WRITING STRAIGHT WITH CROOKED LINES by Jim Forest: A Review

Jim Forest/Credit: Orthodoxy in Dialogue

In his book WRITING STRAIGHT WITH CROOKED LINES A Memoir, Jim Forest winces at being described as a peace activist. Despite having been exactly that for most of his adult life.

“The problem is that I’m not by nature an activist. Perhaps there is something of Thomas Merton’s monastic temperament in me. I feel uncomfortable in crowds – masses of people drawn together by a common objective generate powerful currents and undertows that often scare me. I’m not an automatic participant – discernment is needed. When it comes to taking part in protests and demonstrations, I have to convince myself that this specific act of protest or witness really is worth taking part in and then push myself by brute force out the door while wishing my conscience would leave me alone.”

But yet, the fact is, Forest has had a remarkable life, most of it being directly involved in the peace movement. With formative roots deepened by being the Managing Editor of the Catholic Worker, under Dorothy Day’s (co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement) tutelage, when he was in his early 20s.

This connection eventually got him involved in helping to form the Catholic Peace Fellowship and working with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, and brought Dan and Phil Berrigan, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Henri Nouwen, and Al Hassler into Forest’s life.

As Forest points out, being the son of left-leaning parents (both of his parents were members of the Communist Party) definitely influenced his DNA.

Forest has written several books, including a biography of Thomas Merton and books on the Russian Orthodox Church (he himself converted to the Orthodox Church from Roman Catholic.) He had proven his journalistic skills several times over before reaching the age of 30. Including serving as the press agent for five Vietnam War protestors who burned their draft cards in Union Square in November of 1965.

A few years later, Forest served in the same capacity for the Catonsville Nine Defense Committee. The group of nine had gathered to break into the Catonsville Draft Board headquarters. The participants included Dan and Phil Berrigan.

During this time, Forest worked for both the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. And he became part of the Milwaukee 14, who broke into the adjoining offices of nine draft board in Milwaukee, stealing draft records and burning them.

“My knees shook every step of the way. The nine doors were opened, the many burlap sacks we had brought with us were filled to bursting with 1-A files – 10,000 of them, it was estimated during the trial – and dragged out to the park across the street. Napalm, made ourselves, according to a recipe found in the US Army Special Forces Handbook, was poured on the files and a match struck. The fourteen of us lined up on one side of the bonfire and prayed the Our Father and sang ‘We Shall Overcome.’”

There was a lot of traveling involved in Forest’s work. He candidly records that such prolonged absences eventually tore at the fabric of three marriages, ending in divorce.

It was later in life, when Forest was older and wiser, that he discovered his soulmate. He was working in Denmark for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and renewed a friendship with Nancy Flier during visits home in the United States. They have been happily married for 37 years.

At the very end of WRITING STRAIGHT WITH CROOKED LINES, Forest sums up his life, offering a few powerful life lessons. This is one of them: “If I cannot find the face of Jesus in the faces of those who are my enemies, if I cannot find him in the unbeautiful, if I cannot find him in those who have the ‘wrong ideas,’ if I cannot find him in the poor and the defeated, how will I find him in the bread and wine or in the life after death? If I do not reach out in this world to those with whom he has identified himself, why do I imagine that I will want to be with him and them forever in heaven? Why would I want to be, for all eternity, in the company of those whom I avoided every day of my life?”

P.S. I had the privilege of interviewing Jim Forest in July of 2019. You can find that interview here.