“Kids, I was conceived a slave but born free.” That’s what John Israel Stamps used to tell his children.
A lifelong Arkansas sharecropper and Baptist minister, he entered this world on May 1, 1865 and left it at the age of 74. I know these facts about him because his son and my friend, Emerson Stamps, himself now 85 years of age, decided last November to write his father a letter.
In my youth, I never used the word “spirituality.” It would have seemed a poor substitute for “religion,” the familiar word that gave meaning to my life.
I probably would not have understood anyone saying “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.” But nowadays more and more people have become fond of speaking this way. The expression has become something of a mantra.
When you have an appointment with a doctor, do you bring an advocate with you?
Too many people would have to say “no” to this question.
For lack of an advocate many of us will leave the visit without remembering clearly what the doctor told us. Especially in situations in which we feel anxious about what may be wrong with us, it can be hard to concentrate on the medical response.
James Carroll’s new book, Practicing Catholic, is a brilliant and far-reaching study that holds great importance for Catholics, and, I believe, for others concerned about religion and its role (or lack of same) in their lives.
This book’s overarching theme is set forth by the author in his introduction. He describes it as “the positive transformation of religious thought that has defined much of Christianity, including Catholicism, during my life.”
Jane Marie Thibault likes to tell this real-life story. Recently, she shared it with a group of professionals who serve older people or do research on aging. She has allowed me to repeat the story.
She told us about a woman who was a patient, years ago, at Detroit’s Mercy Hospital, suffering from a painful life-threatening cancer. During her stay there, she showed herself “really nasty,” especially to the nurses who served her. As a result, no one on the hospital staff wanted to come near her unless they had to.
At a dinner for age-beat journalists in Las Vegas, I found myself sitting next to a gentleman from Toronto. He was there because he is the CEO at a media company engaged in family caregiving.
Making conversation with this new acquaintance, I started to tell him about meeting a notable philosopher from his country. This philosopher is an emeritus professor who happens to be teaching a course at Harvard during the current semester and I hope to interview him, while he is here.
Cameras looking at you, wherever you go.
That may be all right for Londoners (they have some 500,000 surveillance cameras) but not for me and my fellow residents in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This, at least, is what our City Council has unanimously decided, much to my relief.
The council did so after listening to repeated testimony, often eloquent, from ordinary citizens concerned about civil rights and privacy.