“Fifty-six nursing homes have closed in the last two years, one every other week. The situation is finally getting people’s attention.”

These are the words of Scott Plumb, Senior Vice President of the Massachusetts Extended Care Federation, who attributes the problem to unrealistically low Medicaid rates paid by the state.

Plumb recently authored a report entitled “Where will your mother go?” detailing what is happening to Massachusetts’ nursing home industry. His agency sees another fifty homes closing before New Year’s Day of 2003.

“That may be true but can’t we go back and ask people what they want?”  This is what Al Norman, Director of Massachusetts Home Care, says of the nursing home crisis.

Norman quarrels with the assumptions behind the title “Where will my mother go?” In his view, mother should not have to go anywhere, if she wants to stay at home, as most older people do, and funds are available to make that possible. He also remains skeptical about the poor-mouth claims of the nursing homes industry.

The clash between the views of these two professionals signals issues of prime importance for elder residents of Massachusetts. What will this state’s leaders do about nursing homes? Will these decision makers shift long-term care emphasis toward home care services and fund enough such services to keep elders out of institutions?

The fate of proposed legislation called “Equal Choice” will give a strong indication about which direction the Commonwealth will take. This Equal Choice bill has been introduced by Senator Brian Joyce and Representative Mike Festa, both of whom see it as responding to what elders themselves want.

In a press release, Festa and Joyce regret that “the level of compassionate choices provided to our seniors is sorely lacking.” They cite the startling disparity in the amounts the state pays for home care compared to institutional care. “Medicaid pays $130 a day for nursing home care, while home and community programs are based on a payment of $7.38 a day.”

In a telephone interview, Senator Joyce told me how his concern started with his mother who has Parkinson’s disease and now lives in a nursing home. “If not for these angels of mercy, the home care workers, my mother would have ended up in a nursing home sooner than she did.”

Not surprisingly, given this experience with his mother, the senator says he does not want to pit nursing homes against home care, but only to give people a choice. In this spirit he makes the following pledge to older people: “We will spend as much to keep you at home as we are willing to spend to keep you in a nursing home.”

Al Norman takes Oregon as a model of enlightened priority shifting. That state now spends more on home care for elders than it does for nursing homes. He also thinks that Massachusetts must respond to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the 1999 Olmstead case.

That decision interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act as requiring states to give people who are eligible for nursing homes the option of remaining in the community. That, of course, requires public home care funds for those with incomes too low to afford to pay privately.

But Scott Plumb insists that the financial plight of nursing homes is close to desperate. The situation has been building for years: in 1999 alone, these facilities in Massachusetts lost 72.2 million dollars and the Commonwealth ranked third state from the bottom in average nursing home profit margins. Currently, one in four nursing homes is in bankruptcy, though most of them remain open.

Of every ten residents, eight are supported by public funds. Very few of these funds are provided by Medicare; almost all come from Medicaid, a program shared by the federal and state governments. Because Medicaid payments made by the state remain so inadequate, the availability of qualified staff members and the likelihood of their staying on the job have been severely compromised.

My own view includes sympathy for both positions. At this time, the state simply cannot allow nursing homes to keep closing until there are none left. After all, there will always be some people for whom home care is not a realistic option. To be responsible, our society must support some institutional care for these people, care that respects their dignity and individual needs.

To determine what the financial needs of the industry actually are, perhaps the state should appoint a commission to look at nursing homes as objectively as possible.

I also support the shifting of priorities toward home care. The current disparity of funding makes very little sense. Home care should come first and become the norm; institutional care is certainly needed but remains secondary. And our society should demand that both kinds of long-term care be a whole lot better than they are now.

Richard Griffin

Recent revelations by Bob Kerrey about his actions as an army officer during the Vietnam War have caught my attention, to put it mildly. That an attack force, under the command of the future United States Senator from Nebraska, caused the death of as many as twenty unarmed villagers, most of them women and children, shocks me as it has the public at large.

This killing has extra power to shock for at least three reasons. First, the military action itself gained for Kerrey a significant honor, the Bronze Star. Secondly, Kerrey went on to hold high political office, governor of his state as well as senator. Thirdly, he kept this action secret for more than thirty years.

Despite the shock of the secret now revealed, this horrible event seems to me of a piece with much else that happened in that war. It confirms what I felt during that time- – the whole enterprise was a moral, as well as a military, quagmire. From the beginning, American involvement was shaped by basic misconceptions, deliberate misleading of the public, and military actions that violated the rules of war and basic human morality.

A fascinating new book written by a friend, Richard Sobel, provides a case study of American involvement in Vietnam and weighs the influence of what American citizens think on the actions of our government in foreign affairs.

Its title, “The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam,” indicates that the author deals with much more than a single American intervention, but I focused on the section dealing with the Vietnam War because of the part that opposition to the war has played in my life.

In reading about the effect of public opinion on the Vietnam War, I initially feared that research might suggest that the demonstrations in which I took part in the late 1960s and the early 1970s counted for very little.

But Sobel, who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, establishes clearly that public opinion did exercise a significant influence. “In large part,” he writes, “ public opposition essentially forced the United States to end a decade of war and withdraw from Vietnam.” He also says that both President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger privately acknowledged its impact on their actions.

I wondered also if research might support a charge frequently made by opponents of protest against the war. They often said that the demonstrations were helping the enemy, boosting North Vietnamese hopes of the United States backing out.

In discussion with me, Sobel characterizes this question as “complicated.” He reports scholars who took part in a conference with former North Vietnamese officials feeling that they would have kept fighting for their independence no matter what the United State government or the antiwar movement did.

The author’s conclusions are strengthened by the thoroughness of his approach. In addition to studying formerly secret documents and reading the memoirs of leading political players, he interviewed Dean Rusk, Clark Clifford, Robert McNamara, and Melvin Laird. He uncovers several facts about the motivation of these leaders that still come as a surprise.

In particular Richard Sobel reveals two facts I did not know previously:  1) President Nixon’s people have admitted that his early peace moves were ploys to placate the public; 2) Nixon was going to give a speech saying “there was no way to win the war”  but dropped it after Lyndon Johnson’s announcement that he would not run again.

Those of us opposing the war often guessed the motivation of the politicians but have had to wait many years before having our surmises confirmed. Even now, it comes as a surprise to hear people formerly in leadership positions admitting their deceptions.

The last time I wrote about the Vietnam War, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its end, some readers wrote me angry letters condemning my anti-war activities. I had not planned to discuss this part of my life this soon again, but the revelations by Bob Kerrey and the chapters on the Vietnam War in the book written by my friend Richard Sobel have stirred the waters of memory once more.

It comes as a consolation for me to realize that the instinct of my fellow citizens in ultimately recognizing the Vietnam War as a terrible mistake, militarily and morally, was basically sound. Of course, that does not negate the heroic bravery of many people who fought in Vietnam. They saw service there as a duty and, often at great cost to themselves, followed through for their country. For that, they have my respect and admiration.

But, still, it was a tragically mistaken enterprise, as a great many Americans came to see. And, without the support of public opinion, the war had to be ended. As Sobel says, “The public’s ultimate refusal to support an extension to the U.S. military action in Vietnam was a powerful reminder to policymakers and the military that public support was in the end decisive in determining the duration of military interventionist foreign policy.”

Richard Griffin

“When I was little, a day seemed to last forever, especially a school day. Now a day is nothing, just a blink of an eye. You know intellectually that a month is still a month, a week is a week, a day is a day, but it goes so much faster the older we get.

“Sometimes I play a little game with myself. I know it’s odd, but I do it just the same. I try to make time pass like it did when I was a child. First, I shut off the television and listen to the ticking of the clock. That slows everything down. Then I tell my worries to back off so I can concentrate. It works like a charm. The morning lasts a long, long time.”

These are the words of Anna Ornish at age 81, a woman interviewed by my Seattle-based colleague Wendy Lustbader and retold in her newest book, “What’s Worth Knowing.”

By way of commentary on their conversation, Wendy says: “Anna Ornish had never been exposed to Eastern meditation techniques, but when I told her that some of what she was doing had been taught in traditions a few thousand years old, she said, ‘Good. That means I’m not so peculiar.’ ”

Convincing as Anna’s experience of time is, not every older person feels it this way. For some, time drags slowly indeed. Those, especially, who live in situations not to their liking –  – in nursing homes, perhaps, or in their own home cut off from everyone else –  – find that the hours have become glaciers, slow and cold.

But in writing about older people, in speaking about them, you have to generalize. Everyone is unique, personal experience is never repeated exactly, so we must settle for approximations. It so happens that what Anna lives through comes close to what I experience.

For me, time is moving awfully fast. My daughter’s schooling is nearing completion when it seems just to have begun. Those double deadlines for newspapers each week force the days to speed up. Even the dour days of last March did not much slow down my weeks.

What makes Anna interesting is her readiness to experiment. She plays with time, manipulates it so as to adjust its speed to her own liking and for her own purposes. Drawing on the wisdom of long living, she has learned how to arrest time and make it slow down in its passage.

The amazing thing is that she wants it to go more slowly. Few of us are capable of such a bold more; it would terrify us. But she has a purpose for time, says she wants to concentrate. What she means by that remains unclear but it sounds as if she wants to enter into some higher sphere of consciousness. You could call it prayer or contemplation or peace of soul.

Whatever you call it, Anna finds a value in it that counteracts the escape of time, time passing without meaning. It’s a lot better than television. And it certainly beats self-pity and regret. Anna’s reconstituted time is pregnant with new life. It makes her old age, if not sweet, at least resonant with welcome sounds.

Anna thinks of herself as peculiar, though when she discovers herself to have something in common with millennia of spiritual traditions, she feels less so. Being back in the time warp of childhood is not so peculiar if you know what to do with your time. In childhood, many of us suffered the long summers because, once we got beyond the neighborhood games, there was not much else to do.

Anna, standing still in her new time, presumably acts interiorly, doing the work of advanced maturity. She is coming to grips with the givenness of her life, the parts of it that she has never controlled but received from others. She is learning how to appreciate each day for the reality that is packed into it. She makes it her business to unpack its meaning, to investigate all that it brings.

Anna’s way cannot be everyone’s. Listening to the tick of the clock, for instance, would drive me berserk. But for her, it serves as perhaps a hypnotic device to send her into a new sphere of time. It carries her beyond the intellectual framework that tells her about a day being still a day. She has entered a spiritual place where the daily realities have been transformed.

I would like to be as adventurous as Anna. Her spirit draws my admiration. Without knowing much of anything about the traditional techniques of spirituality, she has discovered a precious secret of how to age well. I hope that her experiments with truth, as Gandhi would have called them, continue to bring her time’s surprising gifts.

Richard Griffin

As an elder citizen of Massachusetts, I am feeling sandbagged. As a columnist, I am feeling seduced.

Just three weeks ago, I wrote about the commonwealth’s new Prescription Advantage program, welcoming the benefits it would bring to this state’s older residents. I passed on to readers information sent out by the Executive Office of Elder Affairs in praise of its affordability, among other features. It was billed as an instrument that would bring to every elder “peace of mind.”

I also took at face value Secretary Lillian Glickman’s boast about the influence that Prescription Advantage would have across the country and her prediction that “the eyes of the nation will be upon us.”

But now, thanks to some sharp reporting by David Ortiz who writes for the Boston and Cambridge TABs and the Cambridge Chronicle, we discover that the state government has misled us. The shiny promise of the new drug program has been compromised and may turn out to be just another spoiled package.

We have now learned  that the state House of Representatives wants to cut 22 percent of the program’s budget. That cut will eliminate premium protection for elders with low incomes, raise co-payments, and double deductible limits each year.

Suddenly, the House proposes making worse some features of the program that were already dubious. No wonder that some critics have already renamed the program Prescription Disadvantage.

When I talked three weeks ago to John O'Neill, Executive Director of Somerville Cambridge Elder Services and current president of Massachusetts Home Care, I discovered that he already felt mixed about the new Prescription Advantage program, even before these funding cuts came over the horizon.

“It’s good that it’s a public plan,” he said then, and he thought it would prove helpful for low-income people. But, even then, it had too many deductibles and co-payments for his taste.

He recognized that determining the amount to be paid in premiums was a problem for the program’s planners. “The premiums are a shot in the dark,” he added, “because no one knows how much the whole program will cost.”  

“They are afraid of adverse selection,” he said of the planners, because so many people who are big users of prescription drugs may sign up. And the plan depends on state funding from year to year.

These were the incisive but balanced views of an informed critic commenting on a plan adopted last July and about to be the subject of an intensive media campaign this month.

Now, given the announced cuts, many elders must wonder about what the new program really offers them, since it comes loaded down with so many co-payments and deductibles, just like run-of-the-mill health care programs.

Fortunately, some elder citizens have already taken action in the face of the proposed cuts. Busloads of them went to the State House last week to lobby members of the legislature and persuade them to restore the original features of the plan. These advocates, many of them experienced and vocal campaigners on elder issues, hope to turn their representatives around.

I talked to my own representative, Jarrett Barrios, who said of the proposed cuts, “This is obviously something I am concerned about.” I await further word from him when he checks with Ways and Means about the prospects of restoring the funding.

Back to John O’Neill, I asked how he now feels about the new plight of Pharmacy Advantage.  The 22 percent cut, to his mind, jeopardizes the whole program “before the thing even gets off the ground.” In large part, that happens because the cuts “make it easier for many older people to say no.”

As to the effect of the cuts on overall costs of the program, the state has put itself in a strange position. “Instead of helping,” O’Neill observes, “it may perversely make it worse.” That’s because fewer, perhaps many fewer, will now register for a program that may cost them so much more.

A leader among citizen advocates, Phil Mamber of Lynn, agrees. Current president of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, Mamber last week led some 200 elders at the State House protesting the cuts and pushing for amendments that would restore the program.

Asked about the 22 percent cut, Mamber says: “I think it was absolutely horrible. It took us by surprise. Now people don’t know what to register for.  It’s a terrible way to do business. Everyone is confused.”

Eileen Ginnetty, director of the Council on Aging in Cambridge, agrees. “It is discouraging,” she says of the situation. “If you are going to pay $4,000 a year, that’s what you pay for Medex Gold.” That removes any incentive for moderate-income elders to sign up for the new program, she believes.

As this column goes to press, no action has been taken to restore the money needed for  Prescription Advantage.

It will be fascinating to see how the state government gets out of this mess. More important, the health care needs of many elders hang on the outcome.

Richard Griffin

Until middle age, I had never known anyone who was not either a Christian or a Jew. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and people espousing the other religious traditions of the world simply did not come across my suburban paths during childhood and adolescence. And obviously all of my colleagues in the Jesuit order where I lived in early adulthood shared my own Christian faith.

In 1972, however, I took part in what was billed as “Word Out of Silence: Spiritual Formation East and West,” a symposium held at Mount Saviour Monastery in Elmira, New York. There the Benedictine monks hosted religious leaders from a dozen different traditions in a week of prayer and other spiritual exercises. It meant my first exposure to turbaned swamis and Zen masters with shaved heads, an experience that helped to change my world view.

I will always remember the strain in my leg muscles as I assumed the lotus position for meditation each morning at 4:30 under the direction of a Japanese roshi. Though I was used to my own strict religious discipline, I worried about being able to last out the week under that austere regimen.  

At that time, only in the middle of my life journey, old age did not interest me as a subject for reflection. I was still too young for thoughts of later life to impinge upon my consciousness. Though I did often contemplate the thought of my own death, that event seemed far off in the future.

Thirty years later, however, I have become intent on finding whatever light on old age is offered by the various religious traditions of the world. Surely their wisdom, preserved for thousands of years, must have something important to say about what it means to grow old. And they must speak to the end of life on earth and its meaning for the future.

Even the changes brought on by modern life, I have learned, do not rob the wisdom traditions of relevance to our situation. In fact, as we struggle to find out for ourselves what later life means, many elders feel starved for spiritual nourishment. If traditions other than those with which we grew up can feed that hunger, then we may want to hear more.

This experience helps explain why I recently welcomed receiving for review a package of materials from the Park Ridge Center, based in Chicago. Entitled “The Challenges of Aging,” this package is intended for adult education in church settings. Though its focus is primarily Christian, the material also includes a rich handbook summarizing the outlook of other religious traditions about aging. Further information about the Park Ridge Center’s educational program is available at (312) 266-2222.

Though the five traditions discussed in the handbook – – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism – – differ among themselves in many ways, they all share some central values about aging. These values go directly against two dramatically different views of aging that have become dominant in modern American society. Both of these secular views are deeply flawed and are often the object of criticism by gerontologists and people who hold dear the religious insights offered by their tradition.

Those two views portray old age as 1) simply a time of decline when we start to lose it as we proceed downward on the path toward death,  or  2) a stage of life in which enterprising people can practice “successful aging” achieving good health, engaging in ceaseless activity, and discovering new creativity.

By contrast, the great religious traditions say first of all: “Later life is a time of spiritual flourishing.” These are the words of Dina Varano, who writes the fine summary article in the handbook that comes with the adult education package referred to above.

Spiritual flourishing is consistent with physical suffering and decline. In fact, all the traditions find value in suffering, not as an end in itself but as an opportunity for enrichment of soul. Personal enlightenment can transform the experience of bodily decline into personal greatness.

Each spiritual tradition calls for a “radical transformation of consciousness in later life.” Varano quotes the philosopher Harry Moody: “The spiritual traditions have never accepted the idea that human fulfillment is the product of social roles or relentless activity in the world.” Rather, the great religions see human fulfillment as something spiritual that comes as a gift of God.

Incidentally, the ancient Jewish biblical commentaries offer a charming explanation of how age began. The Midrash tells it this way: “Abraham introduced old age to the world. He came before the Lord with a plea. ‘Master of the universe, a man and his son walk together and no one knows unto whom to give honor. I beg of you, make a distinction between us.’”

Thus, according to this tradition, did age become seen as a blessing. The other religious traditions, too, offer profound reasons for appreciating what it means to grow older.

Richard Griffin

I do not hate politicians. Given the prevailing American views of office holders and seekers, this sentiment may strike you as naïve, even outrageous. However I continue to respect them in general and even to admire some.  Ideally, at least, I consider the knowledge that they have acquired as important to the rest of us and I welcome opportunities to hear from them.

That is why a recent university forum entitled “Reflections on Public Service” attracted my attention. Intended largely as a gathering where a small group of highly seasoned politicians could share some wisdom with students considering public service as a career, it turned out to be both instructive and entertaining as well.

This forum featured Senator Edward Kennedy; former Senator Warren Rudman from New Hampshire; Philip Sharp, who served for twenty years as a United States congressman from Indiana; and Doris Kearns Goodwin, the historian who has written widely about American presidents.

The atmosphere in the crowded amphitheater of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government was animated and yet relaxed. This tone was largely set by the old pros who spoke with warmth and humor of their work in Washington. To me, the occasion seemed that rare opportunity whereby older people get the chance to share their wisdom with those younger.

Ted Kennedy, in particular, showed himself at his most genial and more at ease than I had ever seen him previously. He seemed to take special pleasure in recounting anecdotes of his time in the senate and in sharing his political ideals. Asked by moderator Gwen Ifill how to connect public service with politics, he responded by invoking the famous line from his brother’s inauguration speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

He then affirmed that “young people made the difference for people of my generation” and cited their leadership in the civil rights struggle, the opposition to the Vietnam War, and the environmental movement. For him, volunteerism is still alive and well. The best part of it is “all you have to do is care; you don’t have to be a senator.”

For his part, Warren Rudman spoke from the heart about the value that he has found in his chosen path. “There is no psychic satisfaction like public service,” he proclaimed. “I decided that a long time ago.” Since leaving the senate, he has found pro bono service to the community “terrifically satisfying.”

Phillip Sharp praised participation even when it does not produce success. “It is also important to run to lose,” he said of becoming a candidate for office in situations where there is no realistic chance of getting elected. It still helps the community to raise issues and refine them.

Doris Kearns Goodwin spoke with typical charm about some of her experiences with Lyndon Johnson. He felt depressed in his last months of life by his failures as president. “The only hope he had before he died was that he would be remembered for civil rights,” Goodwin recalled.

From her current study for a book on Abraham Lincoln, she told how depressed he was in his early thirties, so much so that his friends took knives away from him. But after he freed the slaves, he wrote: “my fondest hopes are realized.”

Asked about unaddressed issues, the two senators focused on racism. Ted Kennedy believes that we have made fundamental progress but that the issue remains before us still. “We have to free ourselves from it,” he stated. He also spoke of our national need for “a sense of common purpose.”

And Warren Rudman made this bold prediction: “If we cannot give equality to all Americans in the next twenty years, then you will see the decline of America.”

Phillip Sharp is convinced of the need for us “to undo the barriers that prevent people from rising to the level of their talent.” Doris Kearns Goodwin emphasized our need for “leaders who can follow public opinion but shape and mold it at the same time.”

A student asked whether political leaders need to have a high level of schooling. Ted Kennedy stated that “innate qualities are more important.” Doris Goodwin cited Lincoln who had only one year of formal schooling but brought temperament and character to the office of president at a time of great crisis.

Another questioner raised the subject of global warming. Kennedy called it an “enormously serious” issue and accused the Bush administration of being “in the tank” with industries.

I came away from the forum encouraged by this example of give and take among generations. This was a sharing of experience and viewpoints that characterizes a healthy democratic community. Many young people do want to hear from those with many years of public service; some of those who have been in the public eye for a long time do welcome hearing the views of young people.

Richard Griffin

What pleasure is sweeter in later life than seeing a friend from boyhood receive a public honor? In addition to rejoicing with him, you taste the exquisite satisfaction of being ahead of anyone else in having recognized your friend’s merits long before they did.

That was my experience last week as Robert Bullock, who has been my friend since age fourteen, received recognition from the Brookline-based national organization Facing History and Ourselves. Father Bullock is pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Sharon where he is much respected and loved by parishioners and townspeople.

Jokingly, I tell Bob that he became well prepared for the challenges of an adventurous life when we were in high school together. We were both members of the St. Sebastian’s baseball team during those years. Anyone who was brave enough to play third base, as he did, when I was pitching, certainly demonstrated bravery under fire.

In those days I did not realize that Bob had already been touched by history seven years previously. In 1936, Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, visited Bob’s home parish in Newton. There he placed his hand on the boy’s head in blessing. Little did anyone know then that this pope would become the continuing subject of controversy even now, centered on his actions and failures to act during World War II.

Incidentally, I feel some small association with this same drama. As a reporter for the Boston Post, my father was sent to cover the papal consistory of 1939 at which Cardinal Pacelli was elected pope. He accompanied Cardinal O’Connell, the archbishop of Boston, on shipboard as the latter sailed to Rome to vote. No one at that time doubted that Pacelli was the right person as the world and the church entered a time of severe crisis.

In retrospect, there seems to have been something prophetic in Bob’s contact with Cardinal Pacelli, however fleeting. It can now be seen to presage his lifelong interest in the relationship of the Catholic Church with the Jewish community, an interest that would lead to his involvement in Facing History.

Before becoming pastor in Sharon, Father Bullock had been Catholic chaplain at Brandeis University. That was a position highly favorable for developing an intimate knowledge of Jewish traditions in all their beauty and variety. He became a student of the Jewish community and moved ahead of his own church in his appreciation of that faith so closely linked with his own.

Through his study and personal associations over the years, my friend Bob has built on the Brandeis experience and has become widely recognized for his pioneer work in helping bring the Jewish and Catholic communities closer together.

He has followed with intense concern the issues raised by the Holocaust. His commitment to the educational mission of Facing History has been notable: the struggle to eliminate racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism. With this organization, he believes that “history is a moral enterprise” and must be studied for its meaning.

Father Bullock has long anticipated the Catholic Church’s official moves toward revision of its own theology vis-à-vis the Jewish community. He took the lead in applying the teachings of the Second Vatican Council that corrected erroneous ideas about responsibility for the death of Jesus. And he saw how Catholics need to change deeply ingrained attitudes about brothers and sisters whose faith antedates Christianity.

Another important set of experiences in Father Bullock ministry comes from his role as director of campus ministry for the Archdiocese of Boston. He held this position at time of great tension in American society, nowhere more so than in colleges and universities.

The Church, too, was feeling this same pressure as demands for change became insistent. My friend helped steer many of us campus ministers through this time of radicalism in church, academia, and society at large.

His work with Facing History has been deeply relevant to the ministry that Bob Bullock has practiced for decades. Two weeks ago, Facing History not only gave my friend words of praise before an audience of twelve hundred people, but also endowed a educational fellowship in his name. The organization had good reason to do so: Father Bullock has been contributing his talents to it for much of its twenty-five year history.  The executive director of the agency, Margot Stern Strom, expressed special appreciation for giving to its members the benefits of his theological reflection and wise counsel.

At the same time that Father Bullock was honored, the philanthropist Richard Smith, for whom his Jewish tradition is vitally important, was also recognized for long service to Facing History. Currently chairman of the board of trustees, Smith has distinguished himself for his generosity to the organization and his good ideas for extending its services more widely.

As a guest at the award ceremony, I felt privileged to be taking part in an event that celebrated the spirit of both Passover and Easter in the exchange of mutual respect and love.

Richard Griffin