Well actually, Dorothy Day does. And she says it’s gonna be quite the process…
“This is a lifetime job. We are never going to be finished.”
What is a lifetime job according to Dorothy Day?
Learning to love. I would say learning to love each other NO MATTER WHAT just like God loves us. It’s a lifetime job to learn to be that magnanimous.
I often wonder if I’m doing enough – for my kids, for God, for the community, for the world. In fact, I am pretty sure I am not.
After all, what is enough?
There is always more work to do. There is always more to learn, to see, to understand. There are always more questions that bubble up and threaten to shift our direction. Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to concentrate my efforts.
When I get overwhelmed by the question of what to direct my time and attention towards, I am always guided back to this one thing that underlies everything else – love.
Do I speak with love?
Do I write with love?
Do I respond in love?
Do I return to love when emotions like frustration, fear, anger, unworthiness, self-doubt pull me away?
Isn’t that the “enough” I am really striving for?
As we wrap up another week, the first of the wonderful Fall season ahead, may we pause to take in the words of Dorothy Day:
“Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up.
If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens.
If we love enough, we are going to light a fire in the hearts of others.
And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.”
May love and only love guide our steps today.
For it might just change everything.
