Love Is the Measure

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Love Is the Measure
By Dorothy Day

We confess to being fools and wish that we were more so. In the face of the approaching atom bomb test (and discussion of widespread radioactivity is giving people more and more of an excuse to get away from the philosophy of personalism and the doctrine of free will); in the face of an approaching maritime strike; in the face of bread shortages and housing shortages; in the face of the passing of the draft extension, teenagers included, we face the situation that there is nothing we can do for people except to love them. If the maritime strike goes on there will be no shipping of food or medicine or clothes to Europe or the Far East, so there is nothing to do again but to love. We continue in our 14th year of feeding our brothers and sisters, clothing them and sheltering them, and the more we do it, the more we realize that the most important thing is to love. There are several families with us, destitute families, destitute to an unbelievable extent, and there, too, is nothing to do but to love. What I mean is that there is no chance of rehabilitation, no chance, so far as we see, of changing them; certainly no chance of adjusting them to this abominable world about them, -- and who wants them adjusted, anyway?

What we would like to do is change the world-make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And to a certain extent, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, and the poor, of the destitute-the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words-we can to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world.

We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and dear God-please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.

Continued @ http://www.salsa.net/peace/conv/hs8weekconv3-1.html


(from By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, Knopf, New York)

[walldude]

1. All you need is love, love, love is all you need... K&R

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3. Thanks, walldude!

:hi:

[stepnw1f]

2. Wanna Know What I Love...?

Your posts!

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4. ...

:hug:

I try... as long as I live & breathe.

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5. a kick for love

:kick:

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6. ...

:kick:

[bobbolink]

7. Dorothy Day -- watta woman!

Thanks so very much for posting this! :hug:

She was so extraordinary in her thinking, and in her life. Have you seen that picture of her as a little old lady, when she was picketing for the farmworkers, and the cops surrounded her? It's a gem!

I had the great forture to meet and speak with Jim Forest, who wrote the biography of Dorothy Day, "Love Is The Measure". He's a really fine person, and the book is well-worth the read.

Thanks again... this was a great find!

:loveya: