Dorothy Day and Al & Gladys

Sometimes, things people do, don't make sense. Ralph and I were talking about this last week after we had Al and Gladys Geiser over for dinner and a visit. Al and Gladys are members of our church. A few years ago, Al sold his successful business and they went to live in Afghanistan. Al works with an Afghan partner in a small business they started. They create hydro-electric power for rural villages. Al said they are able to supply homes enough wattage to have three light bulbs.

Sometimes it takes a lot of work to create enough communty cooperation to move forward with the projects which require a lot of manual labor--done by the Muslim members of the community. He said he thinks the experience of working together may have more value to the villages than the electricity.

Gladys works as a teacher in a school for international students and has her own interesting stories to tell--for instance they way the bomb-sniffing dogs came to check out their playground after a child found an old landmine. When I tell some people my friends and fellow church members are working in places like Afghanistan and Liberia, they wonder about it. It doesn't make sense. Al said their presence in that country is also a mystery to most of the people they work with there. He said that while Muslims will often help their own needy relatives, philanthropic work beyond that is rare--making it all the harder for anyone to understand why an American would leave home and country to bring "hydro" to an isolated village on the other side of the world.

Soon after Al and Gladys visited, I read a newspaper article about Dorothy Day. It caught my eye because I once read her autobiography—The Long Loneliness. Dorothy Day was the leader of the Catholic Worker Movement. She was another American who believed we all share a responsibility to care for the poor, the lonely. and the downtrodden. As I read the article I remembered the Catholic prayer card for Dorothy Day someone once gave me. I found it in my desk drawer. On the front is her picture. On the back is the "Prayer to Dorothy Day"--words which recognize her concern for the needy as well as her work for the cause of peace.

Friend and partner of the poor,
Guiding spirit for the Catholic worker.
Home always open to the unwanted,
Early, often lonely, witness in the cause of peace and conscience,
Eloquent pattern of gospel simplicity--
Dorothy Day, disciple of the Lord:
May we continue your gift of self to the needy and your untiring work for peace!

I admire and support many Christians who hold similar values. There are many present-day saints who work in dangerous and uncomfortable places to show the path to peace. They too demonstrate an "eloquent pattern of gospel simplicity." Their work doesn't go unnoticed.

The article I read said the process to have Dorothy Day canonized as a saint in the Catholic church was initiated three years after her death in 1980. Her organization has survived for a quarter of a century past her death. It has no paid staff, governing body or church authorization. A quote at the end of the article, attributed to Dorothy Day, made me think of people like Al and Gladys, adventurers who choose to sacrifice comfort and convenience in order to help others. "To be a witness doesn’t consist in engaging in propaganda or even stirring people up, but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.