Phileas J. Fogg, our aging cat, shows remarkable good sense these days. I have come to admire his grace in accepting the daily routine we have long imposed on him. Each morning he refrains from lobbying me for release from the cellar where he has spent the previous night. Respecting his elder, he allows me to eat my breakfast in peace without being bothered by any vulgar banging on the door.
Author Archives: Richard B. Griffin
Fernand
The photo album lies open before me as I reflect on our chance meeting last July in the south of France. Fernand Henri Daubeze by name, he sits on a plastic chair on the terrace outside the Résidence Club of the 3rd Age where he lives in retirement. This residence is located in the city of Vichy, an old city famous for its history and its waters.
Fernand Daubeze embodies some of that history because he played a small but significant part in it. Now aged 92, he sits with dignity and the hint of a smile looking out toward me as I snap the picture which will serve as a memento of my short visit with him.
Call to Renewal
“The three richest people in the world own assets that exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world’s poorest 48 countries,” according to the United Nations Development Report.
“Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths have no access to basic sanitation,” says the same source.
Even within the United States, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen, so much so that many Americans see it as a serious threat to our national well-being.
A Meditation While Listening to Music of a Composer Recently Dead
The cello, an instrument speaking sensuously, revealing what cannot otherwise be expressed; producing sound which reaches beyond itself and myself. Each concerto note, so fleeting, so subtle, carries reality provoking in me awe and wonder.
Is anything closer to the soul than music, more like it? So insubstantial, yet powerful.
But how to grasp each individual sound as it appears and then almost instantaneously disappears? My frustration: that I cannot reach all of it.
Man of God, Man for the People
Seeing up close a devoted pastor at work, as I did two weeks ago, can up-lift the soul. On a visit to his church in Cocoa Beach, Florida, I had the chance to observe how a truly dedicated priest serves his God and his people. I came away from the experience buoyed up in spirit and encouraged that such a person is at work in the church.
Eamon Tobin grew up on a farm in rural Ireland. As a boy he did all of the chores which fall to a farmer’s sons – – milking the cows, keeping track of the sheep, and bringing in the hay, among other tasks. Going off to the seminary at a young age, he remedied the many gaps in the education provided him in his native village’s one-room schoolhouse.
Bookends
It’s fascinating how people and events from the past can sometimes reappear in one’s life and thus help bring unity to experience. That’s what happened to me last week as I encountered again a famous theologian who had a significant influence on me thirty-six years ago.
In between times, much has changed; thus my encounters with him serve as a set of emotional bookends helping me make better sense of my life.
Call to Reform
“The three richest people in the world own assets that exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world’s poorest 48 countries,” according to the United Nations Development Report.
“Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths have no access to basic sanitation,” says the same source.
Even within the United States, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen, so much so that many Americans see it as a serious threat to our national wellbeing.