{"id":27150,"date":"2021-01-28T23:39:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T07:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=27150"},"modified":"2021-01-29T07:14:47","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T15:14:47","slug":"the-revolution-of-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-revolution-of-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolution, heart."},"content":{"rendered":"

Jail.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So, with that word, once read and, just let it sit in your mind for a second or two, look at it there, what comes to mind?<\/p>\n

Now, say it out loud. Close your eyes and think about who comes to mind?<\/p>\n

How do you feel about the word, the idea? I\u2019m not comfortable with it. I have been there. I have had tours and met with people in jail. I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Any one of us could have found ourselves in a story of incarceration for making a big mistake, a mistake to flip life into utter destitution. Visiting someone in prison is a humbling experience.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to serve with prisoners who\u2019ve received grace to volunteer in our community. They are not on their own, a guard is with them and evaluating (questioning and judging) their movements and engagements as they care for people-in-need along with us. These men, prisoners from the local minimum-security correctional institution, are not unaffected; they are not without feeling and, I can see that they are watching too.<\/p>\n

They are watching to see if anyone notices them, they are hyper-sensitive as they find strength to exist in their guilt and shame. They are branded for life. It is a light place, the location of original compassion, a place where it\u2019s dynamic offering and reception can restore life, redeem the sinner.<\/p>\n

Dorothy Day \u2018did some time\u2019. Following a brief stay in a Chicago Jail, she recalls that she \u2018could get away, but what of the others? I could get away, paying no penalty, because of my friends, my background, my education, my privilege. I suffered but was not part of it.\u20191<\/sup> She believed that she benefitted from a grace that others didn\u2019t, she felt this inequality as a result of her privilege and was deeply trouble by it, mentioning, \u2018It was too much for me.\u20192<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can jail a revolutionary, but you can\u2019t jail the revolution.\u201d
\nHuey Newton<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It could be said that she was \u2018in the wrong place at the wrong time\u2019, to end up behind bars. She had been arrested before, in Washington, under different circumstance (less disgraceful, at least), of non-violent \u2018protest\u2019 and solidarity. Dorothy, in her memoir, describes her arrest and time awaiting trial as \u2018an ugly experience as I\u2019ve ever had to pass through, and a useful one.\u20193<\/sup> She had to face herself as one accused, busted-broken, hateful, like a criminal because of the belief and by her own consciousness, she deserved it.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

Dorothy Day was sorrowfully impressed by the problem of structural inequality (classism) and she yearned to see change take shape that would correct systemic injustices or \u2018worker\u2019 enslavement and the perpetual experience of oppression (and, lack of societal belonging) felt by the poor. She surrounded herself with intelligent, mindful people who cared to pursue change on their feet, hearts enflamed and voices-not-silent. She referred to their movement as a \u2018slow upheaval\u2019 and that \u2018among them was a stirring and a groping and they were beginning to feel within themselves a power and a possibility.\u20195<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u2018The thing I felt strongly was that there were changes taking place in the world. This was not just a social gathering, people of one nationality and background coming together for recreation. They were coming to listen to long and tiresome speeches. They were part of a movement, a \u2018slow upheaval\u2019 and \u2018they were beginning to feel within themselves a power and a possibility.\u20195<\/sup><\/p>\n

The arrest took place at the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) house, alternately named the Wobbly Headquarters. She was there at the wrong time, in a disorderly place known for its loose moral standard (a place \u2018normally\u2019 not for women), quietly caring for a girl friend who was recovering from an overdose of prescription medication following a fit of depression. She blames herself \u2018a victim of her own imprudence, of my own carelessness of convention\u2019 knowing that their \u2018presence there meant only one thing to the men who arrested us.\u20196<\/sup><\/p>\n

It is not a dignifying act, an undesired exposure, to be arrested, searched and stripped. The officers who were apprehending the women were concerned that they might have drugs.7<\/sup> The absence of freedom was irrefutable, and Dorothy recalls her interest to be absolutely present to the \u2018new indignities awaiting us.\u2019 She writes that she \u2018did not want to be spared one of them,\u2019 that her being arrested was \u2018a valid experience\u2019 and, that she was sharing in, as she never had before, \u2018the life of the poorest of the poor, the guilty, the dispossessed.\u20198<\/sup> There was application, inspiration and credibility to come in this experience and, though she knew she wouldn\u2019t be given the opportunity, of being aggressively dominated by the power of the state to its fullest extent, she desired to be absolutely present at least for the taste of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.\u201d\u00a0Albert Camus<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dorothy witnessed suffering while she was briefly incarcerated. In the cell beside her, an individual who was in a deeper prison, an \u2018unspeakable suffering\u2026a drug addict who beat her head against the bars or against the metal walls of her cell and howled like a wild animal.\u20199<\/sup> As if for the first time encountering the torturous misery of addiction, the dearth of relief, Dorothy collected her thoughts, \u2018the madness, the perverseness of this seeking for pleasure that was bound to be accompanied by such mortal agony was hard to understand.\u201910<\/sup> She felt \u2018the disorder of the world\u2019 in this moment, \u2018the sadness of sin, the unspeakable dreariness of sin\u2019 as she considered the setting of addiction, \u2018from the first petty little self-indulgence to this colossal desire which howled through metal walls!\u201911<\/sup><\/p>\n

Day refers to a quote of Lenin as she imagines the focus and care of those of her companions-in-the-cause, who yearned for justice and were intent toward change, \u201cThere can be no revolution without a theory of revolution.\u201d12<\/sup> Her experiences, those she listened to and learned action from, in those she witnessed the horrors of systemic manipulation, oppressive exploitation and societal violence (the permissible and the impermissible), a revolution was ever-more-clearly coming to life within her. The amplitude of Rousseau\u2019s encaptivating observation, within her screaming for freedom that \u2018man is born free, but everywhere is in chains.\u201913<\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Dorothy Day, A Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist\u00a0<\/em>(New York:\u00a0HarperCollins Publishers, 1952), 105.<\/li>\n
  2. Day, The Long Loneliness,<\/em> 105.<\/li>\n
  3. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 100.<\/li>\n
  4. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 100<\/li>\n
  5. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 97.<\/li>\n
  6. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 100.<\/li>\n
  7. Day, The Long Loneliness,<\/em> 101.<\/li>\n
  8. Day, The Long Loneliness,<\/em> 104.<\/li>\n
  9. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 104.<\/li>\n
  10. Day, The Long Loneliness,<\/em> 104.<\/li>\n
  11. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 104.<\/li>\n
  12. Day, The Long Loneliness<\/em>, 97<\/li>\n
  13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract<\/em> (London, England: Penguin Group, 1968), 49.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jail. So, with that word, once read and, just let it sit in your mind for a second or two, look at it there, what comes to mind? Now, say it out loud. Close your eyes and think about who comes to mind? How do you feel about the word, the idea? I\u2019m not comfortable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27150"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27167,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27150\/revisions\/27167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}