Chasing Tails

As I grow more familiar with Maryhouse, and Maryhouse grows more familiar with me, my participation and responsibilities expand. Along with the endless task of dishwashing, the labeling of the newspaper, I find little things here and there to fill the day and feel useful: help Trey, who lives with his family on the fourth floor, edit a paper for school; talk with Martha about how to compose a letter to the Cardinal and frame the message of her Holy Week fast; cut and paste a record of recently used images for the newspaper; play with the kids so their moms can have a break and I can be refreshed by their energy and enthusiasm; begin “shadowing” house shifts in preparation for me to begin taking shifts on my own.

People ask what kind of “organization” the Catholic Worker is. Living in one quickly dispels the idea that we are anything of the sort – there is nothing organized about this place! Not in a formal way. It runs, rather, with the informal organization of a family; at times maddeningly inefficient, often utterly absurd. While cooking dinner over at St. Joe’s (the other NY CW) I vented my frustration that they “close the house” at 8pm, whereas we stay open until 11pm. What are we doing during those extra hours? Mostly watching TV with Evelyn around whom the night shift is designed. It doesn’t help that I dislike watching most TV and that Evelyn dislikes me, making the shift not only a source of consternation but aggravation and occasionally hurt feelings. I will not even begin to describe the process of writing, editing and publishing a paper in a house that does not have internet, computer or printer!

All this drives me nuts. Yet, somehow I find myself feeling more at home and alive here than I would have dared dream I could within less than two weeks. While giving a talk Fordham University last week, along with Jane and Ted, I told the story of how I came to be a part of this messy movement. I could again feel the glow that grew in me when I first learned about this experiment with truth that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin brought to life in the 1930’s. I am so grateful for the leaps and little steps that led me here and even for the ramshackle way of being that allows us to be more familial than functional.

I have to remind myself of this and in chaos and calm alike, repeat the mantra that has become so helpful, “observe without judgment,” keep asking questions and always be ready to listen. Before being given more tangible tasks, I found my days were filled with listening. “This has been a day of intense listening,” I wrote at the beginning of a lengthy journal entry. First, to Frank. Intense because his body is so weak, he can barely project his voice and then too because it seems as though a lifetime of memories have been poured out on the floor of his mind. It is confusing and time-consuming to try to make sense of them; “I’m such a mess,” he will say, “I don’t know where I am.” “I don’t want to close my eyes because I’m afraid all this will disappear.” He clasps my hand, “I just want a hand to hold. I’m wonderful as long as you are holding my hand.” And it feels wonderful for me too, as though we are life long friends instead of new acquaintances.

I find myself continually touching his fingers, assessing their temperature. A memory flashes, my aunt with my grandfather during his last days, “your hands are cold, Dad,” she would say to him, “Dad’s hands are cold,” she would say to us in the next room, looking out the window with a gaze that looked beyond it. Frank’s hands are cold, though his eyes at times still sparkle. Especially when he talks about me and Ted, or sings, “I Love a Piano,” in his quavering but still rich voice. I find myself wondering, do I attend to him so eagerly in part because I could not bring myself to sit at the side of my grandfather as he lay dying? And so I listen, at least a little, to my own memories too.

At dinner I met a woman from Hungary, I’ll call her Jean. “I love your hair!” She had shouted as I walked past the table where she was sitting.
“Oh, thank you. It’s kind of like yours.”
“No, it’s not.”
We started chatting, me standing, holding my plate and water glass. She invited me to sit with her. Eventually, she began to offer fragments of her story. “I feel like I’m caught in this cycle…it’s like a dog chasing it’s tail,” she told me, her words thick and heavy in contrast to her withered body and gaunt face. “When I first came here, through immigration, they put me on the street with two dollars a day, later two dollars a week…now tell me, is that reasonable logic? No friends. No family. No language. Two dollars a day. What could I do? This is crazy, two dollars a day.”
“That is crazy,” I confirmed, commiserating about the negligence of the immigration system.

Is it reasonable though? I am quick to judge the amorphous “government,” but have to ask, what is reasonable to expect from the state? Can an organization fix the problem? I suspect it may be another exercise in chasing tails. Yet, it is so crazy – imagine, living with no home, no friends, no common language and trying to get by on two dollars in a strange and often hostile city. How can such a thing be considered acceptable? And that is why we are here, inefficiencies and all, to respond to Jean. To say, “yes, it is crazy,” to sit and listen, share a meal, a shower, special events and holidays. It doesn’t solve the problem; it isn’t an answer, but it keeps the questions alive in our language and experience. More importantly, it gives women like Jean a place to be treated as a valued individual, as part of a family.

Wednesday night was bible study. Those who are interested tackle a book from the bible, one chapter at a time, with the help of many weighty (in every sense of the word) commentaries to help pick apart and flesh out the readings. We have just begun Genesis and I listened to a poetic description in the first chapter of God’s division of the Lights – the greater designated for day, the lesser for night. Somehow, it put me in mind of a passage from East of Eden. A character, Samuel, is responding to the question of why he, a man of knowledge, decided to farm in the desert land of California:

“It’s because I haven’t courage…I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name – but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity…it’s nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world…I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are left alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other—cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I’m glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other?”

This passage tugged strongly when I first read it several years ago and continues to haunt me. I was thinking of the choice, the responsibility, to choose greatness or mediocrity. In the Jewish tradition God told the moon, “diminish yourself,” a command indicating that becoming a lesser light was a voluntary act of submission. The moon’s acquiescence to wane made room for an accompanying host of stars. Greater and lesser lights, the utter loneliness of the first contrasted with the sweet companionship of the second. The solitary sun, brilliant and blazing; the soft reflecting moon, surrounded by her family of stars.

What will it be, Amy Nee? Left alone with the hugeness, I find myself feeling the way I imagine Frank does now with every question posed to him.
“Would you take another sip of this Ensure, Frank.”
“Oh, I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. What do you think?”
“I think it’s worth a try.”
“Sure, doesn't hurt to try.”
“That’s right.”
But it's not right, not really. Trying often hurts. The question is, is it worth the pain?
“How about we just take it one sip at a time?”
“Yes, I can do that.”