Tag: Dorothy Day

prayer

With prayer

With prayer, one can go on cheerfully and even happily, while without prayer, how grim is the journey. Prayer is as necessary to life as breathing. It is drink and food.
Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 40). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

Prayer isn’t like sit ups.

It’s not a thing.
It’s not a thing you do to get some other thing.

Prayer is knowing Someone is there

who loves you,
who would die to be with you,
who hears and understands,
who knows exactly who you are,
who you are meant to be,
who will take you there no matter what,
who will never leave you or forsake you.

Prayer is staying close to that Person as if your life and hope and happiness depended on it.

That Person, for me, is Jesus.
If you like, he will be that Person for you, too.

How does the quote from Dorothy Day strike you? How is your experience compared to hers?
Do you view prayer as a ‘spiritual exercise’, like sit ups? If so, what do you seek to gain by such exercise? Do you find it helpful?
How does my reflection on prayer strike you? What seems true or helpful? What seems far-fetched or missing?
I encourage you to take time to write out your thoughts, to share them in the comments below if you like, or to share them with someone close to you.

Grace and peace to you…

Tags Dorothy Day, happiness, Jesus loves you, prayer, The Reckless Way of Love

Other Writings Poetry prayer

Forced prayer

Post author By dw
Post date July 12, 2020
1 Comment on Forced prayer

If you have to force yourself to pray, those prayers are of far more account with God than any prayers which bring comfort with them.
Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 49). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

Prayer (en)forced by discipline
Better than no prayer at all
Maybe
Prayer forced by need
Day after day
Hour after hour
Even if only
“I need You”
Certain
dw

Tags comfort, discipline, Dorothy Day, prayer, The Reckless Way of Love

love Poetry

Our greatest danger

OUR GREATEST DANGER is not our sins but our indifference. We must be in love with God. It is not so much to change what we are doing, but our intention, our motive.
Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 29). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

What I do,
What I intend to do,
And how I feel about it
(I keep thinking)

Are distinct,
Separate, in fact,
And controllable,
(I keep telling myself)

Their interactions civil
And honorable
To any casual observer
(I keep believing)

Until the slightest whisper of a feeling
Changes my mind and my actions
Forever

Tags danger, decisions, Dorothy Day, emotions, following Jesus, intention, loving God, motive, sin, The Reckless Way of Love

love

Love and ever more love

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 that 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.

Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 22). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

In the same way that we cannot give up on Truth (because Jesus never did), we cannot give up on Love. Jesus took Truth and Love to the cross extravagantly, recklessly, scandalously, and he held them tight until he took his last breath. He calls us to follow him there.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Tags cross, Dorothy Day, Jesus, loving others, The Reckless Way of Love, truth

love Poetry

Our lifelong fight

Young man wearing hat that says Love Your Neighbor.

Our lifelong fight as a Christian is to get off the natural level and on the supernatural. Our lives must be a pure act of love, repeated many times over.

Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 58). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

Before we dismiss,
yes, dismiss,
Dorothy Day altogether,
along with Mother Teresa,
and Francis of Assisi,
and the Father
and the Son
and the Holy Spirit
for being unrealistic,
idealistic,
hearts-on-sleeves-heads-in-clouds,
big talkers
of inconvenient truths that,
if we don’t immediately,
knee-jerkedly,
dismiss,
we might feel just a tidge
of something we don’t like
about ourselves,
something like guilt, maybe,
for how cold
and self-serving
and small
we really are;

before we do that,
could we allow that tidge
of living feeling
bring to life
within our cold, small selves,
something, maybe, like
awareness
and acceptance
of who we are
and what our lives are like
apart from the love,
the kind of love,
these talkers talk about.