It occurred to me, on Sunday, that while I had spent my day
absorbed in preparing for, hosting and cleaning up after a memorial service at
Maryhouse, the White Rose community and many other loved ones and strangers in Chicago were participating
in a nonviolent uprising that swelled in response to the NATO summit. I sat with the thought, neither critical nor
condoning, while sitting on the sill of Teddy’s window, legs folded into the
frame (his windowsill is wider than mine, and less crowded by plants and picture
frames), watching a little window of sky that subtly made the dramatic shift
from pale yellow to blazing pink without comment.
Two communities, offshoots from the trunk of one movement,
sustained and shaped by the life and writings of the same woman (the venerable
Ms. Day), at different times home and church and classroom to the same woman
(the ephemeral Ms. Nee), yet to the untrained eye, almost opposite. The White Rose, a half-dozen, highly
educated, fair-skinned youths with the occasional overnight guest – dedicated
and devoted to sustainable living and nonviolence not only in every action but
in every word and expression as well.
Maryhouse, twenty-five (give or take, I still don’t have a sure count on
how many people live here!) folks, a majority over fifty years old, of varying
color, creed and acumen – a household that day after day admits dozens of women,
offering showers, clothes, a balanced meal and company (not guaranteed to be
cheerful, but ever-present nonetheless).
At the former I would
spend three hours in a meeting the results of which would be revisited,
rehashed and revised the following week.
At the latter I spend three hours folding clothes that the following day
will be stashed in bags, tossed on the floor and probably, eventually abandoned
on park benches. I often find both tasks
more maddening than enlightening. All
the same, I consider the time well spent.
At the former, each day, we concerned ourselves with the issues of the
world – war, torture, environment, oppression of all kinds – and sought to
educate (ourselves and others), to create alternatives and to partake in
nonviolent demonstrations, open the door to others that we might eat and talk
and play and pray together. At the
latter we concern ourselves with individuals in our community and neighborhood
– hungry, sick, lonely, weary in innumerable ways – cook lunches, wash dishes,
offer clean clothes and showers, visit hospitals, celebrate and mourn.
At times the two could not seem more different. One might be tempted to compare: which is
better? which more successful? which meets the greatest need? These questions, I think, are alluring as
forbidden fruit that promises the knowledge of good and evil upon ingestion. The end result, as our first parents
demonstrated, is not an answer that reveals truth, but a blade that cuts apart
holy wholeness, introduces shame and accusation and ultimately separates the
seeker from the Word of Truth, that is to say, Love.
“ ‘In the end, the only thing that matters is love,’ those
are the last words I ever heard from her mouth,” a woman shares at the memorial
for Rita Corbin held at Maryhouse on Sunday.
Hers was one of many stories remembering the life of this prolific
artist whose woodcuts, since the 1950’s, have oft adorned the pages of the
Catholic Worker newspaper and whose life infiltrated and enriched far more than
just our readers. The gathering elicited
reflections that evoked both laughter and tears. Rita’s now adult children played folk
music. We served coffee and punch and huge
platters of fried rice and salad with Wasabi-citrus dressing that had been
specially prepared at St. Joe’s for the occasion. I alternately filled and washed plates,
introduced the food and myself, listened to reminiscences from Rita’s brother
and showed visitors to the bathroom. All
the while members of the White Rose, along with thousands of others, marched
and sang and maintained a peaceful presence amidst an anxious crowd of
activists and likely more anxious officers in full riot gear ready to make use
of their training and tazers.
A critic of one persuasion might consider Maryhouse mundane
and trifling, while one of another might consider the White Rose naive and
dramatic. Neither assessment is
accurate, nor is the assessment that their actions are so very different. Both are engaged in attending to matters of
life and of death (which one might argue are themselves part of one whole),
both are engaged in practicing, to the best of their ability, the Works of
Mercy. These seemingly separate houses
seek the same revolution, a revolution of the heart where “stranger” becomes
“neighbor” and we learn to love our neighbor as our self; that self that is a
divine vessel, bearing the very image of the God who is Love.
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