Dorothy Day, the Nurse

When World War I rolled around, Dorothy Day struggled with the same dilemma that so many pacifists struggle with: how much service is too much service? Is non-combat service of any kind in the military permissible? Perhaps only non-combat service outside of war zones or in traditionally charitable roles like medical facilities? Must pacifists be removed from the military altogether? Can they be in non-military service that directly abets the making of war? And on and on the questions go. They seem less urgent now that the draft seems like only a remote possibility politically, and in Day's age she was aided (as she would be today) by the fact that she was a woman. Nevertheless, she felt compelled in a time of crisis to render aid to the countless people suffering directly or indirectly from the war effort but needed an ethically defensible means to do it. Her solution was to become a nurse at a municipal hospital in New York.

Never one for self-aggrandizement, her reflections on her time as a nurse admit her frustrations, her disgust, and her doubts about the work she was doing. Most importantly, she adopted the attitude that the care she was giving was not primarily an act of giving but an act of learning in which she came away the recipient of more than she had offered:

From the first, in addition to bed-making and care of the ward, we were given nursing to do, straight nursing, which delights every woman’s heart…My first patient was an old Canadian woman, ninety-four years old. Granny objected to being bathed, saying that she had bathed the day before and that at her time of life she did not see why she had to be pestered with soap and water the way she was. Argument was useless, so she began to fight with the nurses, clawing at them and screaming and sitting in the middle of her bed like a whimpering monkey.

“Let us help you,” one of the other nurses said soothingly. “Can’t you see that we want to take care of you because we love you?”

“Love be damned,” the little old lady cried, “I want my wig.” And she began to cry and whimper again…

“She has been crying for her wig since she came in,” the other nurse said. “We let her have her teeth, but she wants her wig. I don’t see why they don’t let her have it.”

…She had sympathy and understanding and realized that the little old lady needed more than soap and water and clean bed linen. She needed more than to be loved. She wanted to be respected as a person, and for that she needed to have her wishes respected. She needed such appurtenances as her wig. I remember we compromised with a cap and so pleased her.

The result was a better understanding of service, one that neatly parallels Paul's message in Romans:

One thing I was sure of, and that was that these fellow workers and I were performing an act of worship. I felt that it was necessary for man to worship, that he was most truly himself when engaged in the act.

Anarchy in May: Tolstoy on Moral Culpability

The following is part of the Anarchy in May series which examines Christian anarchism and quotes prominent Christian anarchist thinkers. For a more detailed introduction and a table of contents, please see Anarchy in May: Brief Introduction and Contents.
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The previous quote from William Lloyd Garrison was drawn from Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You. Unsurprisingly, Tolstoy himself--regarded by many to be the seminal figure in modern Christian anarchism, probably more for his notoriety than any novelty or innovation on his part--had plenty to say on the subject of the Christian relation to the state. While volumes could be filled with such quotes (and they are), consider this brief statement on the nature of moral culpability as it relates to citizen participation in civil government:

There are some people, who, without any definite reasoning about it, conclude straightway that the responsibility of government measures rests entirely on those who resolve on them, or that the governments and sovereigns decide the question of what is good or bad for their subjects, and the duty of the subjects is merely to obey. I think that arguments of this kind only obscure men's conscience. I cannot take part in the councils of government, and therefore I am not responsible for its misdeeds... Indeed, but we are responsible for our own misdeeds. And the misdeeds of our rulers become our own, if we, knowing that they are misdeeds, assist in carrying, them out. Those who suppose that they are bound to obey the government, and that the responsibility for the misdeeds they commit is transferred from them to their rulers, deceive themselves.

A Dear John Letter to Uncle Sam

Dear Sam,

I don’t know of any easy way to say this, but it’s over between us. I think we have both known it for a long time and just didn’t want to admit it to ourselves. We’ve been growing apart for years and the time has finally come to say goodbye. I would like to say that it’s not you, it’s me, but that wouldn’t be entirely true.

Sure, I’m young and idealistic; my expectations may not be realistic. I want someone who can keep his promises to me, someone who is always faithful not by happenstance but by nature. I need safety that isn’t transient and superficial, security that doesn’t understand economic crisis or “imminent” threats to “national security.” I need someone who has principles that run deeper than campaign promises and political expediency. I believe that there is someone out there like that. Someone who promises justice and delivers more than a reasonably high rate of accuracy for convictions and executions. Someone who doesn’t confuse liberty with libertinism. Someone who seeks peace through means other than bribery and intimidation. Someone like that.

As for you, I just don’t feel the same way about you that I did when I was young and naïve. I find that I am no longer willing to stand up and pray to your star spangled god. I am no longer content to sign my name to the roll and wait for you to call on me to rise up and kill, to lie down and die for oil or for land, for a confused notion of right or a vague and misplaced specter of exceptionalism, and certainly not for an innate sense of duty that I neither feel myself nor understand in others.

I know what you’re going to say. I’m just displaying the ignorance of my youth. Look at the sacrifices you’ve made for me. Look at how much better my life is with you in it. Look at the joy, the freedom, the strength, the protection that you provide. I’m not buying it. You’ve told those lies to others before me and you’ll get still more after me to believe them. But not me. I’ve outgrown you or, perhaps more accurately, outwitted you. I know that for you strength is synonymous with violence. I know that when you say protection you mean from other people just like you, weaker maybe but fundamentally no different. I know that for you freedom includes freedom for you to whore yourself out to every corrupt behavior and ideology that you can rationalize. I won’t buy into the lie that to be a good person, a good citizen, a good Christian means to surrender myself to you wholesale and slip silently into a fog of materialism, militarism, republicanism, pluralism, capitalism, and jingoism.

So you’ll excuse me if I don’t show up at your birthday party. I’m not sure if I know what there is to celebrate. Of course, you’ll see me around from time to time, and I’ll have things to say to you as a curious bystander might. Any time I come across something that belongs to you, I’ll gladly send it your way, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to ignore me altogether. I will, of course, be praying for you, but not the way I might pray for a parent or a spouse or even a brother or sister. I’ll pray for you the way a china shop might pray for a bull. With a little luck and divine intervention, you may do as little damage as possible, given what you are.

Respectfully (but not regretfully),
The Itinerant Mind

CO Follows Conscience

Stories like this are always nice to read:

A junior officer at a Connecticut submarine base has received an honorable discharge after suing the U.S. Navy, saying his religious beliefs prevent him from participating in the military.

Michael Izbicki, an ensign formerly stationed at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, was discharged Feb. 16 as a conscientious objector...

"I believe that Jesus Christ calls all men to love each other, under all circumstances. I believe his teaching forbids the use of violence. I take the Sermon on the Mount literally," Izbicki wrote in his application for conscientious objector status.

Izbicki, 25, a native of San Clemente, Calif., has said he was following his family tradition by enlisting in the military and entered the Naval Academy in 2004 with plans of becoming an officer. He began to question his goals after graduating from the academy and beginning submarine training.