa-le Abrahamson told the group about the Spokane Reservation in
Washington, where she's from. Abrahamson said uranium mining went
on there for decades, beginning in the 1950s, and the health
effects have been devastating for tribal members who spent years
working the mines with no clue of the toll to their bodies.

"A lot of people are sick," she said. "There are a lot of widows."

Rozlyn Humphrey, from Aiken, S.C., said plutonium from the
Savannah River Site, built near Aiken in the 1950s to help
construct nuclear weapons, has done irreparable harm to the land
and river there.

"You dare not eat fish out of the Savannah River," she said. And
in a part of the country where hunting is dogma, she said, no one
hunts because radiation in the ground has caused the vegetation to
be contaminated, so animals that eat it aren't safe.

Other activists told similar tales, but the essential point of
Disarmament Summer Encampment may have been most plainly expressed
by Jennifer Nordstrom, from Racine, Wis.: "Nuclear weapons are
still being used — in testing and in the global politics of threat
and fear. ... New Mexico is the sacrificial state for the nuclear
weapons industrial complex."

Organizers with Think Outside the don't want the lab closed
down — Miguel Moreno said too many people in rural San Miguel
County depend on Los Alamos for work: "We don't want to take
anything away; we want that money, we just want it for something
good."

Think Outside the 's Jono Kinkade said his organization is
keeping a close eye on planning for a new plutonium pit in Los
Alamos. The lab earlier this year announced plans for its
Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement building, which
would take a decade to build, with 22,500 square feet of lab
space, much for analyzing plutonium and other radioactive
materials. Funding for the building still hasn't been approved by
Congress, but the total price could be $4 billion, based on
National Nuclear Security Administration proposals.

"Stopping the CMRR (from being built) is a central focus," Kinkade
said. "We're trying to create political pressure, because that
money can be better spent on cleaner technology and renewable
energy."

LANL officials have said that the mission, for decades, has not
been to make new nuclear weapons but to maintain the country's
existing stockpile. As nuclear age, scientists need to
upgrade their technology. That work would be carried on at the
CMRR building. And former NNSA manager Don Winchell told an
audience in Española in June that the CMRR was vital for national
security because of nuclear forensics work that helps the
government track nuclear materials in other parts of the world.

"We're not building fancy new weapons," Winchell, who retired last
month, said then.

"If they want to have a beautiful, expensive new facility, why not
use it to create renewable energy?" Jennifer Nordstrom said.
"There could be an economic transformation if they changed their
focus from and destruction to life-changing renewables."

Think Outside the is hoping that message comes across loud
and clear Friday.

For more information on Think Outside the , visit
www.thinkoutsidethebomb.org.

Press Release

2010-06-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

An Audacious Mission Trip

After receiving multiple requests for information during a very busy trip, the community members from the Gilbert House Catholic Worker in Glenwood City would like to offer the following for publication:

Miki Tracy and Carly Ann Koon, representatives of the Gilbert House Catholic Worker Community in Glenwood City, Wisconsin, have embarked on a four-month mission trip across the United States to document homelessness and poverty in America.

The germ for making this road trip was borne out of an unfortunate conversation this past year between Carly and a teacher at Glenwood City High School in which the teacher denied that there are well over half a million homeless on the streets at any given time in the United States. The same teacher also denied the accuracy of Federal statistics which have identified an overwhelming prevalence of pervasive mental illness within the homeless demographic, as well as a significant number of women, children and families. The posit that the homeless in our midst are out on the streets "of their own fee choice" was so disconcerting to Carly that she decided she had to find out for herself what is really happening out on the streets.

Carly and Miki are documenting what they can of the problem for themselves, visiting various organizations to see how volunteers across our great nation answer the needs of homelessness and poverty in their local communities "at a personal cost." Carly and Miki will be publishing an extensive photo-journalism project at the conclusion of their trip, as well as posting updates on our homepage, http://gilberthouse.blogspot.com, along the way. They are relying totally on free will donations to make this journey a success.

Currently, Miki is serving at the Corpus Christi House of Hospitality in Boise, Idaho. Carly has gone on to Tacoma to meet up with friends of our community, and to interview and work with members of the Tacoma Catholic Worker. Carly and Miki will meet up late next week in Seattle to continue their journey to soup kitchens, shelters, Christ houses, and other related communities in the King and Pierce County area; they will then continue down the Pacific Coast through Oregon and California before working their way back East, stopping at communities in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, and Minnesota. They will begin the eastern leg of this venture in Washington D.C. the first week of August, where they will be volunteering at other communities throughout the north-eastern U.S. before returning to Glenwood City sometime in Setember.

Mary Alice Calhoun and Amanda Hopkins have remained at Gilbert House to tend our garden so that our produce donations to the WestCap food pantry continue without decline or interruption.

Miki is a writer and Catholic apologist, and works with the American Catholic Writers Guild, as well as various national and international periodicals; she currently has several articles and essays in production, including the June issue of GILBERT Magazine. Carly is a recent graduate of Glenwood City High School and is currently discerning what (and where) she would like to study in her future college course.

For further information please visit our homepage. Miki and Carly may be reached at 715-308-8295 during the trip.

________________________
In His Grace,

Miki, Mary Alice, Amanda, Carly, and Friends
Gilbert House Catholic Worker
433 East Oak Street
Glenwood City, WI 54013

Daniel Berrigan has passed away. May GOD grant unto him eternal rest+++

2010-04-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Priest, keeper of the Word, risk-embracer

By Colman McCarthy
For NCR

I wrote Daniel Berrigan’s obituary the other day. The Jesuit priest, writer, teacher, dramatist, peacemaker, war resister and truth-teller who lives in New York City isn’t dead, of course, nor is he even close to being ill as he nears his 89th birthday this spring. The obituary editor at The Washington Post, my old paper, said he wanted an expansive piece written unhurriedly beforehand rather than risk a quickie dashed off under deadline pressure. In the newspaper world, advance obituaries are usually reserved for the giants -- presidents and popes. Which explains why Berrigan gets one: He is a giant.

I had time to go back and reread much of the stunningly large amount of ambiguity-free prose that is the Berrigan opus, from the early books such as Night Flight to Hanoi, No Bars to Manhood and False Gods, Real Men, to the later ones: Minor Prophets, Major Themes and To Dwell in Peace, his autobiography. And more poems, essays, journals and plays, early and late.

The richness of it all would stand alone as enduring literature. Yet the beauty of the language -- flexuous metaphors, spare allusions -- goes beyond the pleasures of reading well-crafted prose. Underlying it is the Berrigan conscience that consistently takes brave stands and embraces risks.

The larger forms of this priest’s defiance are well-known to anyone who has stayed even mildly abreast of the American peace movement in the past half-century. Tucked into the folds are the smaller but no less telling run-ins with power, starting with the presidents of Jesuit colleges and universities that sponsor ROTC programs. After teaching for a semester in 1989 at Loyola University in New Orleans, and taking his students on a field trip to learn how to get arrested at an antiwar rally, Berrigan wrote to the president that he wouldn’t be back due to his opposition to Loyola’s ROTC program. As recounted by Robert Ludwig in Apostle of Peace, the university president disagreed, replying that “given the reality of the military, it is better to have officers who have the benefit of a Jesuit education.”

Berrigan wrote back: “I love your logic. It seems to me that, given the reality of abortion, Loyola should sponsor an institute for abortionists, and given the reality of capital punishment, you should sponsor an institute for executioners.”

Equally searing was the Berrigan indictment of Jesuits as “masters of invention. They come out of the culture, they know how to take its pulse, try its winds and trim their sails. We’re not running the Little Brothers of Jesus. We’re not running the Catholic Worker. We’re running Georgetown University, [its] School of Foreign Service. We’re a nursery for the State Department.”

He could have added the Pentagon, now that President Obama’s chief national security advisor is retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a Georgetown graduate. As is Gen. George Casey Jr., chief of staff of the U.S. Army and a Georgetown ROTC graduate in May 1970. That same month Berrigan was underground, merrily on the lam evading an FBI manhunt after he refused to be imprisoned for his conviction of burning draft files in Catonsville, Md.

Presuming he read a recent issue of NCR, what must Daniel Berrigan have thought about a Georgetown Jesuit’s column hailing the current Obama war policies as “very Catholic”? Probably with the same sadness and subdued anger brought on by reading in the same issue an article titled “Bishops back Obama Afghanistan strategy” (NCR, Jan. 8).

I first met Berrigan in 1966. He came to Washington at the invitation of Sargent Shriver, who was then heading the Office of Economic Opportunity. The summer before, Berrigan had served as a tutor in an Office of Economic Opportunity migrant worker program in Colorado. In effect, he was a federal worker. He spoke at a Shriver staff meeting, saying that the poor have it hard, and the hardest thing they have is us. He predicted, rightly, that the Vietnam War would drain money from the war on poverty, and that both wars would be lost.

I last saw Dan a few years ago when he officiated at the wedding of Arthur Laffin and Colleen McCarthy, two pacifists who help run the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington. It was a festive event, with Dan at his priestly best and the wedding guests feeling blessed to enjoy the company of a rare keeper of the Word.

[Colman McCarthy teaches peace studies in several Washington schools.]

An Audacious Mission Trip--Flying by the Seat of our Pants, and then some....

2010-04-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Everyone,

The week after they both graduate from high school on May 23rd, we plan on taking Carly and Amanda (Lilly) on a mission roadtrip. The goal of this roadtrip is to introduce them to the reality of poverty and homelessness across America, and what is being done at the grassroots level to give service to, and care for, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The idea for this trip grew out of a recent conversation in the classroom in which a "current social issues" teacher argued with Carly over the state of homelessness and poverty in America. This public school teacher does not believe that there are 600,000+ homeless in the U.S. at any given time; she does not believe that many of these are women, children, and the elderly; she does not believe that many of them are mentally ill, or that they are on the streets for any other reason than that "they choose to be." For her own part, Carly did her research, brought back published statistics, and even articles that she found in our own collection of Catholic Worker newspapers and newsletters....and then she came home, incredulous and disgusted by her teacher's refusal to believe reality. Carly decided that she wants to see what's actually going on for herself, and she wants to put together a detailed photo-journal which she plans on publishing on our homepage, and hopefully in some newspapers across the country.

We would like to see Carly and Amanda put to work, and they are very excited about the possibilities ahead of them, the opportunities to meet and befriend new people, and the learning experiences that will be opened to them. We want for them to experience a wide variety of intentional communities around the country, so that they can make some informed choices, and experience what it really means to depend on the goodness of others. We also want them to see what the Peace/Plowshares Movement is all about, and summer in the western states is the perfect time for that.

Our plan is to drive from Wisconsin through Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington; then down through Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, up through Nebraska, possibly Iowa, and back across Minnesota again.

We will be bringing a couple thousand pieces of literature and prayer cards with us from the Dorothy Day Guild to distribute for anyone who wants them. And, of course, we are bringing ourselves.

We will be depending on donations and the good will of others to make this trip successful, and we will be happy to do whatever work you have at hand.

Please pass this on to anyone, any community or church/parish group that you think might be interested in teaching and having a couple extra sets of hands for a few days.

________________________
In His Grace,

Miki, Mary Alice, Amanda, Carly, Ruthie and Friends

What We Do Here at Gilbert House....All of our Business on the Table....

2010-03-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

We received a letter via email asking about what we do here at Gilbert House, what our expenses are, and that we explain what's going on here. People actually ask these questions all the time. After discussing the query, and looking over our sadly-neglected homepage, we've realised that maybe we're not very clear in our intentions, and decided that maybe this is information that should be put out there for anyone who wants to know. In the interest of full disclosure, for anyone who's interested, here's the gist of it:

Thank you very much for your inquiry. We'd be happy to share with you:

1. "Do you know Mark and Louise Zwick?" Miki has met them a few times over the years--most recently a few years ago at the GK Chesterton Society Conference when Dale invited them to speak. She also calls them every now and again for advice and mentoring. They have, a couple of times, sent cases of their book for us to distribute (which has been a GOD-send), and we receive/read/share their community paper, amongst others, but that's the extent of our contact currently.

On an aside, it might also help you to know that Miki is the vinter for the American Chesterton Society, and a few of their members are friends and supporters of our house; Dale Ahlquist is not only a friend of the Zwicks, he is a dear friend of ours, was Miki's confirmation sponsor, and remains to this day something of a spiritual father to her. It was that tie, specifically, that had us choosing to christen the house after G.K. Chesterton and, when we are able to expand, our second house will be named for G.K.'s wife, Frances. And, yes, it will be used primarily for transient community.

2. "What are your average monthly utilities?" Electric and gas budget plans run about 170.00 a month and water is approximately 85.00 every quarter. We have a friend of the house who pays for our phone/uplink.

3. "What is the monthly mortgage payment?" 536.00, plus 45.00 insurance. Miki took a part-time job as a night auditor at a hotel so that we can make double payments as often as possible. Because this house is very small (three bedrooms, one bath), we want to pay it off quickly so that we can put it in trust, and then purchase the next-door neighbor's house to expand our community.

4. "What is the monthly grocery bill?" This varies considerably, sometimes by two-to-three hundred dollars. During the summer and autumn, it's very low--around 100-150 a month for staples like flour, sugar, coffee, cereals, eggs, etc. It all usually depends on how well the garden does, how often people come to us for emergency food, and how many impromptu community potluck meals we have the opportunity to serve ever month....which we really need to start up again.

As to your questions about our house, it was actually, once upon a time, a farm house. The story goes that about a century ago, it was built by a man from a Sears & Roebuck kit as a wedding gift for his bride on a triple town lot, and that she spent her life turning the whole place into a garden and safe haven for chickens, rabbits and the like. The neighbor's house that we are praying/striving to add to our community sits on the other two lots, now. Slowly but surely, we keep tearing out bits of grass and replacing it with garden plots once again.

Shortly, there will be four who live permanently in our house. We have a couple of sofa-sleepers in the living room, the narrower of which can be dragged into the dining room if we have a family come to stay with us for short periods. What had been just "the library" is now Amanda and another girl's room, as it is the largest in the house. We are working hard to pay off the house so that we can make a contract with our neighbor, because we quite regularly have someone sacked out on at least one sofa. And, we've recently been asked by a couple who travel with the carnivals if they and some of their friends can pitch tents in our backyard and have access to our kitchen and bath this summer for the weeks before, during and after the Wisconsin Renaissance Faire--it won't be the first time we've had tents back there, and it definitely won't be the last, I'm sure.

We also have friends of the house in a couple of neighboring towns--mostly academics--who let us use their guest rooms in a pinch when we need them to make up for the space and resources that we lack. That's actually been helpful when we've had kids and young adults in violent situations (here's a clue to why this is such a deep-seated problem here: we live in a town of 1,200 people and we have *nine* bars within a five-mile area--alcoholism and multi-generational violence are no strangers here) who need to find some safe distance and quiet while we find other arrangements.

Our main charism at Gilbert House started out with just living and teaching sustainable community, but it has kind of shifted in a strange way to advocacy and shelter for young adults. We find ourselves putting alot of effort into shuttling abused or neglected teenagers to and from jobs to help them get their start, or to Red Cedar Medical Center's community behavioural health program so that they have a safe place to work through whatever might be causing their lives turmoil when it's more than can be dealt with here. We also try very hard to engage them with the local community; for instance we have quite a few elderly in our neighborhood and, as much as possible, we take a couple of kids with us here and there, go clean, weed, and tend those neighbor's yards and gardens if they cannot (and shovel and clear snow in the winter), use the refuse in our compost, and try to identify any needs that they might have that we can assist with--this has been a great tool for getting some of our kids interested in the lives and needs of others. When we identify those needs, we try to help meet them as best we can.

We are currently exploring a partnership with our local Newman Center and a couple of parishes in the neighboring diocese to help increase not only our local presence, but also to more strongly establish what we can do as a CW community to be proactive in healing and strengthening our local community. In the future, we hope to establish a sister house with a similar charism in nearby Menomonie. And we are always open to suggestions and new opportunities, just so long as they are in keeping with the Magisterial teachings of the Church (especially as they relate to social justice) and to the Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker Movement.

Thanks very much for your questions! If you'd like to know anything else, please don't hesitate to ask; we're happy to tell you!

Please pray for us.

On the Specialness of Mis-matched Spoons....

2009-10-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

Baroness Ade Bethune once fashioned a lovely word picture for the Catholic Worker about the sacramental beauty of mismatched chairs and hospitality that was so breath-taking to me that I began copying it onto the final page of Acts in nearly every Bible I ever used afterward. It was almost as if she had taken Brother Lawrence by the collar, breathed him in, whole and deep, and then exhaled him onto the page with her black-smudged brush in fine, deliberate strokes--proof, indeed, that absolutely everything physical is potentially sacramental.

In 1999, at the old convent christened Star of the Sea, I sat with Ade and told her that two of her creations meant the most to me: the black crucifix that hung above the mismatched maple plank tables in the white house at Peter Maurin Farm and this simple paragraph about sharing hospitality in simple things. Should I have been surprised when she looked up from the page and asked, "Do you live it?"

This memory came again to me last night as I was getting ready for bed. I have a favourite chair that sits in my room; an old highback kitchen chair with a carved back and hollowed seat that has been painted at least a dozen different colours over the years. Its paint is chipped and worn, it's grimy black in places and its legs are battered. My mother is a master wood-craftsman; I know how to fix this, so why haven't I stripped and refinished this thing in the dozen-or-so years that I have had it in my stewardship? Because it is art, and it is too perfect on its own to touch. It goes with nothing, it stands alone, a pale blue eyesore with a checkered past of changing hands and changing hearts, discarded, passed on and neglected....until it passed to me. This chair is one of my finest treasures. It reminds me that beauty is found in the uncommonly commonplace if only you open your eyes to see it. It is, to me, at the deepest level a symbol of family. It is also a key to the mystery of my affections.

Few of the plates in our cupboard match, none of the bowls match the plates. Forks and knives and spoons in the drawers all come from different decades, different sets long ago lost, divided and forgotten. Blue, green and brown bottles from who-knows-where sit in window casings to catch and scatter the sunlight in the mornings. The dining room is littered to overflowing with plants that have been abandoned and adopted from just about everyone we know; the ivy is from a cutting my grandmother once snatched from the crannies a castle wall in Spain and snuck home in a book unnoticed. The living room and the library are stuffed with books once loved by others, then rescued from the dumpsteres of Thomas Loome, et al (I truly have no shame--my parents taught me well); I read them and share them as best as any truly gluttonous bibliophile is capable. You'd probably look at this place and be calling for a garbage truck, but for me? This is home, this is heart....this is a picture of real life.

I believe that family just happens to be whomever GOD chooses to set down in our path in any given moment. I believe that most of my family are as varied and as fragile and, yes, just as useful and as valuable as the books in our shelves, the chairs at our table, the spoons in our drawers. And I believe that heaven on earth is found in merging the whole lot together in the breaking of bread, the sharing of comforts, screaming and yelling at each other until the pain we each carry subsides, and those quiet moments resting with one another's company in the refracting blue-green light when nothing needs to be said at all.

Family isn't always pretty. Often they are old and needy and not terribly nice. Sometimes they have minds that are bent and souls that are chipped. All too often they smell like ashtrays or stale beer bottles or footlockers left far too long without a good scrub-down. Sometimes they act for all the world like a tenacious weed that you'd just love to strangle to death and be done with. Yet whilst their lives seem shallow, or sordid, or completely out-to-lunch, their souls' hearts are not. But if they weren't here? If they didn't fill my house with their cracked, broken, totally unorganised selves? This place would be empty and it would cease to be home.

Do I live the ideal of hospitality in mismatched chairs? I try. Often I fail...and then I remember that everything has some intrinsic value and beauty all its own...and I try again, saying to my own soul, "There is no such thing as a mismatched spoon, only a bit of art waiting to be cradled safely in the drawer with all the others." I need reminding and forgiveness if I somtimes forget.

Gilbert House Annual Appeal

2009-10-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Gilbert House Catholic Worker Annual Newsletter and Funding Appeal

15 October 2009—Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

This past year has been absolutely awesome! We have been blessed in so many ways during 2009, and we have lots of news to share, though we’ll just stick to the highlights--mostly just the really amazing stuff.

We now have only sixteen thousand dollars in principal left on our hundred-year-old farm house which we are working hard towards paying off over this next year. This news is great on the one hand because when we reconcile our home loan, we will save nearly sixty thousand dollars in interest and, subsequently, be able to address some much needed repairs on the house that the former owner was unwilling or unable to do. It will also provide us with the foundation we need to buy a second house next door for multiple long-term guests and additional community members--something we not only need in this area, but that we are anxious to see to fruition.

We are so grateful for the home that we share, thanks be to GOD, and look forward to the day when we will have more room and resources to share with others.

Our garden blew a gasket this past summer, and started bearing its young in the yard (which was really nice in some ways—it certainly cut down on our mowing chores). We grew so much surplus of such a wide variety of vegetables that we were actually turned away at the local food pantry (in all, we were able to give somewhere between five- and six-hundred pounds of produce to WestCap), and when they could take no more, we started calling friends, neighbors and family.

Our autumn harvest has been excellent. What wasn’t given away to those in need and to friends of the house has been eaten up or bottled and put away for the long winter, and we hope to share it still. We have two farmers and three neighbors who regularly give us too many apples for sanity—all of which have been made into pies, crisps, ciders, and jellies...or sauced, buttered and bottled. Mr. Erickson, from Rumar Farm over in Wilson, thinks it’s wonderful that he can split his rotting apples betwixt the chickens and us “girls” and that we’ll return next Spring with a “couple-or-three” bottles of wine for him.

We are currently working on another batch of the homemade "Petta" Merlot for the American Chesterton Society’s annual conference next summer, when Chestertonians from all over the world will be able to share in the age old tradition of hospitality of “beer and beef.” Every year Mary Alice claims that G.K. Chesterton, “that fat, long-winded dead man, took our heat away," because of the personal expense of making gallons and gallons of wine, but it always manages to work out anyway. Poor G.K. (for next year’s conference, I’m shooting for eighty gallons, just so that we have a store…just don’t tell Mary Alice.)

We have printed many of Mary Alice's card designs for sale and for gifting this year, hoping to show them at craft fairs and shops in the area; she will also be volunteering at John the Baptist parish’s annual Harvest Festival again (31 Oct.), where she hopes to share her artistry once again. Miki has been creating some very intricate scrapbook albums in addition to getting started on yet another huge new batch of altar linens and vestments for her “winter months” project; she will also be spending part of the winter putting together some "family history" scrapbooks for the American Chesterton Society that Ann Petta asked her to make. Friends of the house flit in and out with every imaginable project of their own, and it all keeps us busy and productive.

We have an eighteen-year-old girl who plans on living with us for the next year or more whilst she finishes high school and then enrolls in classes to become a licensed massage therapist; she plans on coming to stay in January and we are looking forward to having her here and getting the opportunity to support her desire to graduate and start her adult life.

Miki has taken on an outside job, part-time, with a temp agency to help bolster our income and our ability to aid the people who come to us looking for help. What cash we have brought into the house usually goes right back out the door, either on house necessities, or given freely to those who need it more than we do in any given moment--a thing that is becoming more and more common as the economy flounders and more of our neighbors lose their jobs.

And, now on to the really bad news: For the past three years we have been trying to get our roof fixed. The roofer we previously had made a bad situation worse, and we now have a ruined ceiling in the dining room that has grown a lovely community of mold. It’s going to cost $20,000.00 to fix, and we are looking forward to paying off the house so that we can do this without incurring a huge debt. We would much rather invest such a large amount of currency on "promiscuous philanthropy," but if the house is to remain standing, we have no choice.

For all of those who have been to the house to help with our many projects this past year, we offer you our heartfelt thanks because without you nothing would be as rewarding. For those people who have donated to the house and helped us to provide assistance to others in our community, there are no words to express our appreciation for you and the blessing that you are! For those of you who pray for us, we offer our own prayers for you and yours in return.

If you can help us with any of our current financial needs, we are humbled and grateful for your support, and we thank you now. If you’d like to take a look at our other house needs, photos of this year’s garden, or would just like more information on what we do and why, please take a look at our house blog at: http://gilberthouse.blogspot.com/ . May our Lord bless you all, and keep you safe, this coming year!

Please remember that in keeping with Catholic Worker tradition we are not tax exempt and that we are decidedly so, as our co-founders have asked us to be. In that spirit, we ask our friends to give generously out of their abundance at a personal sacrifice, never asking for Caesar to acknowledge us with a tax credit for our gifts, but only that the GOD who knows their hearts acknowledge them as He will. So long as the poor are taxed, so will we be with them.

Wonders Truly Never Cease....

2009-07-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

For months our computer here at Gilbert House has been on the fritz. No longer! We would like to thank Dr. James and Mrs. Joyce Uhlir of Menomonie, Wisconsin, for gifting us with a new computer!

This is wonderful for us, and we look forward to writing again, sharing Mary Alice's art with you, as well as sharing our life here at Gilbert House and our local community.

We are so grateful to Dr. and Mrs. Uhlir and want them both to know how appreciative we are for their kindness.

Pax!

Miki, Mary Alice and Friends

Los Alamos "Trespassers" Taken to Court For Praying....

2008-08-14T04:55:00.000-07:00

NEWS RELEASE
14 August 2008

TAX-DAY ACTIVISTS GO TO COURT FOR PRAYING AT NUCLEAR SITE

As part of the April 15th vigil for peace, two members of Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists (TNA) were arrested across the street from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Mike Butler is awaiting a court hearing on his plea bargain, but Marcus Page goes to his jury trial on Monday the 18th of August. The two men were part of a group of six who held vigil during daylight hours on April 14th & 15th, praying in opposition to war taxes and international crimes committed there by the Lab. Charged with trespassing on Department of Energy land, both men believe they were praying openly along the public road in county territory, and they believe the Laboratory has no rights to conduct nuclear weapons work anywhere. TNA continues to conduct monthly vigils on Department of Energy land at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a facility of the Department of Energy (DoE). Marcus Page received word last week that the Honorable Magistrate Pat Casados would not recuse herself. Page believes the judge is in a partnership with an employee of LANL, and was surprised by the refusal to recuse. Page says, "The DoE has set itself up in opposition to free speech in this case. The DoE's interests are at stake here. That means the people of the DoE will benefit from a verdict of 'guilty'. Shouldn't the employees of the DoE and LANL, and their spouses be excused from trying to judge who wins this case? Will nuclear abolitionists get a fair trial in a court staffed by nuclear profiteers?"

More info can be seen at http://Lovarchy.org/LANS

Contact
Chelsea @ Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists: 505 242 0497

Who Plants the Seed Beneath the Sod and Waits to See Believes in GOD

2008-04-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

So, here's a topic we've never talked about here: Our Garden.

Today the mail arrived with the two tiny blueberry plants that Mary Alice had ordered last autumn and, since the sun was high and bright, and the wind was down we decided to start planting early.

We dragged all of the vegetable and flower seedlings, which have hitherto made their abode on the dining room table, and all over the kitchen, out into the shady part of the garden on the upper tier (there are three) and watched them wilt a bit whilst we cut up year-old Yukon Gold and russet potatoes and planted them on the second tier in mounds we tilled up by hand out of the mulch. So long as the strange fungus that has attacked half of our little town doesn't get a foothold on our plot, they should be fine.

Early last autumn we had collected a compost mound (that will later be part of our third tier) that ended up being twenty feet long, twelve feet deep and well over five feet high; now it is only about three feet high and it needs to be supplemented. So this weekend, I will borrow the neighbor's pickup and drive down the road fifteen miles to Erickson's Farm to collect my annual seven-to-twelve load "order" of composted manure and a winter's worth of chicken bedding and all the bedding from spring lambing (which all of the neighborhood dogs love to roll in....). Once I've got it all unloaded here, we'll spend a weekend turning it into last year's compost heap and then, just like every year before, we'll plant squashes, watermelon, zucchini and herbs right over the top of it just to keep the heat and moisture in and make the alley pretty whilst it does its thing.

Our tomatoes are going to be basket-planted this year and suspended from six-foot-tall garden hooks, instead of putting them in the ground and wasting precious space that we need for other things. And next week, if the weather stays, I'll be moving the blackberry and raspberry canes from the front of the house which faces north to the back alley beside the compost bin--so that they can trellis up the fencing.

Hollyhocks and iris have taken over the east side of the house all on their own--even volunteering in the cracks of the old concrete carport that will one day soon be a greenhouse--and somehow all of our strawberries mystically migrated from their little brick-walled patch into the lawn down below so that we spent an hour this afternoon putting them back in their rightful home. The roses have begun to send out new shoots and the hydrangeas are budding beneath the peeling paint on the house....the earth smells sweet and the ground is cool and soft....Now if we can just keep our neighbor from "helping" us and weed-whacking the whole lot, we'll be very happy, indeed!

So far, it's looking to be a good year.

When the Red Tape Refuses to Cease and Desist

2008-04-15T18:28:00.001-07:00

For the sake of levity....

Noah, 2008

In the early spring of 2008, the Lord came and spake unto Noah, who was now residing in a Chicago suburb in the United States.

The Lord said, "Once again the earth has been besieged with all manner of wickedness; it is over-populated by heathens and overrun with lawlessness. I see the need to end all flesh before me and begin anew."

"Noah," the Lord exclaimed, "Build another Ark and collect two of every living creature that roams the earth along with a few good humans, if you can find them. You have six months from this hour to build the Ark according to my command before I begin to bring another deluge over the face of the earth for forty days and forty nights."

So, the Lord gave Noah a set of blueprints and left him to his work.

Six months passed. The Lord looked down and saw Noah sitting cross-legged on his Scott's Turf-Builder lawn weeping in despair. No Ark could be seen.

"Noah!" the Lord roared like a terrible thunder, "The deluge is about to begin! Where is my Ark??? Where are the animals? Could you not find one good human?"

"I humbly beg your forgiveness, Lord," cried Noah, "But things aren't like they had been in ages past. I have tried my best, but I have failed to accomplish the task which You have given me. You see, I needed building permits and I've been arguing with the building inspector about whether I really need a sprinkler safety system in case of fire. And then there's the matter that my neighbors have filed an injunction against me claiming that I have violated neighborhood zoning laws by building an Ark that exceeds local height limitations; we are still waiting for a decision from the Development Appeals Board for a ruling on the issue.

"Worse yet, the Department of Transportation has demanded from me the payment of a very large bond for the future cost of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions that would impede moving the Ark out to sea. I told them that the sea is coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.

"And getting the lumber I need has been another serious problem. There's a ban on harvesting local trees in order to save the Spotted Owl. I have tried to convince the environmentalist groups that the entire reason I need the wood is to save the owls, but they in turn have declared me insane and an eminent danger to wildlife safety.

"So, then I began to gather all the animals two by two....and the animal rights groups filed law suits against me insisting that I was hoarding the animals against their will. The activists have argued that my accommodations are too restrictive and that it would be cruel and inhumane to keep so many animals in such a confined space.

"And yesterday the EPA ruled that I cannot build so much as a dog house until they conduct an environmental impact study regarding Your proposed Flood.

"I'm still squabbling with the Human Rights Commission about how many minorities I must hire for my building crew which really wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is holding most of my very best workers and their families whilst they check the status on all their Green Cards. And the Trade Unions have filed an injunction stating that I cannot hire my own sons--they insist that all of my foremen be Union workers with previous Ark building experience.

"To make matters even more hellish, the IRS has seized all of my assets, claiming that I'm trying to defect from the country illegally with endangered indigenous species.

"So, please, Lord, I humbly beg Your pardon, but with all the red tape involved, it's going to take about ten years to finish building this Ark!"

Suddenly, the clouds parted, the sun shined brightly over the whole earth and a beautiful rainbow shimmered in the eastern sky.

Noah looked up in wonder and exclaimed, "Lord! Lord! You're not going to destroy the earth again after all?"

"No," the Lord sighed, "Looks like the government bureaucrats have beaten me to it."

Catholic Worker Jailed For Civil Disobedience

2008-04-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

We'd like to ask for your prayers and financial mercy for our brother, Marcus Blaise Page, from the Trinity House Catholic Worker Community in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There's a $1000.00 price tag on his head whilst he sits in jail as a guest of Big Brother for a misdemeanor charge--an exorbitant cost which will hinder other local community works of mercy that all the members of Trinity House are involved in carrying out at a personal sacrifice ....

NEWS RELEASE
15 April 2008

Contact Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists: 505-242-0497 or Chelsea: 510-499-8917

Los Alamos Lab Security Arrests Two Peace Activists; Vigil Continues for Tax Day

Two representatives from the Albuquerque-based Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists were arrested last night (April 14) at 9:30 pm during a 24 hour prayer vigil at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Three other vigilers are continuing the action today at the Lab until noon at the corner of Diamond Drive and West Jemez Rd.

The event began at noon on April 14th. Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists (TNA) had verbal permission from head of security Donna Martinez for "daylight hours" only. Two TNA members were arrested while praying, after they stated to Los Alamos police officers that they were not on the property to cause violence but to protest the nuclear weapons design happening at Los Alamos Lab. The two pled Not Guilty this morning to the charge of criminal trespass, which carries a $1,000 fine and/or 364 days in prison. They will be bonded out from jail today and expect a jury trial within six months.

TNA has two purposes for being at LANL today, Tax Day. The primary purpose is to prayerfully encourage the nonviolent, safe, clean disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, along with the clean-up of LANL, under the guidance of LANS. The second is to visibly celebrate the war-tax boycott organized by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. "This maybe the first time people have held a 24-hour public prayer for abolition here on alleged Laboratory property. Such prayer-actions are necessary for spiritual health and public health. Our nuclear New Mexico urgently needs different uses of federal income tax allocations." said Marcus Page of TNA.

This is the 9th monthly vigil for peace conducted by TNA, and the longest one so far. TNA is committed to the cause of sanity, safety, decency, beauty, love and peace--all in opposition to LANL's work. TNA consistently calls for an end to all nuclear weapons research, development, testing, refurbishing, and production. Aware of the tax money allocated for nuclearism TNA is part of the worldwide nuclear abolition movement working for social justice and spiritual integrity.

http://www.trinityhouse.catholicworker.biz/

Tamar Hennessy Dies at 82--Eternal Rest Grant Unto Her, O Lord+++

2008-03-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

Tamar Teresa Batterham Hennessy, the only child of Catholic Worker co-foundress Dorothy Day, died subsequent to a stroke on Tuesday, 25 March 2008, in Lebanon, Hew Hampshire at the age of 82.

Born in Mahattan in 1926, she was baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians Roman Catholic Church in Tottenville later that same year. Tamar was witness to the inception of the Catholic Worker when she was eight years old and later conceded that this life can be difficult for any child"

"She [Dorothy Day] was traveling alot , and I was left to be taken care of by various people, and I got very ill. It was hard for both of us. She had her work, and yet at the same time she had me. She was very devoted. She was very torn," Hennessy told a reporter in 2003.

Still in the same interview, Ms. Hennessy expressed no regrets, "I loved the Catholic Worker. It was so exciting. I wouldn't have missed a moment of it," and her admiration for her mother was unwavering, "She loved her family so much, and in so many, many ways she kept me going. She missed understanding the material side of it. She expected alot of going without. At the same time she supported me alot, and I can't say enough good about that."

Ms. Hennessy graduated from the Acadamy of St. Dorothy in Grasmere, and studied at the Farmingdale Agricultural School on Long Island, as well as the workshop of artist Ade Bethune in Newport, Rhode Island. She married William David Hennessy, a farmer and bookseller, in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1944. The couple settled in West Virginia, but eventually returned to Staten Island, where they lived near the Catholic Worker Farm on Bloomingdale Road in Rossville.

Ms. Hennessy's great delights were her children and grandchildren, welcoming visitors, caring for animals, discussing politics and listening to jazz and classical music.

Her husband, W. David Hennessy, died in 2005.

Surviving are her two sons, David and Hilaire Hennessy; her five daughters, Rebecca Houghton, and Mary, Margaret, Martha and Catherine Hennessy; eighteen grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.

Ms. Hennessy's daughter, Susanna McMurry, died in 1986, and her son, Nicholas Hennessy, died in 1987. Grandson Justin Houghton died in 1979, and grandson Joshua Hennessy died in 2004.

Tamar Hennessy's funeral Mass was celebrated at 11 a.m. Saturday, 29 March 2008 at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Springfield, Vermont followed by a private burial. Her daughter Kate remembered her at that Mass as follows:

Remembering Tamar Hennessy: "how to see and delight in beauty"
by Kate Hennessy

Much of my mother's life has been written about by her mother, Dorothy Day. Many stories have come down through Catholic Worker history, beginning with the story of Tamar's birth, a birth that led Dorothy to convert to Catholicism, which then led to the founding of the Catholic Worker movement. And throughout the following years, my grandmother continued to write about my mother--her childhood, her marriage, the birth of her children, her farm in Vermont. My mother was intensely uncomfortable with all of this. She was a private person, a shy person; she didn't like to be written about, and knowing this, I am not entirely comfortable with speaking about her here and now. I can only hope she will forgive me, but I feel I must do this, not only to help myself and my family, if I can, come to terms with this huge loss, but also because I believe her story needs to continue to be told. I'm sure my mother is wondering what she did to deserve this-to be written about not only by her mother but by her daughter too-but she will have to continue to put up with it. (...)

The basic details of my mother's life are known to many-married young, had nine children, and after a failed marriage led a difficult life as a single mother. These facts don't reveal what to me is the kernel of her story-her dreams, her desires, her motivations, and ultimately what her gifts have been not only to us, her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, but to the greater community, for I know there are many people who came to know and to love my mother. Every day we hear from people who say to us, "Your mother saved my life." "Tamar took me in when I had no place to go." "She listened to me when I had no one else to talk to." She often just quietly, without fuss, showed up -- for graduations, for marriages, for hospital visits, for court appearances.

Her generosity and hospitality had no limits. For someone who possessed little -- she never seemed to have had an attachment to material things -- she always had something to give. Even with a house filled with kids, there was always room for one more-one more stray teenager or one more stray dog. I think she had a special affinity with teenagers. She seemed to understand the troubles they were in and knew enough to simply open the door for them and give shelter without comment.

She accepted everyone for exactly who they were. This ability of hers to love unconditionally and to accept unconditionally lies at the heart of her lessons to me. We often speak of "tolerance" and a "willingness" to accept others when we are trying to be good. Tamar didn't need tolerance or willingness. She didn't need to decide to be kind; she was innately so. Her favorite phrase was "loving kindness." "All we need is loving kindness," she'd often say. "Sure, Mom," I'd say, not really having a clue of what she meant. I have a clue now, and all I can do is pray I can achieve a fraction of what she did -- no, not of what she did, but of what she was.

She was a person of gentle humor and loved to laugh. She had an abiding curiosity and thirst to learn; there was always something new to explore, to discuss, to research, even in the face of constant physical pain. She had an eye and a love for the details of life. As her children, we learned to spin and weave, to plant and harvest, to observe and love the natural world around us.

These are simple things -- gardener, spinner and weaver. But they are hugely symbolic. They are the stuff of mythologies, of a world and spiritual view that helps us to take everyday life and place it in a larger spiritual context, or maybe it is the other way around. I think that we often have difficulty in seeing a faith lived out that is not part of a larger tradition, and we may not even recognize our own faith when it seems to lie outside these norms. Tamar often spoke of having had a crisis of faith, but I don't believe it. I believe that her faith, that is, the foundation of who she was as a spiritual being, was solid and true, and that it was a living faith, an innate faith that manifested in the love she gave. She didn't see this, of course. She often saw only her failures; she felt sorrow and regret for those she wasn't able to help, whether within her own family or without.

Her mother, Dorothy, was the one who chose to go out into the world to make change. She was the speaker, the writer, the doer. My mother was in so many ways the exact opposite -- quiet, shy, loved to stay at home and refused to write anything. There are few people who are called to meet the challenge that Dorothy presented. The truth is we all cannot follow in her footsteps, which is what my mother was often asked in her youth. Instead, my mother carved out a life of her own-a life of family and of the land and of home.

It would be easy to say that yes, Tamar was a good woman, a good daughter, a good mother and leave it at that. This implies that her world was small, her influence narrow in scope, but I believe the lessons she has for us have no such boundaries. I say that if we, as a family, as a local community, as a culture and as part of the larger world, ignore what she teaches us, it is at our peril. Tamar's way is the quiet way, but it is a way that each of us can learn from and follow-no matter who we are or who we aren't, what we have or what we don't have, what we feel or what we don't feel. That whatever bit of earth we live on, we must and can care for it, encourage it and share it with those creatures and plants who also belong here. And in this moment, where we are now, with whomever walks through our front door whether adult or child, daughter or stranger, human or creature, that this is the divine moment, the moment in which we are given the opportunity to give, to help, to love and to create.

Spring is almost here. I think of spring as my mother's season. Last week she had already begun planting in the small way she could while being confined to her wheelchair. Soon her front garden will be blooming -- first the snowdrops and crocuses followed by the magnolia trees. And then the wisteria, violets and forget-me-nots will blanket the lawn in shades of blues and purples, and people will slow down as they drive by on Valley Street to gaze at this unexpected patch of beauty. Tamar knew how to do this -- how to invite beauty, how to see beauty, how to delight in beauty. What a gift.

Thank you, thank you so much.

The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker

2004-02-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

The aim of the Catholic Worker movement is to live in accordance with the jusice and charity of Jesus Christ. Our sources are the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as handed down in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, with our inspiration coming from the lives of the saints, "men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses to Your unchanging love." (Eucharistic Prayer)

This aim requires us to begin living in a different way. We recall the words of our founders, Dorothy Day who said, "God meant things to be much easier than we have made them," and Peter Maurin who wanted to build a society "where it is easier for people to be good."

* * *

When we examine our society, which is generally called capitalist (because of its methods of producing and controlling wealth) and is bourgeois (because of prevailing concern for acquisition and material interests, and its emphasis on respectability and mediocrity), we find it far from God's justice.

--In economics, private and state capitalism bring about an unjust distribution of wealth, for the profit motive guides decisions. Those in power live off the sweat of others' brows, while those without power are robbed of a just return for their work. Usury (the charging of interest above administrative costs) is a major contributor to the wrongdoing intrinsic to this system. We note, especially, how the world debt crisis leads poor countries into greater deprivation and a dependency from which there is no foreseeable escape. Here at home, the number of hungry and homeless and unemployed people rises in the midst of increasing affluence.

--In labor, human need is no longer the reason for human work. Instead, the unbridled expansion of technology, necessary to capitalism and viewed as "progress," holds sway. Jobs are concentrated in productivity and administration for a "high-tech," war-related, consumer society of disposable goods, so that laborers are trapped in work that does not contribute to human welfare. Furthermore, as jobs become more specialized, many people are excluded from meaningful work or are alienated from the products of their labor. Even in farming, agribusiness has replaced agriculture, and, in all areas, moral restraints are run over roughshod, and a disregard for the laws of nature now threatens the very planet.

--In politics, the state functions to control and regulate life. Its power has burgeoned hand in hand with growth in technology, so that military, scientific and corporate interests get the highest priority when concrete political policies are formulated. Because of the sheer size of institutions, we tend towards government by bureaucracy--that is, government by nobody. Bureaucracy, in all areas of life, is not only impersonal, but also makes accountability, and, therefore, an effective political forum for redressing grievances, next to impossible.

--In morals, relations between people are corrupted by distorted images of the human person. Class, race and sex often determine personal worth and position within society, leading to structures that foster oppression. Capitalism further divides society by pitting owners against workers in perpetual conflict over wealth and its control. Those who do not "produce" are abandoned, and left, at best, to be "processed" through institutions. Spiritual destitution is rampant, manifested in isolation, madness, promiscuity and violence.

--The arms race stands asa clear sign of the direction and spirit of our age. It has extended the domain of destruction and the fear of annihilation, and denies the basic right to life. There is a direct connection between the arms race and destitution. "The arms race is an utterly treacherous trap, and one which injures the poor to an intolerable degree." (Vatican II)

* * *

In contrast to what we see around us, as well as within ourselves, stands St. Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of the Common Good, a vision of a society where the good of each member is bound to the good of the whole in the service of God.

To this end, we advocate:

--Personalism, a philosophy which regards the freedom and dignity of each person as the basis, focus and goal of all metaphysics and morals. In following such wisdom, we move away from a self-centered individualism toward the good of the other. This is to be done by taking personal responsibility for changing conditions, rather than looking to the state or other institutions to provide impersonal "charity." We pray for a Church renewed by this philosophy and for a time when all those who feel excluded from participation are welcomed with love, drawn by the gentle personalism Peter Maurin taught.

--A decentralized society, in contrast to the present bigness of government, industry, education, health care and agriculture. We encourage efforts such as family farms, rural and urban land trusts, worker ownership and management of small factories, homesteading projects, food, housing and other cooperatives--any effort in which money can once more become merely a medium of exchange, and human beings are no longer commodities.

--A "green revolution," so that it is possible to rediscover the proper meaning of our labor and/or true bonds with the land; a distributist communitarianism, self-sufficient through farming, crafting and appropriate technology; a radically new society where people will rely on the fruits of their own toil and labor; associations of mutuality, and a sense of fairness to resolve conflicts.

* * *

We believe this needed personal and social transformation should be pursued by the means Jesus revealed in His sacrificial love. With Christ as our Exemplar, by prayer and communion with His Body and Blood, we strive for practices of

--Nonviolence. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." (Matt. 5:9) Only through nonviolent action can a personalist revolution come about, one in which one evil will not be replaced simply by another. Thus, we oppose the deliberate taking of human life for any reason, and see every oppression as blasphemy. Jesus taught us to take suffering upon ourselves rather than inflict it upon others, and He calls us to fight against violence with the spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting and noncooperation with evil. Refusal to pay taxes for war, to register for conscription, to comply with any unjust legislation; participation in nonviolent strikes and boycotts, protests or vigils; withdrawal of support for dominant systems, corporate funding or usurious practices are all excellent means to establish peace.

--The works of mercy (as found in Matt. 25:31-46) are at the heart of the Gospel and they are clear mandates for our response to "the least of our brothers and sisters." Houses of hospitality are centers for learning to do the acts of love, so that the poor can receive what is, in justice, theirs, the second coat in our closet, the spare room in our home, a place at our table. Anything beyond what we immediately need belongs to those who go without.

--Manual labor, in a society that rejects it as undignified and inferior. "Besides inducing cooperation, besides overcoming barriers and establishing the spirit of sister and brotherhood (besides just getting things done), manual labor enables us to use our bodies as well as our hands, our minds." (Dorothy Day) The Benedictine motto Ora et Labora reminds us that the work of human hands is a gift for the edification of the world and the glory of God.

--Voluntary poverty. "The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge and belief in love." (Dorothy Day) By embracing voluntary poverty, that is, by casting our lot freely with those whose impoverishment is not a choice, we would ask for the grace to abandon ourselves to the love of God. It would put us on the path to incarnate the Church's "preferential option for the poor."

* * *

We must be prepared to accept seeming failure with these aims, for sacrifice and suffering are part of the Christian life. Success, as the world determines it, is not the final criterion for judgments. The most important thing is the love of Jesus Christ and how to live His truth.

Reprinted from The Catholic Worker newspaper, May 2000

Aims and Purposes

2004-01-07T04:13:00.000-08:00

by Dorothy Day

The Catholic Worker, February 1940, 7.

For the sake of new readers, for the sake of men on our breadlines, for the sake of the employed and unemployed, the organized and unorganized workers, and also for the sake of ourselves, we must reiterate again and again what are our aims and purposes.

Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate. We must "give reason for the faith that is in us." Otherwise we are scattered members of the Body of Christ, we are not "all members one of another." Otherwise, our religion is an opiate, for ourselves alone, for our comfort or for our individual safety or indifferent custom.

We cannot live alone. We cannot go to Heaven alone. Otherwise, as Péguy said, God will say to us, "Where are the others?" (This is in one sense only as, of course, we believe that we must be what we would have the other fellow be. We must look to ourselves, our own lives first.)

If we do not keep indoctrinating, we lose the vision. And if we lose the vision, we become merely philanthropists, doling out palliatives.

The vision is this: We are working for "a new heaven and a new earth, wherein justice dwelleth." We are trying to say with action, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We are working for a Christian social order.

We believe in the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God. This teaching, the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, involves today the issue of unions (where men call each other brothers); it involves the racial question; it involves cooperatives, credit unions, crafts; it involves Houses of Hospitality and Farming Communes. It is with all these means that we can live as though we believed indeed that we are all members one of another, knowing that when "the health of one member suffers, the health of the whole body is lowered."

This work of ours toward a new heaven and a new earth shows a correlation between the material and the spiritual, and, of course, recognizes the primacy of the spiritual. Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul. Hence the leaders of the work, and as many as we can induce to join us, must go daily to Mass, to receive food for the soul. And as our perceptions are quickened, and as we pray that our faith be increased, we will see Christ in each other, and we will not lose faith in those around us, no matter how stumbling their progress is. It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us - to see Christ in him. If we lose faith, if we stop the work of indoctrinating, we are in a way denying Christ again.

We must practice the presence of God. He said that when two or three are gathered together, there He is in the midst of them. He is with us in our kitchens, at our tables, on our breadlines, with our visitors, on our farms. When we pray for our material needs, it brings us close to His humanity. He, too, needed food and shelter. He, too, warmed His hands at a fire and lay down in a boat to sleep.

When we have spiritual reading at meals, when we have the rosary at night, when we have study groups, forums, when we go out to distribute literature at meetings, or sell it on the street corners, Christ is there with us. What we do is very little. But it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes. Christ took that little and increased it. He will do the rest. What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did He fail. He met with apparent failure on the Cross. But unless the seed fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest.

And why must we see results? Our work is to sow. Another generation will be reaping the harvest.

When we write in these terms, we are writing not only for our fellow workers in thirty other Houses, to other groups of Catholic Workers who are meeting for discussion, but to every reader of the paper. We hold with the motto of the National Maritime Union, that every member is an organizer. We are upholding the ideal of personal responsibility. You can work as you are bumming around the country on freights, if you are working in a factory or a field or a shipyard or a filling station. You do not depend on any organization which means only paper figures, which means only the labor of the few. We are not speaking of mass action, pressure groups (fearful potential for evil as well as good). We are addressing each individual reader of The Catholic Worker.

The work grows with each month, the circulation increases, letters come in from all over the world, articles are written about the movement in many countries.

Statesmen watch the work, scholars study it, workers feel its attraction, those who are in need flock to us and stay to participate. It is a new way of life. But though we grow in numbers and reach far-off corners of the earth, essentially the work depends on each one of us, on our way of life, the little works we do.

"Where are the others?" God will say. Let us not deny Him in those about us. Even here, right now, we can have that new earth, wherein justice dwelleth!

2004-01-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

To Our Readers

by Dorothy Day

For those who are sitting on park benches in the warm spring sunlight.

For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain.

For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work.

For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight - this little paper is addressed.

It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program - to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare.

FILLING A NEED

It's time there was a Catholic paper printed for the unemployed.

The fundamental aim of most radical sheets is the conversion of its readers to radicalism and atheism.

Is it not possible to be radical and not atheist?

Is it not possible to protest, to expose, to complain, to point out abuses and demand reforms without desiring the overthrow of religion?

In an attempt to popularize and make known the encyclicals of the Popes in regard to social justice and the program put forth by the Church for the "reconstruction of the social order," this news sheet, The Catholic Worker, is started.

It is not as yet known whether it will be a monthly, a fortnightly or a weekly. It all depends on the funds collected for the printing and distribution. Those who can subscribe, and those who can donate, are asked to do so.

This first number of The Catholic Worker was planned, written and edited in the kitchen of a tenement on Fifteenth Street, on subway platforms, on the "L," the ferry. There is no editorial office, no overhead in the way of telephone or electricity, no salaries paid.

The money for the printing of the first issue was raised by begging small contributions from friends. A colored priest in Newark sent us ten dollars and the prayers of his congregation. A colored sister in New Jersey, garbed also in holy poverty, sent us a dollar. Another kindly and generous friend sent twenty-five. The rest of it the editors squeezed out of their own earnings, and at that they were using money necessary to pay milk bills, gas bills, electric light bills.

By accepting delay the utilities did not know that they were furthering the cause of social justice. They were, for the time being, unwitting cooperators.

Next month someone may donate us an office. Who knows?

It is cheering to remember that Jesus Christ wandered this earth with no place to lay His head. The foxes have holes and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. And when we consider our fly-by-night existence, our uncertainty, we remember (with pride at sharing the honor), that the disciples supped by the seashore and wandered through corn fields picking the ears from the stalks wherewith to make their frugal meals.

Reprinted from The Catholic Worker, May 1933, 4 (First Issue)

An Extraordinary, Difficult Childhood

2003-03-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

by MARGOT PATTERSON

Though more Catholic Workers today may be seeking to combine the ideals of the movement with parenting, the effort goes back generations. Dorothy Day’s daughter, Tamar, was the first of many children raised in the Catholic Worker movement.

“I loved the Catholic Worker. It was so exciting. I wouldn’t have missed a moment of it,” Tamar Hennessey told NCR in a phone interview from Vermont. Nonetheless, like her mother, Tamar Hennessey said it’s difficult to combine being a Catholic Worker with parenting. Hennessy said there may be some people who can do both, but usually people find they have to choose between them.

“I think you’ll hear a lot of contradictory stories. A lot of other children did have a difficult time being in the Worker,” Hennessy said. “I think Dorothy was very aware of the fact that you can’t do both well, and she was right.”

For herself, Henessey remembers growing up in the Catholic Worker as stimulating but physically grueling, especially with her mother often on the road.

“I was only 8 years old when it started. She was traveling a lot, and I was left to be taken care of by various people, and I got very ill. It was hard for both of us. She had her work, and yet at the same time she had me. She was very devoted. She was torn,” said Hennessy. “I did end up in boarding school for four years, which worked out well.”

Hennessy offered a sympathetic, nuanced account of Dorothy Day the mother.

“She loved her family so much, and in so many, many ways she kept me going. She missed understanding the material side of it. She expected a lot of going without. At the same time, she supported me a lot, and I can’t say enough good about that,” Tamar Hennessy said.

Hennessy acknowledged that Dorothy Day could be exacting. “She wanted everybody to be like saints. I mean, who can measure up to that?” asked Hennessy.

Married when she was still a teenager, Tamar Teresa Day Hennessy went on to have nine children and for many years led a hardscrabble existence living in the country. She was attracted to the Catholic Worker vision of rural families living on the land and tried to live that out with her own family, she said.

“I tried to hold on to those values. I tried to live simply. I tried to follow the Catholic faith. It did not turn out well. Right now I seem to have lapsed,” she said of her own religious faith.

Hennessy said people sometimes try to invent a rift between her and her mother that doesn’t exist. “I admired her overwhelmingly,” Hennessy said of Dorothy Day.

Other grown-up children of Catholic Workers have their own stories. Some have ended up staying in the movement; others have gone on to lead more so-called “normal” lives. Many say that the ideals they grew up with have stayed with them for a lifetime.

“The bad points were I grew up in the McCarthy era in San Francisco. We really had to keep a very low profile,” said Regina Burke, 64, a medical technician in California who remembers that when she and her sisters entered high school her parents gave them a copy of the Bible, Berlin Diary by foreign correspondent William Shirer, and the social encyclicals of the Catholic church.

“This is not the normal thing people get when they reach high school,” Burke said. “I think being raised in a family that had ideals that were not exactly popular, it brought us together more as a family. We didn’t have the problems of rebellion that a lot of families had. Even though you didn’t hear a lot about it in the ’50s, the big movie of our time was ‘Rebel Without a Cause.’ We didn’t have that problem in our family because it was us against the world,” said Burke.

Burke’s parents did not run a Catholic Worker house of hospitality, but Burke said both her mother and father were much influenced by Dorothy Day and by Edith Stein, a German Jewish philosopher who became a Catholic nun and died at Auschwitz and was declared a saint. Burke’s father was active in setting up printing apprenticeship programs for convicts in prisons so they would have a skill they could draw on when they left prison; her mother was a teacher who was active in the Girl Scouts. Both were unafraid to embrace unpopular causes.

“It was an interesting way to grow up. During the ’60s we were all out in the streets for equal rights. We had some problems with people we invited to our home and then there would be problems with the neighbors. My parents weren’t very polite when the neighbors passed the petitions against the kind of people we had as guests in our home,” said Burke, remembering one friend of her parents who was of Japanese descent and others who were interracial couples.

“My mother knew Dorothy Day,” Burke said. “She was a great heroine, and that was held up to us. That and the fact that if you don’t go out and make the change, don’t expect anyone else to. You must be the change you want to see,” Burke said, paraphrasing Gandhi. A one-time lawyer who left the practice of law because she said the most honest people she met were criminals, Burke said her parents’ ideals have influenced her for a lifetime. Burke has been active in community organizing; one of her sisters is a Catholic nun who represents her religious community in the group of nongovernmental organizations that support United Nations public information efforts.

“The older we get, the more we recognize the fact that our parents were extraordinary. The most radical feminist we met was our father,” Burke said.

Confronting different values

Joachim Zwick said he was 10 or 12 when his parents started the Casa Juan Diego Catholic Worker in Houston in 1980. “Absolutely it was difficult,” said Zwick, remembering his childhood. “If you didn’t have the right clothes, you weren’t cool.”

Now, as an adult, Zwick said, he doesn’t have any problems with the way he was raised at all. Friendship with the immigrants and undocumented workers whom the Houston Catholic Worker assists changed his worldview for the better, he said, mentioning how jarring it is for him today to hear “wetback” jokes that are common in Houston. Like Burke, Zwick said the most unsettling aspect of growing up in a Catholic Worker family was coming into contact with people whose values were at odds with those of his family. “The worst of it was junior high when I just didn’t understand how to respond to peer pressure and society and the cruelty of children concerning different values,” he said.

For a time, Zwick’s older sister lived and worked at the Houston Catholic Worker full time. A musician and computer consultant, Zwick said he lives simply but has not chosen to follow in his parents’ footsteps.

“I don’t know that I could do what they do given my interests and desires,” he said. “I don’t see myself at this point in my life dedicating my life to the poor. That’s where I am now. I’m not as religious as my parents are, certainly in a specific Catholic sense. They have a much stronger faith than I do, and there’s a direct connection with that and what they do.”

Tom Christopher Cornell and Deirdre Cornell are Catholic Workers following in the footsteps of their parents, Tom and Monica Cornell. “I never wanted to reject it outright. I’ve rebelled in the sense of wanting to do it differently,” said Tom Christopher Cornell, who with his parents is part of the community at the Peter Maurin Farm in Marlboro, N.Y.

Middle-class ‘normal’ life

But perhaps just as typical is the experience of the Dowdy family at the Peter Maurin Farm. Ralph Dowdy, whose sons were 5 and 7 when he and his wife moved to the Peter Maurin Farm, said neither of his sons, now ages 22 and 24, has any desire to stay with the Catholic Worker.

“They don’t want voluntary poverty. They want to live a middle-class ‘normal’ American life,” Dowdy said.

“I fought with them about this,” said Dowdy. “Not to buy such expensive cars or clothes. You can have good transportation and not spend $18,000 on a car.”

Dowdy remembers his anxiety about the safety of his sons when the family first moved to the Peter Maurin Farm. “I was really paranoid about it, to be honest,” he said. For their part, Dowdy said he knows his sons faced some sensitive moments negotiating the differences between how their family lived and how their friends’ families lived.

“I know when my kids’ friends came over and realized we live in a renovated barn, [my kids] were a little embarrassed. But it didn’t seem to affect their relationship with those kids too much,” Dowdy said. “They participated in school.”

Is there advice Catholic Worker parents would give to others seeking to combine family with the movement Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin founded?

Ralph Dowdy said a couple should examine how solid the relationship is between them. “It’s always harder on the woman. The woman is expected to cook, to take care of the kids, to take care of the hospitality, and so often the man is off saving the world,” Dowdy said.

Start off small, advised Monica Cornell. “Be familiar with Dorothy and Peter’s legacy.”

Tamar Hennessy said no advice is necessary. “That’s the wonderful thing about the Catholic Worker. Everybody does it in their own way. They don’t need advice. They work it out.”

National Catholic Reporter, March 7, 2003