TTT #22 Jesus Expects His Followers to be Peacemakers

The 22^nd chapter of Thirty True Things . . . (TTT) was not one of the chapters planned for that book. But in the process of writing the previous chapter, linked to in my Aug. 10 blog article, I became aware of how closely related are the ideas of simple living and peacemaking.

Simple Living and Peacemaking

In looking back at exemplary Christians through the centuries, most of those most interested in simple living were also interested in peacemaking, and many of those most interested in peacemaking were also interested in simple living.

In that connection, through the years I have also become increasingly cognizant of how there seems to be a significant economic factor behind most major historical events, including, and especially, wars. In spite of all the high-sounding rhetoric, wars are almost always fought for economic reasons, at least in part.

In his State of the Union message in January 2002, President George W. Bush referred to three countries as “the axis of evil.” Those three countries were Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The next year war was launched against Iraq, and there have been repeated rumblings about a future war against Iran.

While the government of North Korea has often been renounced, until briefly in 2017 there had been little talk of going to war against that country. What is the difference? It is hard to deny that the abundance of oil in the Middle East and the scarcity of oil in North Korea was likely the major reason Iran and Iraq were targeted and North Korea was not.

If population pressures, the need for natural resources, the desire for markets are all factors lying behind most wars (a generalization that, admittedly, some historians would disagree with), it is not hard to understand that an emphasis on simple living is closely related to peacemaking.  

Peacemaking as Love in Action

One of Martin Luther King’s notable books contains fifteen sermons published under the title Strength to Love (1963). Two sermons appearing early in the book are “Love in Action” and “Love Your Enemies,” and then the final sermon is “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.”

Those sermons sum up well what everyone needs to realize about love, which is at the core of the Christian faith.

Christian pacifists, such as Francis of Assisi and the Anabaptists, do not base their peacemaking activities upon the optimistic belief that people are basically good and that peace can result from that goodness if people just tap into it and talk to each other in a rational manner.

No, Christian pacifism is primarily based on Jesus’ teachings about love.

Christian pacifism does not necessarily “work” in every case. You might say it didn’t “work” for Jesus. It didn’t work for numerous Christian martyrs through the centuries, people who out of obedience to Christ were willing to shed their own blood rather than to be engaged in killing other people.

And so to the present time, many of those who take Jesus’ teaching seriously refuse to support war, for they do not see how it would be possible to love their enemies if they were also seeking to kill them through warfare.

People like Dorothy Day, MLK, John Dear, and many others during my lifetime have made it quite clear that peacemaking is hard, dangerous work. And most of the people who want to be “good” Christians fall far short of the example that people like them have set.

But in a world where Christianity has often become entwined with war and warlike activities, people such as Day, King, and Dear challenge us to realize that Jesus expects his followers to be peacemakers.

[The entire chapter 22 of Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT) can be accessed here.]

"Works of Mercy"

Fritz Eichenberg is a man worth knowing about, so let me tell you a bit about him in case you are not familiar with him. Born in Cologne, Germany, in 1901, Eichenberg became an outstanding illustrator who worked mostly in wood engraving. He died 13 years ago today, on Nov. 30, 1990, in Rhode Island.

Eichenberg’s best-known works are concerned with religion, social justice and nonviolence. Some of those are collected in a nicely-done volume published by Orbis Books in 1992 under the title “Works of Mercy” (WM).

That impressive book includes meditations by Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and others. Eichenberg’s comments focus on the meaning of Christ’s life—especially his message of peace and his compassion for the poor and downtrodden.

Many of the inspiring wood engravings reproduced in the book appeared at one time in “The Catholic Worker” (about which I wrote here back in May). Eichenberg met Dorothy Day at a Quaker conference in 1949 and was her friend and supporter from that time until her death in 1980.

A public critic of the Nazis after the rise of Adolf Hitler, Eichenberg emigrated to the U.S. in 1933. Following the unexpected death of his wife in 1937, he turned briefly to the practice of Zen Buddhism and then became a Quaker in 1940—and he remained a Quaker until his death 50 years later.

During his long and prolific career as a book illustrator, he especially drew for books with elements of great spiritual and emotional conflict or social satire. He is known especially for his illustrations of works by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and the Brontë sisters.

I recently purchased a used copy of the 1943 edition of “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë. There are numerous, and compelling, wood cut illustrations by Eichenberg in it, and I am looking forward to reading it before long, partly to enjoy Eichenberg’s pictures along the way.

But it is his religious illustrations that I appreciate most. His “Lord’s Supper” (1953; p. 85 in WM) is one of my favorites. I have seen it on the wall at the Catholic Worker house in Kansas City, and I have read that it hangs on the wall of almost every Catholic Worker house.

Another of my favorites is “Peaceable Kingdom” (1950; p. 99 of WM), based on Isaiah 11:6-8.

With the beginning of Advent begins tomorrow, let us join in praying that the vision of the prophet, captured so appealingly by Eichenberg, might become more and more a reality through the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate in less than a month from now.

If, as is often said, a picture is worth a thousand words, Fritz Eichenberg spoke much, and elegantly, through his lifetime of outstanding works of art. I highly recommend “Works of Mercy” for your consideration.

(Eichenberg’s book, available at Amazon.com, might make a good Christmas present for someone you know. If you have a large budget, you can purchase original signed Fritz Eichenberg wood engravings at this site.)

May Day

Tomorrow, the first day of May, is often called May Day and it has been observed as a special day in widely diverse ways. In addition, Mayday is an international radio-telephone signal word used as a distress call.

In the Northern Hemisphere, May Day is an ancient spring festival and is observed as such in some countries. Although it was a long time ago, I remember hearing about giving “May baskets” and dancing around a “Maypole” on May Day. These practices have now largely fallen into disuse.

But in 1967, the first full year I lived in Japan, I learned about a different type of May Day. Especially back then, May Day was celebrated in Japan and in many other countries as International Workers’ Day. Mainly in that connection, May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries and is celebrated unofficially in many other countries.

Actually, though, the observance of May 1 as Workers’ Day has a long history in this country. In October 1884, a convention held by the American Federation of Labor (under its previous name) unanimously set May 1, 1886, as the date by which the eight-hour workday would become standard.

As the chosen date approached, labor unions prepared for a general strike in support of the eight-hour workday. On Saturday, May 1, 1886, rallies were held throughout the nation. Estimates of the number of striking workers across the U.S. range from 300,000 to half a million.

But the eight-hour day did not become a reality until 1938 when the New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act made eight hours the legal day’s work throughout the nation. Extra pay (time and a half at least) had to be given to those who worked more than eight hours in a day.

Five years earlier, though, a remarkable woman began a movement mostly to help those who were living in poverty because of lack of work or because of low wages. That woman was Dorothy Day (1897-1980). Although she had lived a bohemian life for several years, in 1927 she became a Catholic and then increasingly sought to follow the teachings of Jesus. (I have written about her previously.)

On May 1, 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, The Catholic Worker newspaper made its debut with a first issue of twenty-five hundred copies. Dorothy Day and a few others hawked the paper in Union Square for a penny a copy (still the price) to passersby.” (This is the opening paragraph on the Catholic Worker website.)

The Catholic Worker Movement (CWM) is rooted in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every human person. So in addition to the newspaper, the CWM has sought through the years to provide meals and lodging for needy people.

Today 213 Catholic Worker communities across the nation remain committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.

I have before me the March-April issue of “The Catholic Worker,” which is only published seven times a year now. It contains a review of the new (2012) book “Saved by Beauty: A Spiritual Journey with Dorothy Day,” which I look forward to reading.

And just last week June and I enjoyed watching “Entertaining Angels,” the 1996 movie about the life and work of Day.

Please join me in giving thanks for the inspiring life of Dorothy Day and the widespread influence of “The Catholic Worker,” first published 80 years ago tomorrow, on May Day, 1933.

In Praise of Dorothy Day

This is my fourth “in praise of …” posting, and I am now happy to be able to pay tribute to Dorothy Day (1897-1980), a person I have long admired and recently learned a lot more about.

Last week I finished reading Love Is the Measure: A Biography of Dorothy Day (1986) by Jim Forest. It was a very helpful book that greatly increased my understanding of Day’s life, thought, and actions. On the evening of the same day, I enjoyed seeing “Haunted by God: The Life of Dorothy Day,” a one-woman performance by Lisa Wagner-Carollo staged in the Mabee Theater at Rockhurst University.

Dorothy Day is best known as the co-founder (in 1932) of The Catholic Worker—a newspaper that from the beginning has sold for one cent a copy—and the Catholic Worker (CW) movement, which has established houses of hospitality for the poor in many American cities. When June and I visited the CW-related Holy Family House on E. 31^st Street in Kansas City a couple of years ago, we were quite impressed with the loving service being rendered there.

I have long admired Dorothy Day because of her commitment to the poor and mistreated people of the world. Forest points out that she often said, “Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.” And then he remarks: “She was a Christian missionary, not to heathens but rather to fellow Christians, hoping to convert them to a faith they thought was theirs already” (p. 105).

Dorothy Day was not baptized as a (Catholic) Christian until she was thirty years old, but she increasingly became a believer who tried to live out what she understood to be the teaching of Christ and the Bible. She often cited the words of St. John of the Cross, “Love is the measure by which we shall be judged,” and the title of Forest’s biography of her was from that statement.

I also have long been a “fan” of Dorothy Day because of her unswerving commitment to pacifism. Forest reports, “Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war, The Catholic Worker published a banner headline which indicated that Dorothy’s pacifist commitment was unshaken” (p. 102). The headline was,

WE CONTINUE OUR CHRISTIAN PACIFIST STAND

As I was reading Day’s biography while at Windermere (see the previous posting), during the (to me) offensive general session, I was thinking not just WWJD (what would Jesus do, or say) but WWDD (what would Dorothy do, or say). Although I was not able to come up with a good answer to my questions, I am sure she (or he) would not have been silent in face of what seemed to be the glorification of war.

So, I want not only to praise Dorothy Day, I want to continue to think about WWDD as I try to try to decide what Christ wants me to do in the many situations where there is an absence of peace and social justice.

Here is a picture of Dorthy Day in her latter years.