The Long Loneliness

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community” Dorothy Day

This quote, by Dorothy Day, has become a favorite for many Jesuit Volunteers. Jesuit Volunteers point to this quote as representative of the Jesuit Volunteer community experience. Rightly so, in many regards. In Dorothy Day’s book, The Long Loneliness¸ she talks about the formation of Catholic Worker homes for people to come to and experience community. Many Catholic Worker Houses around the country are now places of hospitality, and many foster the same sorts of community among their residents and guests that JVC aims to develop.

I think today’s American society knows this long loneliness Dorothy Day talks about in her book. Americans, I believe, in their state of hyper-individualism, often forget that we are interdependent, and consequently, often fall into a state of hopelessness, powerlessness, despair, and loneliness. I think this is manifested in the hyper materialism, and the complete focus American society has placed on the individual.

But is this Catholic Worker and Jesuit Volunteer concept of community practical, especially in a hyper-individualistic society?

Certainly, there are merits and blessings I have experienced living in community this year. Together, we live and work in the District, trying to work for social justice, live simply, and grow in our different spiritualities. It is a challenge and a blessing bound together in a common experience. We have shared all of our resources, shared our hearts, and our time with one another. We have experienced the challenge that comes with disagreements and disputes, and the joys that come with laughter and fond memories. We have voiced our struggles with our work, with the vast and deep-rooted social and economic injustice we see in our work and in our society. We have come to see each other as a community, as close friends travelling together on this part of our journey.

Our community experience is ending soon, and we will disperse onto our different paths. Though I think Dorothy Day is speaking about community in the context of experiences like JVC, I also think that community extends to a broader understanding than this. Taking from lessons learned from the blessings and challenges of this community experience, I envision living out the tenet of Community in many ways in my own lifestyle.

Dorothy Day says that the void of loneliness can be filled with love and community. I believe this community refers to the connections we make with one another in our lives. These connections are not just friendships of utility, as Aristotle would entitle them (friendships that give us what we need and in turn provide to others what they need), but true “good friendships,” friendships that are motivated out of love for the other, friendships that develop over time, friendships that encompass a mutual trust…

I believe in many ways, I have seen these friendships in the experience of community this year. I point to this type of friendships as the foundation of the Community I envision after JVC. I have seen these friendships develop with friends from high school, friends from Gonzaga, friends from Bread for the City, and friends from my Jesuit Volunteer house. Friendships that include sitting with a glass of wine or cup of coffee and enjoying a long conversation delving into our most inner hearts, desires, pains, and joys… friendships that are not contingent on what we can give one another, but are everlasting and from the heart… friendships that continue to give life, to nurture, and to encourage one another to become more authentic individuals.

Community happens in other ways too – I have experienced a sense of community in my work, in both the relationships with my coworkers and my clients. Working together each day, we have formed community in the way that we relate to one another, the way that we help each other grow, and the way that we strive to make the District a more just place for our clients.

I have experienced community this year in the relationships with other advocates I have met in the city. Working together on projects like the SE Preservation Project, the Fair Budget Coalition, IDA advocacy, and the Save Our Safety Net Campaign, I have shared my own passion with others who have the same vision, in hopes that together, our efforts will be magnified and more powerful. This collaboration has helped me feel as if DC is my community, the place I am settled, the place I feel a strong connection to. It is different than the Community I have experienced with my closest relationships, but it is has complemented the other relationships I have formed this year.

The sum of these relationships result in a feeling of community that creates connections with one another, helps us feel as if we are part of a community, fosters growth, and challenges us to become more authentically human. It is a sense of community made up of a variety of relationships, some reaching more intimately into who we are than others. I believe this community is innately sustainable outside of the Jesuit Volunteer experience or Catholic Worker lifestyle because it calls us to form relationships that cultivate self and communal growth. It is this growth, and this sense of community, that can cure the long loneliness that Dorothy Day speaks of.

Perhaps I won’t live in another JVC-type Community like I have this year, but I will live the value of community as I continue on with my life.