ART & SOUL J o K adlecek
The Pilgrimage of Reflection When I read Nicholas Carr’s July/August 2008 Atlantic cover story, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I was so challenged by it that I gave copies to my colleagues and students. Technology, Carr said, is indeed a transformative tool for contemporary souls, but he couldn’t help wondering just how helpful it really is. Has it made our lives a little too easy, a little too thought-less or dulled or un-curious? Carr lamented his own journey from his meaningful years as a college student who read scores of literary classics — slowly and thoughtfully — to his current job as blogger and online journalist. His earlier days, he said, were like that of a scuba diver enjoying a sea of colors and ideas; now he was merely a kid on a jet ski skimming the surface of this new ocean called the internet, jumping from site to site and never slowing down long enough to reflect or consider a new idea before jumping to another place. Busted. I nodded shamefully at my own lack of reflection and contemplation, disciplines that have felt too often like prehistoric notions rather than modern-day avenues for growth. I worried with Carr that our collective curiosity was being seriously compromised. And the more I talked about the premise of the article with friends and students, the more I realized I’d been climbing on my own jet ski far too often these past few years. My skills for serious reflection had stalled. But recently I’ve revisited a writer and activist whose life and work have invited me to slow down again, to consider what it might mean to put on a new set of scuba gear for this high-tech journey: Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the
Catholic Worker movement, lived her entire adult life among the urban poor in New York City. She protested World War II and the Vietnam War, marched with civil rights leaders and migrant workers, and led an uninterrupted life of devotion and conviction. She rarely was seen without a book in her hand, and somehow — in between her hospitality work with the homeless, her speaking, and her protests across the country — she found time to write. In particular, she wrote a column for The Catholic Worker newspaper appropriately titled “On Pilgrimage.” In other words, Day was a woman of constant reflection. One can’t read her works — and they’re more accessible than ever because of the internet (CatholicWorker.org/dorothyday)— without hearing her questions. She wondered if she was doing enough, if the church could do more, if life would ever get easier, or if she took too much for granted. She used her writing as a form of confession, as a way of preaching the gospel to herself, while knowing full well she would share it with others. She was as devoted to her community as she was to her work. And her writing was an integral part of both. In fact, she often said writing and doing were the same — equal weapons for fighting injustice. Her life was not comfortable. Ever. The ongoing chaos of urban life with the poor surrounded her daily. Each meal with the homeless brought disruptions; sometimes lives were threatened. There were precious few days when she heard laughter. And yet somehow she kept at it. How in the midst of such turmoil and chaos could she remain so steady for so many years? The answer for me came last spring when I saw a new documentary film called Dorothy Day: Don’t Call Me a Saint. Written, directed, and produced by Claudia Larson — who had never made a film before encountering Day’s story and realizing it should PRISM 2009
33
be a documentary (DorothyDay.com) — the film includes inspiring footage of those early days in New York, of Day’s friends, even some old television interviews with Day herself. It is a reminder of the medium’s power to tell a visual story, one with passion and preaching as profound as any sermon. But one particular scene was key for me. A friend of Day’s who had lived with her at the Catholic Worker community remembered often knocking on her door for dinner. He’d find her in her tiny room, sitting on her single bed, eyes closed, book on lap, listening to opera. He described her then as “transcendent,” as if something had swept her up from the chaos of city life and brought her into this place of utter peace. That’s when it clicked for me: Dorothy Day nurtured such a rich interior life, cultivated such an internal sense of beauty and redemption, that no amount of disruption could push her off course. Beauty was her survival mode. Opera, novels, poetry, art, and of course the Scriptures all anchored her in a lifelong call that many of us still find radical and difficult — and enormously admirable. It is a life which continues even now in over 180 Catholic Worker hospitality houses and soup kitchens around the world. Day died in 1980 at age 83, just a decade before computers became ubiquitous and “Google” a verb in our daily vocabulary. I’m not sure how she would have felt about Google, but I doubt she would have thought her pilgrimage of contemplation would have inspired us to boycott it. For every soul interested in living out a life of justice, Day reminds us that slow, constant reflection is the secret. For me, that means getting off my jet ski and facing the depths. ■ Jo Kadlecek is the senior writer at Gordon College, where she teaches communication arts. Her newest book is Woman Overboard (Fresh Air/Upper Room Publishing).