“We have to live with the positions we take, and at the same time we are bound to be beset with all kinds of human doubts… I know what human fear is and how often it keeps us from following our conscience.”

In an April column of 1968, Dorothy Day reflects on the way fear often prevents us from being willing to sacrifice on behalf of others. She is writing this in the aftermath of the death of MLK and the way in which white Christians have been afraid to stand in solidarity for racial justice in the south—even when they knew it to be the right thing to do. And I think she seems to believe that sometimes we need to be pushed into it because otherwise fear would keep winning. There's something in our nature that resists the idea of giving up our comforts, safety, and self-interest for the sake of others. But this, for Day, is what the church is: a kingdom formed around giving up one's life for the good of other people. Its the one thing that makes any of it compelling.

“It is not worthwhile writing or speaking unless you say what is in your heart and say it as you see things. This is the way. This is what converts expect when they come into the Church and they find it in the lives of the saints who accept the idea of death in whatever form it takes. We say all these things in our prayers and don’t mean them. And God takes us at our word, fortunately, and so we are saved in spite of ourselves; we are dragged in by the hair of the head.”

Our hearts may know it to be true, but fear stops us from acting on it. This is what she means by us not actually meaning the things we pray. If we meant it, we would live it. And so sometimes we need to be dragged in to acting against our self-interest because we can't seem to get there on our own.