My favorite T-shirt at the moment has a big picture of Servant of God Dorothy Day next to one of her quotes: “Everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.”
Dorothy Day was a writer, activist, convert to Catholicism, and single mom who lived roughly contemporaneously with my grandmother. During the Great Depression, she co-founded the Catholic Worker movement to bring help and hope to the hungry on the streets of New York City. Her writings and the Catholic Worker movement are still influencing people within and outside of the Church today, and her cause for sainthood is under consideration in Rome.
I love this quote about the lack of glamor associated with doing the dishes because it strikes at the heart of my everyday life—everybody wants great things to happen, whether they be sports championships, church renovations, college scholarships, promotions at work, garden overhauls, or any number of other big improvements or changes. And I, as much as anyone, love to make big plans (mine usually fall in the garden overhaul category), but I often find myself bogged down by dishes, laundry, carpool, and the thousands of little things that have to be done just to get through the day.
Which is why the quote on my shirt rings so true. It is a reminder that whatever big changes we want to see in the world (or in our families or in ourselves), the little mundane things are what make any big change possible. Dorothy spoke of the goal of the Catholic Worker as “creating a society in which it is easier to be good” — in other words, building the Kingdom of Heaven. She recognized that there was nothing flashy about slicing bread and making peanut butter sandwiches for the soup line, but she also loved the Little Way of St. Therese and knew that these small actions were the necessary foundation of any bigger changes. It was by doing the little things—sharing a cup of coffee, sorting donated clothes, scrubbing floors—that Dorothy and her friends launched a movement that has changed people and neighborhoods around the world.
Like Dorothy, we mothers spend much of our days doing the mundane, boring, messy tasks that keep our families running. And this is beautiful and powerful, because these little things are the building blocks of the Kingdom of Heaven.
There can be no revolution without those who are willing to take the (seemingly) humble position of washing the dishes, planting the seeds, and teaching the children. But there is no shame in being in a position near the ground level of a revolution; rather this is exactly what Christ calls all his followers to do: to be the servants of all. And Dorothy Day reminds us that there is holiness—and a little bit of the Kingdom of Heaven—in those clean dishes and in each and every peanut butter sandwich.
