The Intersection of Motherhood and the Catholic Worker (Fall 2008)

By Susan Windley-Daoust

Eight years ago, when my eldest child was a baby, my husband Jerry and I visited our friends living at the Winona Catholic Worker for a potluck and roundtable. It was held at Bethany house, our home for single men needing hospitality, and the potluck was a lively mix of long-time guests, friends of the house, live-ins, and visitors. My husband, Jerry, was talking to a guest (let’s call him Jim) living there at the time, a huge man with a fierce beard but friendly manner. Our son drew attention to his cute self by gurgling, and when one of the men said “that’s a fine baby there,” Jerry said, “Thanks—why don’t you hold him?” Jim resisted (“naw, I’d drop him for sure, he’s so little”), but our little one added to the conversation by flinging open his arms and smiling expectantly. So Jim gingerly picked him up and held him to his chest, and suddenly began to cry. “No one’s ever trusted me with a baby before,” he said.
So many times the intersection of the work of hospitality and raising children has yielded moments like this. I never thought that at age six months, my son would be doing the works of mercy more effectively than anyone else in the family. Other times, my six year old middle daughter is the quiet and graceful one who is ready to play fairies with any young guest at the house. And my youngest daughter asked me most of her two year old year if we could pray for a near-age guest of the house: not that she knows the exact nature of this child’s steep challenges, because we never mentioned them to her. But I can’t believe she didn’t sense something, especially if you believe that prayer is initiated by the Holy Spirit.
Catholicism validates the value of motherhood as a vocation in a way many traditions do not, but still, I have never been perfectly comfortable in understanding what that vocation means. The voices buzz like static. To believe what the world says, motherhood is about giving your children every toy they want, making sure they grow up geniuses, and that they will respond to dinners with melting smiles. Certainly that’s how motherhood is marketed. So much of motherhood is commodified, perhaps sensing that women are so naturally nervous about this huge responsibility that giving us something to buy (Babies R Us, anyone?) makes us feel more prepared. Of course, the answer is not in buying things. Mothering is an act done in community, for love and formation, that relies heavily upon the allowing God to work through us for the good of others. These children are entrusted to our care, and in this upside down world, so much can go wrong. So we try: we do our best to raise them in our faith, and to teach them what we value. We try to model non-violence; we try to model respect for each person’s human dignity.
Certainly there are differences between family community and CW community, but I live with gratitude that being a small part of the life of the Winona Catholic Worker helps me understand what motherhood is truly about, and indeed, helps me be a better mother. There is an ancient Vietnamese story about chopsticks and the Kingdom of God: beyond this world, we are each given one meter chopsticks. Hell is when we despair and starve, unable to eat with our too-long chopsticks. Heaven is where we are fed because we understand we must feed each other. Both family community and CW community know something of that insight, that the Christian life is best lived generously, together. Being around people who value and live out that generosity and ingenuity really “feed” my mothering by example. Motherhood and being a Catholic Worker are vocations where life, by definition, is openhandedly shared. And, by hook and by crook and by God, we are fed.
But it would have been hard to see this intersection without the experience of bringing our kids with us to the Catholic Worker meals for years. Some would say it is a risk, but it is a far greater risk, I’d say, not to be doing our best to raise our children to be aware of the realities of the world and the medicine of the works of mercy: it is only in reality do we find God. God breaks through on the jagged edge of reality, where we realize the chopsticks are long and the hunger real. We cannot buy our way off this jagged edge, or pretend it is not there. Any authentic spiritual life must be grounded in reality, and there is not a delusional vapor in these houses. It’s bracing tonic for me and for my kids.
A Grammy winning rock/gospel singer with a jagged edge past, Ashley Cleveland, wrote a song about finding motherhood as a calling. “Rebecca” (which you can download for free at ashleycleveland.com) comes after an album of songs on addiction, near death, and reliance on the mercy of God. Yet at the end of this CD, you find this quiet acoustic lullaby to a sleeping infant. The refrain is sweet:
“Rebecca… you are the laughter in your mama’s eye, the stars are bright, but not like the shine I’ve taken to you…Who gave who the gift of life? We’ll call it a toss-up… but these changes in me tell the real truth…I’m grateful for you.”
Motherhood certainly surprised me that way. No one knows the depths of love, grief, and joy that a child elicits from you. But in the last verse of the album, she finds a kind of triumph within her musical chronicle of struggle:

“I look for my future and I feel a peace about my past
Surprised by joy, I've seen my Father's mercy in you
You make a fine tutor and my vocation is clear at last
I can't wait to hear you call me something, and see the world as you do”
It’s a beautiful statement about motherhood and clarity and joy. But…does it stretch too much to imagine singing the first three lines to anyone to whom you are linked by hospitality? To anyone whom you are connected as brother or sister in Christ? In the end, all vocations are calls to generous love, calls to mirror the love of God. Dorothy Day knew that, giving birth to and raising Tamar in difficult circumstances. One of her favorite saints, Therese de Lisieux knew that, writing down in capital letters in her life narrative, “MY VOCATION IS LOVE!” Sometimes we don’t even know the gift God prompts us to give, such as when Jim broke down in gratitude after being trusted to hold our infant son. The Catholic Worker houses remind me that life is to be shared, without cost, in concrete ways. And it’s a good place for my children to begin practicing that life-long project: to allow our darkest reality can be embraced by God, give us a peace about our past, and yield to being surprised by joy.