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Settling In ˜ 37
him always been friends after that. That changed me. Man, I just couldn’t be
mean around old Charlie. Everybody in prison call me Stephens. But Charlie,
he call me Brother Alpha.”
That story didn’t have a happy ending because Alpha Stephens was electrocuted
with 2,300 volts, three different jolts. But I’ve got to tell you that it wasn’t
all bad news in Alpha’s life. He lived a life where hope was reborn. The prison
called him #d9164, but some of us got to know him as “Brother Alpha” because
of what one man did with his persistent hospitality.
Resurrection hope is a gift anytime and anywhere that the power of love is
shown to be stronger than death. Anytime love overcomes death, despair, and
hopelessness, we see truth and hope reborn. That’s a hope that all of us have in
community. Dr. King used to quote the folk saying: “We ain’t what we oughta
be; we ain’t what we wanna be; we ain’t what we gonna be; but thank God we
ain’t what we was.” There is that hope: We ain’t what we was, none of us. Even
though we haven’t gotten to where we’re going, we know that we’re on the way.
In the meantime, we are encouraged by the stories, the memories, and the hope
of love prevailing in whatever small ways, and sometimes even in the big ways.
Just like old Charlie encouraged Brother Alpha through the work of loving patiently,
unobtrusively, and persistently.
One of the great gifts that Dorothy Day gave us for the journey of community
is companionship with those living and working out her vision. The
community that we get to share and celebrate is one of the best and truest gifts.
In the end for Dorothy, as for all of us, the work comes back to the table, to the
companionship with our God and with each other. Here we receive food and
drink for the journey, which gives us the eyes to see God’s presence among us
and on the road. When the burden seemed unbearable, and for Dorothy at
times it most certainly did, her response was that she had to deepen her spiritual
life. Her daily celebration of Mass was a part of that. The joy to be celebrated,
for Dorothy and for us, brings us again to the table, just as Jesus shared the
Passover meal with his disciples before his hard and tortuous journey to state execution.
That vision of the banquet is ours to share, because when Jesus sits at
the table, he says, “This is my body.” What we are fed is the substance, the material,
of God’s presence. God is love, the scriptures say, and the Feast is a Feast
of Love.
One way to understand the Eucharist and table companionship is to know
that we are fed by love. We are eating bread and drinking wine that we pass to
one another, but we are being fed with love—a love that sustains us and becomes
the basis for all that we have, and are, and do. It helps us to remember always
that God’s loving-kindness is present even in this violent, warmongering, broken
world. God comes and tells us that the cosmos, at war with itself, is still shot
through with the glory of God. We need the table companionship, the sacra-