Square Dancing and Singing as Little Acts of Resistance
Living out the call to be co-creators. Plus: the CW tradition of war tax resistance; Notre Dame update; Ames Romero CW gets a new house; and Dorothy on the picket line.
Look Up
The Feast of the Ascension has so much potential to go sideways, especially when it comes to art. I once saw an illuminated manuscript in which the artist depicted the scene in a small square in a corner of the page. Five or six apostles are craning their necks skyward; just above their heads, dangling from the top of the frame, are Jesus’s bare feet. (I just Googled “ascension illuminated manuscript feet” and found more than one instance of this Simpson-esque silliness.)
Even more ridiculous, though, is the question the apostles pose to Jesus there on the mountaintop: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” The note in the New American Bible says that “they had expected (Jesus) to be a political leader who would restore self-rule to Israel.”
Jesus has basically shown himself to be the messiah, appearing to them alive and well after his brutal murder on a cross, and the question they think to ask just before his departure is about…who wields political power?
Can’t you just see Jesus slapping his forehead?
Instead, he gently redirects them: their power will come from the Holy Spirit, and it will be for all people, not just the nation of Israel.
At its best, the Catholic Worker is sometimes a place where you can see the nonviolent power of the Holy Spirit at work re-creating the world. Mary Kay McDermott and Alice McGary beautifully articulated this creative, productive reality in their recent interview on Coffee with Catholic Workers; I found their joy and insights hopeful and exciting. You’ll find an abridged excerpt from their interview below.
Jerry
FEATURED
To Create Is to Resist
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Growing sweet potatoes, making cheese, weaving your own clothes, and yes, even holding a square dance or a community sing—all of these acts of production “are also a little bit of a resistance against mainstream culture,” says Mary Kay McDermott (St. Isidore Catholic Worker Farm, Cuba City, Wisconsin). “We don’t have to consume all of the things that we need in life; we can also produce them.”
McDermott joined fellow Catholic Worker farmer Alice McGary (Mustard Seed Catholic Worker Community Farm, Ames, Iowa) on a recent episode of the Coffee with Catholic Workers podcast hosted by Theo Kayser and Lydia Wong. They talked about the different things their farms produce, both tangible and intangible—even spiritual—in the context of Catholic Worker co-founder Peter Maurin’s framework of cult, culture, and cultivation.
The following is an abridged excerpt of their joyful, thoughtful conversation; to hear their joyful banter, listen to the podcast episode.
This version of the transcript has been abridged for length and edited for clarity, e.g., by removing false starts and repeated words. You can read the transcript in its entirety at the episode page, where you can also watch a video tour of Mustard Seed Farm that also features some of their homemade music.
Lydia Wong: It seems like the idea of cult, culture, and cultivation is all tied together with this idea of the creation of something. You mentioned some of the physical things your farm is creating, but what are some of the other things that you view as being valuable that your farm is creating or generating?
Mary Kay McDermott: Well, I love the Catholic Eucharistic prayer that uses the words “fruit of the earth and work of our hands” to describe the bread and the wine. And so, I just love this idea of us being called to be co-creators with the earth and with the divine.
And, you know, I used to be more involved in musical endeavors that were sort of like performance based. I've never been that great of a performer even, but it was like that was the way that I thought you could be involved with music was to be in a choir that did occasional concerts or things like that. And when I traveled to Haiti and East Africa, I lived in both of those places for a time, and I just really saw the way that music and song and dance, storytelling, they were all a rich part of their culture.
And it permeated through all of the not-so-good stuff to this joy that you could feel. And I started believing that, really, we've outsourced too much of this stuff to people who are professionals and who are trained and who can do it really well. And we all have two—well, most of us have two feet. We all have vocal cords. So that means we can all sing and dance.
And so I've started just really pursuing more of these endeavors that are co-creating activities and using community dance and song as a way to bring people together in a place where we're so divided in our culture, it's just such a great way to make people feel like they're breathing in unison, that they're looking each other in the eye, that they're holding hands and feeling like they're part of something bigger than themselves. And I just think that this is increasingly important.
And, you know, especially with the square dance calling that I do, this is building on a tradition that's hundreds of years old and sort of honoring folk arts that have been important to people for a long time and holding on to the heritage of those. So that's kind of a roundabout. But so, with song and dance, but also just, you know, with the work of production on our farm, I just want to go back to that “fruit of the earth and work of our hands” as being sort of what I love about the call to co-create.
Turning it over to you, Alice.
Alice McGary: Oh, that's so nice, Mary Kay. So, part of why I wanted to be on this show with Mary Kay is because I’m just so excited about what Mary Kay does and who you are. And yeah, just like the community singing and the square dancing. And it was so fun to play for your dance a couple of weeks ago. I'm a fiddle player and I love community dancing, community singing. And yeah, the question was, what was the question, Lydia?
Lydia Wong: Yeah, it was in thinking about the idea of creation or generating things, what are the things that you view as yourself creating or your community creating?
Alice McGary: Yeah, well, I think our community and I create a lot of things. And I also think we create a lot of opportunities for encounter, which I'm actually excited about both of them. So, I really like making functional things that are beautiful.
So, we grow a lot of food. And it's core to the work of our community to grow really healthy food to share with anyone who needs it. And I think it's a core part of what the Catholic Worker does, too, is just that people need good food in order to kind of meet their human potential. It's not charity, it is like kind of foundational liberation for people to be able to have good food. And from that, you can have your full self. You can be; you can grow up with a creative, active brain and a healthy body.
And so that's one thing that we produce. And our community makes candles, and we have bees and we have honey. And we've been growing a lot of flowers the past number of years. We have a woman on our team, Jen, who's just like really passionate about flowers and has been leading these flower projects. And so, we've been able to also deliver flower bouquets with almost all of the food we've been delivering. So that's just really fun to be like kind of our bread and roses.
But yeah, I'm a potter and I'm a fiddle player and I make rugs and I have been like getting kind of obsessed about spinning wool and weaving things and growing cotton. But I just really like that intersection of where something is really useful and necessary, but also beautiful for your eyes, for your lips when you're drinking or, you know, like a quilt that just brings those little joys and connection into your daily life. But I also think that our community is really invested in making opportunities for encounter.
So, just opportunities for people to learn things, to come on our harvest mornings, to connect with all the people there, to connect with the beauty of the earth and the sky and the vegetables and learn new skills, to have time to have conversations, you know, or like potlucks and workshops. To kind of show people like, oh, look at this crazy way we're living—not that you need to live the way we are, but like there are different ways.
And like, just to create that space for people to meet each other and to connect to each other and connect to the planet, I feel like is providing maybe like an opportunity for—I don't want (to say) conversions—but maybe, like those little mini-spiritual experiences that you have in life where I think that our hearts can be transformed. Anyway, that's my answer.
Mary Kay McDermott: That's good, Alice. I was just thinking, you know, you don't want to use the word “conversion,” but I like the idea of the thin veil between what we know and what's beyond our knowing. And so, I think that these opportunities that we provide to people who visit, to people who come dance and sing or engage in these acts of co-creation, it can offer, at its best, a little peek behind the veil of what more is possible.
For more about the joy of song, dance, and movement, read Mary Kay’s Substack, Groundswell Community.
War Tax Resistance: A Catholic Worker Tradition
As early as 1943, Dorothy Day was advocating withholding taxes in order to avoid complicity in military violence. War tax resistance has been a Catholic Worker tradition ever since, writes Lincoln Rice (Casa Maria Catholic Worker, Milwaukee), and interest in the practice has been growing in the wake of the U.S.-funded killing of thousands of civilians in Gaza. Rice wrote about the practice in the April edition of the Catholic Agitator; we’re reprinting it here (and at CatholicWorker.org) with his permission:
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ with napalm, nerve gas, our hydrogen bomb… Should one pay tax which supports this gigantic program?”
—Dorothy Day (1954)
Franklin Roosevelt’s 1942 Revenue Act expanded the application of the federal income tax beyond the richest people to include 75% of all people in this nation. The following year, when Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day was writing for The Catholic Worker newspaper about the evil of conscription, she added, “in these days it would be desirable to go even further, as did Thoreau, to refuse even the taxes, which were to be used to pay for the means to kill our fellow man.” With the growing proliferation of U.S. nuclear weapons in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dorothy’s calls for war tax resistance increased.
During the spring of 1972 at the New York Catholic Worker, one could sense the tension in the air. The IRS notified the New York house that it owed $296,359 in fines, penalties, and unpaid income tax for the prior six years. Part of the issue was the New York house, like many Catholic Workers, was not tax-exempt.
Despite concerns of how the situation might resolve, Dorothy used the publicity to highlight war tax resistance. After the situation had received national attention, the IRS wrote a two-sentence letter in July stating that the matter was being dropped and no action was required by the New York house.
Dorothy’s strong stance in favor of war tax resistance was likely influenced by anarchist Ammon Hennacy. Her articles in the 1950s often cite his example. Though Ammon did not move into the New York house until the early 1950s, he had first stopped by the New York Worker in 1938 and wrote several articles for the paper during the 1940s and 1950s.
Ammon had refused paying the federal income tax during World War II after the passage of Roosevelt’s Revenue Act. When it became clear that federal law would require his employer to begin withholding taxes from his wages, he switched to working agricultural jobs in the fields, which were not subject to federal tax withholding. All the while he never tried to evade the IRS’ notice. Quite the opposite, he would regularly picket the IRS and promote war tax resistance in his writings.
It is not hard to understand why some might advocate war tax resistance; the costs of war are devastating. Since the end of World War II, federal spending on past and current military expenses has stolen forty to fifty percent of the federal budget away from programs that would truly serve our communities.
More than three million people have been killed (and millions of families displaced) during the U.S. oil wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And through the 1033 Program, the Defense Department has transferred $4.3 billion in military equipment to local agencies, whose militarized police serve more like an occupying army in their mostly Black, brown, and indigenous neighborhoods.
Since the invasion of Gaza last October, there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in war tax resistance. We attribute this interest to the U.S. providing more than $3 billion each year in military aid to Israel, to whom the U.S. has provided more military aid to than any other country since World War II. With the tragedy in Gaza, people have seen their tax dollars at work. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) has been offering multiple war tax resistance workshops each month since the invasion, and interest remains strong as Tax Day nears. Even when interest waned during the 1990s, the practice remained strong among many Catholic Workers.
There is no one way to resist federal income taxes for war. For the most part, Catholic Workers have often earned under the taxable income limit ($14,600 for a single person; $29,200 for a married couple). Others in the war tax resistance movement make more than the standard deduction and refuse to pay some or all of their tax debt. Some refuse a small amount, such as $200, because the risk is low and they can include a letter with their tax forms explaining their resistance. Others resist fifty percent and others resist the entire amount since half of anything they pay will be used for militarism. Resisters redirect these funds to groups and organizations that are doing peace and justice work, but who are underfunded.
Oddly enough, the IRS is grossly underfunded, so the risks associated with war tax resistance are low. For those refusing to pay some or all of their tax debt, they will likely be bombarded with computer-generated IRS letters. Some may receive wage garnishments or bank levies, but even these are surprisingly rare. Criminal prosecution and prison time are possible according to the letter of the law, but the IRS has not criminally prosecuted any war tax resisters in the last twenty-five years who accurately filled out their tax forms.
As a Catholic Worker and one of the folks shepherding NWTRCC in its work today, I see my war tax resistance as carrying on a long and rich history. To find out more about war tax resistance, go to nwtrcc.org.
Notre Dame Students Amplify Calls for Divestment
Days after the University of Notre Dame arrested 17 of its students during a peaceful protest on campus (see last week’s Roundtable), about 200 students, faculty, staff, and people from the wider South Bend community rallied outside the university’s main gate last Sunday. Members of the South Bend Catholic Worker were among those who turned out.
Like other campus protests nationwide, students at Notre Dame have been calling for institutional divestment from companies connected to Israel’s war in Gaza. But the Notre Dame activists are also using the university’s Catholic identity—and its commitment to Catholic teaching about social issues—to press the point.
“The university is trying to silence us, so we are coming out to say we won’t be silenced,” Francesa Freeman, an Occupation Free ND spokesperson, told WNDU news. “We are more committed than we have ever been to aligning the university with its Catholic values by disclosing and divesting its investments in weapons manufacturing companies.”
It’s not surprising that Notre Dame students would point to Catholic social teaching principles; the university sponsors a Center for Social Concerns and a Social Justice Award, and offers a minor in Catholic social teaching along with an online certificate in Catholic social teaching.
Some students are also tapping into the long tradition of the Catholic Worker Movement.
“I am absolutely inspired by and drawing on the Catholic Worker tradition and the witness of Catholic peacebuilders such as Dorothy Day,” said Flora Tang, another spokesperson for Occupation Free ND. “My Ph.D. degree is in theology and peace studies, and my personal Catholic faith draws significantly upon Dorothy Day, Dan Berrigan, and other Catholic anti-war protesters.”
Tang says she is a convert to Catholicism, and the Catholic peace tradition was a significant draw for her. “My faith also takes the Bible’s words of turning swords into plowshares literally, as I strive to be a peacebuilder and someone who speaks against the ever-expansion of military forces and weapons of mass destruction.”
Signs at Sunday’s rally made pointed jabs at the contrast between Notre Dame’s Catholic identity and its investment practices: “Our Catholic University is funded by blood money,” read one sign. “You say you believe in CST,” read another. And a third: “Our Lady is a Palestinian-Jew.”
Casey Mullaney, a member of the South Bend Catholic Worker community and an adjunct theology professor at the university, has taught a course on the Catholic Worker Movement. The South Bend Catholic Worker has been providing the student protesters with practical and pastoral support.
“Dorothy spoke a lot about the mystical body of Christ—how we are all members or potential members of that body, and that it’s on this basis that we should not drop bombs on one another,” Mullaney said. “Our students are enfleshing that solidarity in the knowledge that they are part of the same body as the people of Gaza.
“As a teacher and a Catholic Worker, I’m very proud of them.”
For more about Sunday’s protest as well as the arrests of the 17 students, see After Arrests, Students Renew Call for Notre Dame to Follow Catholic Teaching on War, Investments at CatholicWorker.org.
THE ROUNDUP
The Ames Romero House Catholic Worker (Ames, Iowa) is purchasing a new house that will serve as the hub for its daytime hospitality. Named the "Orange House," the property will offer meals, laundry, showers, clothing resources, and additional amenities like private meeting spaces, a prayer area, and a children’s playroom. The existing property at 709 Clark will transition to support the community’s live-in staff and internal community activities. Extensive renovations are planned for the Orange House with a tentative opening date of August 1. Read more in their email newsletter here.
Dorothy Day was a voracious reader, and often highlighted or wrote marginal notes on what she was reading, Patrick Jordan writes in the May issue of The Catholic Worker newspaper (New York Catholic Worker). “Sometimes she would underline in black ink, sometimes in red, and occasionally even underscore with yellow marker,” Jordan writes (“Dorothy Day in the Margins”). Meanwhile, in “Peter Maurin, Lasallian,” Alex Palma Alex Palma explores how Peter Maurin's formative years with the Christian Brothers shaped his contributions to the Catholic Worker Movement, highlighting the shared values of education, poverty, and community life. Theo Kayser writes about the Midwest Catholic Worker Farm gathering (covered by CatholicWorker.org here), and the Book of Notes column features an account of the NYCW’s annual celebration of the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, which also happens to be the Catholic Worker’s “birthday.”
An historical overview of the conflict and living conditions in Gaza leads the June/July issue of The Catholic Radical (Saints Francis & Thérèse Catholic Worker Community), tracing the roots of the conflict to early 20th-century political decisions. Scott Schaeffer-Duffy also writes about practical and cost-effective green energy solutions—and the political opposition that has kept them from happening. Rita Corbin writes about how Catholic Charities volunteers and leaders nationwide are facing increasing threats and opposition to their immigration and refugee resettlement work. And Claire Schaeffer-Duffy writes about the hope she has felt watching the student-led divestment movement spread across the country, even as she and Scott prepare for their upcoming pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. You can read the issue here.
The London Catholic Worker has a new website: “Since the Second Vatican Council, Catholics have been called to respond to ‘the signs of the times’; we have decided to follow this call by making ourselves a website that works properly.” You can experience it yourself here.
Brian Terrell vividly recounts the “Chalk of Mass Destruction” incident on the recent Nevada Desert Experience peace walk: “Besides arresting the two who put their bodies on the line, interrupting the war machine, the vigilant Metro Police also courageously intervened in response to an act of senseless destruction. George Killingsworth, an 89-year-old retired pastor, was observed drawing a peace sign with chalk on a rock on the side of the road. Taking no chances, five armed police officers were dispatched with the support of Air Force military police to apprehended the suspect. With George safely handcuffed, the officers escorted him to the scene of the crime to be photographed next to the property that he had vandalized.” Read Terrell’s complete account of the event at the Nevada Desert Experience website.
Jackie Allen of the Hartford Catholic Worker community conducted a one-woman demonstration outside the courthouse where 7 University of Connecticut pro-Palestinian demonstrators were being arraigned Wednesday, according to CT Insider: “She said leaders of the Catholic Worker’s youth tutoring and mentoring programs, including a Saturday sports programs, are writing letters of support for the students to give eventually to the judge.”
CALENDAR
May 13 | Chicago + virtual
The Fourth Annual Berrigan-McAlister Award: Celebrating the Los Angeles Catholic Worker
May 18 | Cuba City, Wisconsin
St. Isidore CW Farm Feast Day Celebration
June 3 - June 7 | Cuba City, Wisconsin
Stories of the Land: Decolonization, Earth Regeneration, & Spiritual Ecology
September 12-15 | Sugar Creek, Iowa
Midwest Catholic Worker Gathering
A FEW GOOD WORDS
My Path Was Clear
by Dorothy Day, in the September 1973 issue of the Catholic Worker.
Dorothy’s journal of her trip to California in support of the United Farm Workers’ strike:
July 30. We left Kennedy Airport at noon for San Francisco, Eileen Egan and I. She was attending, as I too was supposed to, the 50th Anniversary of the War Resister’s International. Joan Baez had invited me to be at her Institute for the Study of Non-violence for the week with some members of Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers’ Union. When we arrived in time for the Institute’s Monday night pot luck supper in Palo Alto, plans had changed because of the mass arrests of farm workers who were defying an injunction against mass picketing in Kern County. There was now a strike in the vineyards as well as in lettuce fields because the growers would not renew their contracts with the farm workers and were making new contracts with the Teamsters. The strike was widespread and mass arrests were continuing. Cesar Chavez’ union of Farm Workers has everything that belongs to a new social order, so my path was clear. I had come to picket where an injunction was prohibiting picketing, and I would spend my weeks in California in jail, not at conferences.
This first evening was beautiful. Joan Baez sang all evening in the patio of one of the houses belonging to a group interested in land trusts, non-violence, and the farm strike.
Joan lives up in the hills somewhere near, has a “Christ room” where an old ex-prisoner stays. Lee Swenson, who works with the Institute, drove us to one of the houses where we slept well. We had arrived in California at 2:30 p.m. California time, 5:30 N.Y. time and by N.Y. time were probably in bed well after midnight. It was a long day.
July 31. A very hot drive down the valley to Delano today, arriving as strike meeting ended. Today many Jesuits were arrested. Also sisters who had been attending a conference in San Francisco. Mass in the evening at Bakersfield, ended a tremendous demonstration, flag-carrying Mexicans – singing, chanting, marching – and when the Mass began there were so many people that it was impossible to kneel, but there was utter silence.
August 1. Up at 2 a.m., picketed all day, covering many vineyards. Impressive lines of police, all armed–clubs and guns. We talked to them, pleaded with them to lay down their guns and clubs. One was black. His mouth twitched as he indicated that, No, he did not enjoy being there. Two other police came and walked away with him. I told the other police I would come back next day and read the Sermon on the Mount to them. I was glad I had my folding chair-cane so I could rest occasionally during picketing, and sit there before the police to talk to them.
Read the rest of the account here.