Author Archives: Richard B. Griffin

Aging and the Nun Study

When David Snowdon finishes a talk to an audience of older people, frequently the first question they ask is: “What can I do to improve my chances of aging successfully?” His response comes in a single word: “Walk!”

He also recommends much else, such as keeping your brain active, eating good food with other people, and developing your spiritual life.

Dr. Snowdon knows a lot about successful aging. An epidemiologist, he founded the “Nun Study,” a now celebrated research project centered on the School Sisters of Notre Dame. This Catholic community of nuns agreed to take part in 1986 and, by this time, hundreds of them have participated.

In the first few years, while Dr. Snowdon worked at the University of Minnesota, the research was directed toward the connection between education and health in later life. When in 1990 he moved to the medical center at the University of Kentucky, Snowdon’s focus shifted to Alzheimer’s disease. Since that time, his work and that of his associates have become famous among researchers in the field of aging and have also received considerable media attention.

Snowdon rightly considers himself lucky to have found a congregation of religious sisters willing to cooperate with him. They are a researcher’s dream because they share so many life features in common. All unmarried, they live the same style of life and, moreover, their community has kept careful records of each of their members going back to the time they first joined.

It also has helped that David Snowdon was acquainted with nuns from childhood on and had some as teachers in elementary school. He has brought to his research a deep respect for the sisters, with many of whom he has developed close friendships.

At first he felt nervous about proposing to the nuns that they participate in his research. But the way was eased when one of the leaders of the community told him how to deal with the older sisters: “We treat them with the care and respect they deserve. We will expect nothing less from you.” And, to judge from “Aging With Grace,” the book Snowdon authored last year, he has followed through.

The researcher felt even more nervous when he made another, more threatening request of the sisters. He asked them to donate their brains to his study. To his relief, the sisters responded generously, with 678 agreeing to have their brains studied after their death. They based their decision on spiritual motives fundamental to their faith. One said: “It is the spirit that is important after death, not the brain.” And another added: “Resurrection does not depend on how our bodies are in the grave.”

The donors saw the decision as expressing the service of their neighbors to which their whole life had been dedicated. One leader explained this orientation: “As sisters, we made the hard choice not to have children. Through brain donation, we can help unravel the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease and give the gift of life in a new way to future generations.”

Each sister who takes part in the study is given a series of physical and mental tests each year. In this way Snowdon and his associates keep track of the nuns’ health as they age. Through these tests, scrutiny of the records of each sister, and other diagnostic methods, the researchers have been able to draw some conclusions about aging. And, of course, rigorous examination of the brains of those sisters who have died have also revealed significant information.

Among these latter findings was the discovery that many of the women who continued to function adequately in old age had brains with some symptoms characteristic of Alzeimer’s, such as plaques and tangles. But even though they would seem to have had the disease, it did not impede their activities and they were judged to be mentally intact.

Snowdon summarizes this way: “Alzheimer’s is not a yes/no disease. Rather, it is a process – one that evolves over decades and interacts with many other factors.” So the evidence coming from examination of the brain can sometimes prove misleading.

Two factors that Snowdon considers important in the life of the sisters lie outside his scientific testing but deserve attention. The first is spirituality and the second is community. Of spirituality, he says: “My sense is that profound faith, like positive outlook, buffers the sorrows and tragedies that all of us experience.”

Of the second factor, he writes: “The community not only stimulates their minds, celebrates their accomplishments, and shares their aspirations, but also encourages their silences, intimately understands their defeats, and nurtures them when their bodies fail them.”

Ultimately, for Snowdon, the most amazing lesson from this study is that “Alzheimer’s disease is not an inevitable consequence of aging.” This lesson can offer some hope to people who feel anxious as we all await the scientific breakthrough that will free one day free the human family from this terrible affliction.

Richard Griffin

Last September, a Year Later

Even after a whole year, the images have tremendous power. People in free fall after leaping from the windows of their office. Smoke and soot enveloping city blocks as the great towers burn and fall. Men and women shaking with emotion as they weep for loved ones lost. Steam shovels gathering up huge chunks of debris in their giant mouths. Firemen taking off their helmets in silent salute as the bodies of their comrades are borne past them.

These images remain etched on our souls as we recall the horrific events of September a year ago. Even those of us who did not lose a family member or friend in the catastrophe of the eleventh can feel as if we did. And those of us whose faith in God was shaken by the unspeakable terror of it all continue to grope for meaning.

Terry McGovern, a thirtyish woman who lost her mother in the World Trade Center that day, says “You have to believe there’s something deeper going on, that there’s spiritual life.” As she explains on public television’s “Frontline,” aired last week, she has turned toward the faith she had previously lost.

For her, the death of her mother amidst a scene of terror has restored faith, a return that contrasts with the loss of faith experienced by others. “I want the church’s teaching about the afterlife to be true,” she now says. She needs to believe her mother lives on in a different way.

A man who saw, among the people falling from a thousand feet up, a man and woman hand in hand, finds in that image “the most powerful prayer I can imagine.” As he reflects on this awesome sight he expresses his faith: “It makes me think we’re not fools to believe in God, to believe that love is why we’re here.”

And yet others interviewed for Frontline report the destruction of faith. “If there is a God,” says one man, “he is an indifferent God.” Another sounds despairing: “Our hope was sucked out at Ground Zero.”  Still others, blaming religion for the hatred and the violence, feel bitter at teachings that spawn destruction.

A fireman still retains faith but longs to be in contact with his son: “I wish God had a telephone number,” he says with tears in his eyes. Others are moved to tears as the soprano Renee Fleming sings “Amazing Grace.” She herself confesses having been unable to look at her audience at Ground Zero as she sang, for fear of being overcome with emotion.

As I look back on the terrible events of a year ago, my own faith continues to provide support. The spiritual traditions that have marked my whole life still offer me insight and solace even in the face of unappeasable evil. Though I cannot understand evil’s power over the world, I continue to draw strength from a community of faith.

The gestures that my wife and I made on September 11 last year still seem to me appropriate. We walked to our parish church and joined with others in praying for the victims and their loved ones. We had no answers but felt that sharing a sacred meal made sense. Admittedly, it was an intangible response that could help only spiritually. Still, it was important to us and, we felt, others directly involved might appreciate it too.

If there was ever a time when mere spirit could help, this was it.  We were far from the scene of disaster,  so could do nothing physical. However, we did put ourselves in spiritual contact with brothers and sisters undergoing great travail. There was nothing much that could have been said had we been there. Just being present to them spiritually still seems the most appropriate response to unspeakable tragedy.

The spiritual values that emerged for me a year ago remain central. The precious value of family relationships and those among friends, with special attention to reconciliation among those estranged; the heroism of people called to duty in the most hazardous situations; the primacy of spirit as a response to the mystery of evil.

A woman involved in the dire events says for the television cameras: “I was so materialistic; now I want to be more spiritual.” She has found something valuable that has emerged from the ashes.

Richard Griffin

Bill’s Spirituality

“Compared to other people, I’ve got it easy.” So says a friend, whom I will call Bill, of a chronic health condition that causes him both pain and embarrassment.

Recently I encountered Bill at noontime when he and I happened both to be out walking. I noticed immediately that he was not looking his best: his face was gray and his expression somewhat strained.

In response to my inquiry, he acknowledged not feeling well that day. His intestinal problems were particularly bothersome. It hurt in a different way that he could not spend time in other people’s homes because of social embarrassment caused by this ailment.

Bill is a deeply spiritual man, as I know from previous contact. He has traveled widely and has lived and worked in other countries. Though he has learned much from this experience the doctors believe that his health problems may have resulted from it.

This encounter marked the first occasion on which Bill had talked openly with me about his health. Usually he cheerfully ignores the subject in conversation, preferring not to focus on matters he regards as private and too intimate for polite exchanges with friends.

Clearly he was feeling oppressed by illness on that particular day, enough so that he broke his usual reticence. For my part, I felt touched by his disclosures and took them as a sign of a growing friendship between us.

As he talked, I noticed how often he repeated the line quoted above: “Compared to other people, I’ve got it easy.”  It became a refrain in his conversation, one that reveals a certain attitude of soul.

It’s obvious to me that Bill does not, in fact, have it easy. His saying so, however, does him credit because it shows a spirit remarkably free of self-centeredness. Pain can easily narrow our outlook on the world and make us turn toward self as the only reality. “Why me?” we ask as if it’s all right for others to suffer but surely not for me to undergo the same fate.

The refrain about other people’s suffering being worse than his also reveals to me an attitude of compassion. He knows first hand about the problems of other people, having served as a counselor to many in the Boston area. He also has observed the conditions under which people in other parts of the world live and knows first-hand the afflictions many of them have to endure.

So he resists the ever-present temptation to self-pity by calling to mind the sufferings of others. He does not feel himself alone in coping with health problems that can perhaps be soothed but not cured. This perspective enables him to accept the physical pains that go along with the human condition.

On several occasions in church, I have noticed Bill absorbed in prayer. His hands folded and his face set in recollection, he kneels in silent attention to God. Of course I have no idea what he is praying about. But I wonder if he is not committing his ongoing health problems to the divine healer, asking for strength to accept his situation.

Though suffering is not desirable in itself, it can serve as a reminder that our life is more than it appears to be. Pain can rouse us out of our complacency and make it impossible to go on thinking of life as assured. I like to think that God hates pain even more than we do, but still God allows the mystery of evil to mark our lives.

When it comes to facing pain, one of my friends calls himself a “devout coward.” That inglorious description also applies to me. But, like Bill, I find it important not to see my own pain in isolation. In times marked by suffering, as in times of gratification, we belong to the human community.

I hope Bill finds relief from his pain and deliverance from those aspects of his condition that make it hard for him to visit the homes of his friends. However, such relief and deliverance cannot ever be assured. Whatever happens, I will continue to regard his perspective –  –  appreciating the suffering of others and seeing his own in that light –  – as a precious spiritual gift.

Richard Griffin

Mildred and Age Ads

Have you seen the television ad showing a little old lady getting a helping hand from a young man as she crosses a parking lot? Normally, I am ad-adversive, but this one has caught my attention several times and held me fascinated.

The lady has just been food shopping and is presumably walking toward her car. When she meets the nicely dressed young professional, who works in a Citizens Bank branch at the supermarket, she asks him to lend her his arm. This he gladly does, assuming her automobile to be parked nearby. When she delivers her punch line, he has been clearly one-upped: “Oh, I don’t have a car,” she says sweetly.

This ad, I have discovered, was filmed last January in California. This information comes from the woman who stars in it. Last week I interviewed her by telephone in Forest Hills, New York where she has lived for a long time.

Her name is Mildred Clinton and she describes herself as a “character actress.” Over the telephone she sounds just as charming as she does in the ad. The extent of her work as an actress surprised and impressed me. She played the mother of the Al Pacino character in the film Serpico and she has appeared in three movies directed by Spike Lee.

Early in our conversation I told her my age of 74, hoping this would make it easier for her to tell me hers. But “women can’t tell their age,” she informed me firmly but sympathetically, thereby revealing she’s in a certain range. Also her frequent use of “Jiminy Cricket” as her expletive of choice suggests that she was not born the day before yesterday.

As the ad shows, Mildred is short in physical stature. “I always had a good figure,” she says of herself, but she was only five feet three-and-a- half inches in height. By now, she has become shorter still, she volunteers. In some of her ads and films she appears taller, however.

What most impressed me about Mildred Clinton is her zest for life. “I fall in love with whatever I’m doing because it’s always a challenge,” she says of her work.

Mildred is determined to resist negative thinking. “I think each of us is our own most severe critic,” she told me, “and some days I feel positively negative.” However, the personal dynamism of the woman became almost tangible to me in our phone conversation.

How does she feel about growing older? “I am very lucky,” she replies, “to be busy with work that I love. My whole life was set in a way in which you do interesting things.”

Her interesting things began long ago. She appeared in a play that featured Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne when it tried out in Boston decades ago. “They were amazing people,” she says of the Lunts. Remembering a certain by-play between them during a rehearsal, she still marvels at their exchange.

Sitting in the theater, Alfred Lunt called out to his wife “You’ve got too much eye makeup.” Lynne ignored him for a while but finally gave in. “Oh Alfred,” she exclaimed as she left to brush away some of the make up. Mildred still feels the music of Lynne’s voice in those two words “Oh Alfred.”

Mildred worked with another famous theatrical couple – Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn. She thinks it was in a television drama rather than a performance on the stage. “You could have hugged them,” she says, as she recalls feeling tempted to ask Cronyn if she could.

Mildred Clinton appreciates late life in other ways as well. “Everything makes me feel rich,” she says. “When you’re young, 13 or 14, these things seem unreachable.”

The only downer in Mildred’s life is widowhood. She lost her husband to an early death, at age 42, and has lived by herself in Forest Hills since that time. She boasts of being a “distinguished alumna” of Brooklyn College where she majored in French.

Talking with this woman buoyed up my spirits. And that was without being able to accept right away her invitation to take me to lunch at Sardi’s,the famous Manhattan restaurant. At the end of our conversation, Mildred told me, “You’ve made my day!”  Those words exactly echoed my own sentiments.

For an appraisal of the ad, I turned to my favorite advertising guru, John Carroll. He appears on Boston’s public television show “Greater Boston,” for which he is executive producer. He thinks this ad “works” in delivering its message effectively.

Of Mildred Clinton’s performance, Carroll says, “She delivers a great punch line,” a sentiment that no doubt the veteran New York character actress and her fans will be happy to hear.

As to the view of aging presented here, Carroll gives this ad high marks. “It casts older people in a reasonably positive light,” he says. “I find it kind of endearing,” he adds.

So do I.

Richard Griffin

Nun Study Spirituality

The researcher felt nervous about the request he was about to make of the nuns. Though David Snowdon had become well acquainted with these School Sisters of Notre Dame and counted many of them as friends, what he was now asking of them went beyond anything he had asked them to do previously. He wanted them to donate their brains to his scientific study.

Speaking in 1990 to the first group in Mankato, Minnesota, Dr. Snowdon explained the nature of Alzheimer’s disease and described his research plan. If they agreed to take part, the sisters would have a series of physical and mental tests each year. They would also donate their brains after they died.

In his book, Aging With Grace, published last year, Dr. Snowden shares some of the reactions of the nuns faced with this request. At first there was dead silence but gradually the sisters began to speak.

One of them, Sister Clarissa, said “Well of course he can have my brain. What good is it going to do me when I’m six feet under?”

Another, 95-year-old Sister Borgia, posed a question: “He is asking for our help. How can we say no?”

Of this first group, 90 percent of the eligible sisters in the Minnesota convent agreed to the request. By the time Dr. Snowdon made his presentation to the sisters living in other states, an astounding 678 had pledged to make the same gift.

The obstacles expected by one member of Dr. Snowdon’s scientific team proved surprisingly weak. This medical researcher, David Wekstein, had agreed about nuns being more altruistic than the average person but he thought they might still not want to donate their brains. “The brain is not like other organs,” he said. “People think of it as who they are–it contains their identity. It’s loaded with meaning–personal, emotional, spiritual.”

Dr. Wekstein was right about a few of the nuns: one explained her rationale for not donating by saying “I must return to God the way I came.”

Several others would have faced trouble from their families who objected to brain donation.

But the great majority of the nuns felt motivated by spiritual reasons to give this precious part of their body for love of God and neighbor.

Sister Rita Schwalbe undoubtedly expressed the attitude of many when she explained: “As sisters, we made the hard choice not to have children. Through brain donation, we can help unravel the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease and give the gift of life in a new way to future generations.”

Yet these words should not make one think the commitment was prompt and easy for all of the sisters who made this choice. Dr. Snowdon was impressed with the “intense thought and prayer” that went into the decisions.

Dr. Snowdon quotes from a few sisters about how they made their choice to donate, words that emphasize their belief in life transformed after death.

“It is the spirit that is important after death, not the brain,” one said. Another shared her faith: “At the resurrection, I believe our bodies will be glorified and perfect. We will have no illness and no physical defects. Resurrection does not depend on how our bodies are in the grave.”

A key concept that helped motivate the sisters who agreed on making the gift of their brains was the spiritual idea of charism. They understand it as “a gift of the Spirit given to an individual for the good of all.”

Sister Gabriel Mary explained it further: “Each sister carries the charism with her as she devotes her life to others. It’s the spirit of our congregation.”

And Sister Rita stressed that this charism motivated them to work with the poor and powerless. “Who’s more powerless,” she asked, “than someone with Alzheimer’s disease?”

The farsightedness of these sisters and their generosity suggests a deep spiritual life. Indeed most people do feel wary of giving away their brains even after they have no more use for them. But these women live their whole lives with eyes directed toward the ultimate reality of God and the service of their fellow human beings. The brave decision to make a gift of their brains gives dramatic expression to their love of God and neighbor.                    

Richard Griffin

Andre’s Memoir

André at age 90, and nearing the end of his life, decided to write some recollections of his early years for his grandchildren and other family members. Each week for almost a year, he would send them installments, in longhand, describing his experiences during World War II. Last fall, these installments were collected and became a printed memoir of 60 pages entitled “Memories from the Time of War (1939-1945.).”

André lived in Ottawa where he his wife had emigrated long after leaving their native Poland. Writing in French, his second language, he intended the memoir for his descendants; however, his daughter Maria has allowed friends as well to read its pages and me to use the material in this column.

On September 1, 1939, André was a lawyer living with his wife and two-year-old daughter in Warsaw when German military forces unleashed their lethal attack on Poland.  In response to a national radio broadcast calling on men to join a military unit, André fled Warsaw a week later in a car owned by his father, a physician. The capital was to be declared an open city, so he and his wife thought it better for her and their daughter Maria to stay behind.

André, his sister, and his father arrived the next day in the city of Lublin where they experienced their first German air raids. From there he traveled east and south, looking for military sites where he could help defend his country. When that proved infeasible in Poland, they drove across the Romanian border all the way to Bucharest.

There he discovered Polish friends who were driving to Milan, from which city a train took him to France where he would spend the rest of the war. It was an agonizing time, filled with worry about his loved ones and marked by narrow escapes from the Gestapo.

On one such occasion, he had a nine o’clock appointment to meet his contact with the French resistance but felt so tired he needed to postpone the meeting. Later he discovered that the Gestapo had raided his contact’s apartment and took him off. “This was the first time that I felt myself saved by Providence,” he wrote.

Various jobs with the Polish Red Cross in exile enabled André to help many fellow Poles and to collaborate with the French resistance. In the war’s latter stages, he was responsible for listening to radio broadcasts from England and other countries for information helpful to the French freedom fighters. It was dangerous work but he managed to evade detection and capture.

Getting his wife and daughter out of Poland and into France in the spring of 1940 greatly helped his morale, though concern for their wellbeing continued to preoccupy his thoughts. Before leaving, his wife (whom he refers to throughout as “Babcia,” the Polish word his grandchildren always used for their grandma), had been arrested by the Gestapo but she managed to persuade her captors to let her go and even drive her back to her house!

When the liberation of Paris happens in August 1944, he describes the ecstatic scene of American and French troops at the Champs Élysées and finds himself unable to sleep much on that memorable night.

But André’s joy in the Allied victory is mixed with bitter disappointment over decisions made at the Yalta Conference. There Roosevelt and Churchill sold out to Stalin, he feels, and allowed the Soviet dictator to subjugate his beloved Poland. “All our hopes of seeing the victory of the Allies as a true liberation of Poland were evaporating,” he writes.

Despite the war and its mortal dangers, André continued to enjoy his many friendships, French cuisine, and movies. A professional interest in films was to mark his whole life and his work as a lawyer was largely oriented toward the people who made movies.

Now that André has departed this world, his children and grandchildren as adults have a document that will help keep his presence vivid. He lived courageously through times of great upheaval, and he saw his native land devastated by forces practiced in horrific brutality.

He had the gift of long life and so was given the advantage of being able to look back on the events of 1939-1945 with the perspective of almost six decades. Among other things, he lived to see a fellow Pole become pope and to enjoy friendship with him. And the eventual liberation of his native country from the stranglehold of Communism cheered his heart.

Longevity does have its advantages, especially if you learn to draw on the events of your past for perspective on the world and your own life. Old age is not just for recollecting one’s past life but it is certainly for that also. Those of us who, in whatever form, put together a record of at least some of our days almost invariably benefit ourselves and usually please other people too.

Richard Griffin

An Archbishop’s Prayer

“There comes a level of prayer where it is no longer a question of ‘are you seeing something?’ but ‘are you aware of being seen?’ – if you like, sitting in the light and of just being and becoming who you really are.”

This talk about prayer comes from Rowan Williams who has just been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important position in the Anglican Church. He made these remarks in an interview first appearing in an Australian church publication, and later reprinted in The Tablet, a Catholic weekly from London.

To hear an archbishop talk about prayer is, strangely enough, unusual. Most prelates of that rank, it seems, focus in their public statements more on issues of public policy than on the spiritual life. But this Welshman, who will soon bear responsibility for the Church of England as its chief bishop, gives top priority to his own relationship to God and his search for the spirit in all that he does.

Rowan Williams, in addition to his spiritual orientation, is a practical man with domestic responsibilities. As a married man with young children, he is concerned each morning about getting them ready for school and giving them some personal time. But he still manages to fit in about a half an hour of prayer each morning using a formula popular among Eastern Orthodox Christians.

This is the so-called Jesus Prayer that goes: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” The archbishop uses a prayer rope favored by Eastern monks and featuring 100 knots at each one of which a person says this prayer.

Rowan Williams describes the effect of this prayer as follows: “By repeating the Jesus Prayer the mind is stilled and the heartbeat and the breath slow down, and you become more present to the place you are in. It’s really an anchorage in time.” So he experiences the effect of that ritual on both his soul and also his body.

This kind of prayer is obviously active as one recites the same formula over and over. However, it also has the power to transport a person into a new awareness of the divine presence. Much like the rosary, it fixes the mind on holy persons and events while allowing a freedom to just be present.

Archbishop Williams loves the writings of St. John of the Cross and finds much inspiration in them. Following this Spanish mystic, he takes pains to distinguish between prayer and feelings, in words that many people who want to pray may find helpful:

“You may be feeling terrible and God may be active; you maybe feeling nothing in particular, but God may be very active; you maybe feeling wonderful, and that may have nothing at all to do with God’s doing.”

The archbishop also favors a simple rule for prayer that he quotes from a former abbot of the English monastery, Downside: “Pray as you can and don’t try to pray as you can’t.” Keeping to this advice could save some people a lot of frustration. It’s almost like saying: all you have to do is follow your own instincts.

This man of prayer wants to avoid complication. Instead he favors simplification of the heart whereby “we simply become what we are and just sit there being a creature in the hand of God.” Just dwelling on God having us in his hand could be enough to sustain a beautifully simple prayer that might carry us through a entire period set aside for spiritual quiet.

It’s not about me, it’s about God: this is a sentiment about prayer that the archbishop might approve. If you feel lost when praying, that’s something probably shared by many other people. As the archbishop says, “Being out of your depth seems to be very basic to what’s going on in the sense that in prayer you cannot contain what is given.”

It sounds easy enough, simplicity in prayer, but it takes a kind of spiritual maturity to put this approach into practice. “Don’t just do something, stand there,” was ironic advice popular in the 1960’s. In the light of  Archbishop Williams’ habits of prayer, standing there (or sitting or kneeling) becomes a way of being in contact with God and growing in the life of the spirit.

Richard Griffin