by Dorothy Day, edited by Carolyn Kurtz
This year I became a patron of the Fountains of Carrots podcast, which includes a patron book club. The first book of 2021 was The Reckless Way of Love.
Servant of God Dorothy Day was a Catholic convert and a social activist, living her faith in a dramatic way. I have read only a little about Dorothy Day and nothing by her, so this book was all new to me. It's a compilation of selected quotes from any and all of Dorothy Day's writings centered around five themes: faith, love, prayer, life, and community. It's very easy to dip in to the book at any time and in any place as the quotes are only connected by the part's theme.
As it's a book of quotes, it's very easy to find words that speak to any reader's personal circumstances. In a time of Covid recovery and uncertainty as we move back to normal, many quotes like this one resonated with me:
I should know by this time that just because I feel that everything is useless and going to pieces and badly done and futile, it is not really that way at all. Everything is all right. It is in the hands of God. Let us abandon everything to Divine Providence. (p. 48)
I also loved this one about moving forward freely.
But there is no point dwelling on the past excessively. My mother used to warn us against that; she'd say, "Doting on what's gone is wasting precious time." It's stealing time, really, from the present and from the future. If you believe in the mission of Jesus Christ, then you're bound to try to let go of your past, in the sense that you are entitled to his forgiveness. To keep regretting what was is to deny God's grace. (pp. 62-63)
I do wish the book identified the source of each quote. Many times I wished to know if it was from her diary, a published book, or an article. With today's online search capabilities, I could probably have found them each myself, but it seemed like the sort of thing an editor could have done rather easily.
I enjoyed reading a little of Dorothy Day's own words. The Fountain of Carrots book club discussion was a fun way to continue pondering the quotes.
I have received nothing in exchange for this post. I requested the book from a member of PaperBackSwap (not an affiliate link). Links to Bookshop are affiliate links, but links to Fountains of Carrots are not affiliate links.
