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Beating It Down

The first time I whipped myself it seemed bizarre. But over the months doing so became routine, a ritual performed three times a week by all the novice candidates for admission to the religious order we had chosen.

Before going to bed, we would assemble in our dormitory, take off our shirts and, when the bell rang, beat ourselves with a small whip for a minute or two. No one drew blood but it did hurt as it was supposed to. It was our way of disciplining the body so that it would become more obedient to the soul.

Looking back on this practice from the vantage point of many years, I still feel amazement about its easy acceptance. Everyone did it, no one questioned its value, some zealots presumably looked forward to the nights when this flagellation was scheduled

On the two other days of the week, we wore small chains around the upper part of one leg for three hours in the early morning until after breakfast. The flage and the chain, as they were familiarly called, were the most bodily forms of the asceticism that was standard in the life of novices.

These practices, however, were only two among many intended to purify the soul. We also learned to acknowledge our faults while kneeling before our brothers assembled for dinner. Occasionally, our fellow novices would gather under the novice master’s guidance to take turns pointing out our faults.

If all of this now sounds cultish, extreme, and even inhuman, it must be understood as part of a long monastic tradition. This way of life was seen a way of approaching perfection, an asceticism that had been hallowed by centuries of holy people both in the Christian tradition and in others as well.

And this asceticism, or spiritual discipline, aimed at the growth of love both of God and of neighbor. At its best, this kind of rigorous putting down of self was adopted, not for its own sake, but rather to make us better human beings. If the body was to be beaten down, it was for the soul to rise.

In time I came to reject this approach to the spiritual life. To its credit, so did the religious order to which I belonged. Starting in the 1960s, most people came to see that the concepts of being human that lay underneath this kind of asceticism were deeply flawed. We discovered that soul and body were not stand- alone parts of ourselves but rather one being, an enfleshed spirit or spirited flesh.

However, despite this rejection of the old asceticism, discipline in my view remains an integral part of any true spirituality. To me this holds true in the face of what one scholar calls “a widely held cultural bias against, even contempt for, the ascetic.” Consumerist American culture, in particular, exalts self-indulgence and the gratification of the senses.

Still, anyone wishing to grow in spiritual life must resist this bias and contempt. Inevitably, there are times when we must go against ourselves if we are serious about spirit. To her credit Elizabeth Lesser, in her focal book “The New American Spirituality,” has a great deal to say about self-discipline, despite the word’s absence from the index. Often in its pages she criticizes supposed spiritual leaders who offer the easy way without requiring any managing of the self.

Lesser writes: “Inviting spirituality into your life is like packing for a long journey.” When you pick and choose the things to put in your suitcase, you discover that you must discipline yourself and not take too much. And yet you have to choose the right objects; otherwise you arrive at your destination and find that you are bereft.

The best spiritual discipline, I believe, is the patient, courageous, and gracious acceptance of the suffering built into our lives, afflictions that we can do nothing about. This kind of asceticism is best seen perhaps in those older people whose lives are marked by serious loss – of people dear to them, of abilities that came easily to them when younger, of important roles in the world of work. Accepting difficult changes like these requires qualities of soul that put us to the ultimate test.

Richard Griffin

The Internet

In a first draft for this column I wrote effusively in praise of the Internet and confessed awe for what I judged one of the greatest inventions in my lifetime. That initial version also recounted with admiration the history of the Internet and its child, the World Wide Web. Admittedly speaking from a deep ignorance of science and technology, I found something spiritual in the exchange of electronic impulses that fly through the air and through wires.

This early version assumed that many people my age and older actually use the Internet and find it as valuable as I do. Perhaps I was seduced by occasional publicity that claims older people are getting online at a rapid rate. Also I have met quite a few elders who feel very enthusiastic about email.

However, at the time of my first draft, I had not been able to locate any research that indicates how many older people actually use the Internet. It proved much more difficult than expected to locate solid data on this question and I was prepared simply to assume that the number of older users was substantial and growing larger day by day.

By now, however, I have located two pieces of research from respected sources that tell something about the numbers. To cite one here, the Pew Research Center in Philadelphia released a study in September 2000 with information that astonishes me. Pew reported that 87 percent of Americans over age sixty-five do not have access to the Internet.

Moreover, of people between ages fifty and sixty-four, 59 percent are not online. By contrast, 65 percent of those under thirty have such access.

More than half of people not on line are not even interested in getting there. The same percentage believe that they are not missing anything by passing up the Internet. In the words of the survey report, “the strongest Internet holdouts are older Americans, who are fretful about the online world and often don’t believe it can bring them any benefits.”

Some other reasons for what the Pew study terms the “gray gap” are also significant. Though most older people do not believe that Internet access is too expensive, about a third do. Of the seventy million “TechNos,” Americans who do not use computers at all, many live in low-income households.

Many others feel intimidated, though they may not wish to admit it. They bring to mind a college classmate of mine and his wife whom I encountered one day in passing. Charley confessed to me that they had bought a Macintosh some weeks before but had still not overcome their fear of unpacking it for use.

Others have little confidence about safety in the use of online services. A recent study sponsored by AARP found anxiety even among older people currently online. “Confidentiality of personal financial information is of utmost concern to this population. Virtually all those surveyed believe that any personal information given to a business during a financial transaction remains the property of the consumer. They express resounding opposition to unrestricted sharing of personal financial information among businesses.”

I confess never having made a purchase online myself. However, my reasons for not buying over the Web do not spring from fear of credit card theft but rather from my pleasure in dealing face to face with familiar local merchants. This holds true especially of the independent bookstore where I often buy books from people whom I know and want to prosper.

Others object to what they consider an overload of information. A woman whom I ran into while writing this told me that she disapproves of a system that releases so much data, with its likelihood of violating the privacy of individuals. She has absolutely no interest in getting mixed up with devices that go against her values.

I feel some sympathy for the problems older people have with the Internet. Yes, computers remain too complicated and expensive. They should be easier to use, like the television set. And they do have the potential for exposing elders to fraud and other abuse.

However I do not agree that those who eschew communication by computer aren’t missing anything. Some of the benefits are summarized in a new research report made available to me by Roger Morrell of GeroTech, a Washington area company: “older adults can use computers to improve their work productivity, entertain themselves, enhance education and daily functioning, and maintain independence.”

I will never forget the day in 1984 when my television screen first flickered with a program imported from my small Commodore 64 computer. I recognized that moment as historic in my life because it gave me access to a newly invented tool of huge potential, a potential that continues to give me solid benefits.

The Internet remains a tool that can hold solid value for many more elders than are currently using it. If only for giving us access to email, getting online can enrich our lives and help overcome the isolation that our society visits on so many of its older members.

Richard Griffin

 

Web-Exclusive – First Draft
 

In 1984, the U.S. Bureau of Census documented that only one percent of older adults (65+) reported using a computer anywhere.  By 1997, 10% of older adults reported that they were using computers and 7% of them stated that they were online.

This column has come to you on the electronic wings of email. It does each week, much to my own continuing amazement. Only once have I ever visited the Community News Company office, the organization that publishes this paper. Instead, I send my words to CNC through the Internet, one of the great inventions of the twentieth century. From the central office, local editors then download the column for insertion into publications like this one.

This fall will mark the thirty-second birthday of the Internet, though people differ on whether September or October 1969 deserves to be called the founding month. The impulse that led to this invention came from the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union and was intended to improve the American military’s use of computer technology. In time, university-based researchers took the lead and collaborated to link computer resources around the country.

According to the latest figures, 58 percent of Americans now have access to the Internet in their homes, up from only 39 percent in 1999. And, of course, many of us use the Internet in our workplaces.

The World Wide Web, a child of the Internet, forms part of this explosion in communications that has further extended our electronic reach. The Web enables users to draw on a huge reservoir of information of all sorts available across the globe.

It was developed, starting in 1989, by a British computer whiz named Tim Berners-Lee who is currently based at M.I.T. Incidentally, I once heard him lecture and on that occasion walked away wondering how a man of such genius could be such a dull speaker.

Who among us, now of advanced years, would ever have predicted the birth of this system that has so revolutionized the lives of Americans? It surely deserves to rank among the greatest inventions of our lifetime.

I will never forget the day in 1984 when my television screen first flickered with a program imported from my small Commodore 64 computer. I recognized that moment as historic in my life because it gave me access to a newly invented tool of huge potential.

The Commodore seems primitive now in the light of high-powered Macs and PCs that have come into my possession since then but it ushered in the beginning of a previously unimaginable transformation in work and social life.

Though Internet use has become routine for me as for many other older people, I hope never to lose a sense of wonder about it all. There is something spiritual about this device that relies on electronic impulses that fly through the air and through wires. (If this sounds naïve, it testifies to my far-reaching ignorance of science and technology.)

You cannot see the flight but can only admire the almost instantaneous arrival of your messages sometimes over a distance of thousands of miles. The telephone has accustomed us to contacts of this sort but email has extended the ways in which we can share ourselves with others.

Now, as with so many people older and younger, Internet use has become part of my daily life. In addition to email, I also make extensive forays into the Web as a convenient way of researching the subjects of columns. Sometimes I also follow up news items published in newspapers and occasionally I look for sports information.

However, I confess never having made a purchase online. A recent study sponsored by AARP suggests that in this respect I am typical of older users. We elders are supposedly afraid of how our credit card numbers can be stolen or, less drastically, about online merchants who might give financial information about us to other companies.

On the basis of a recent study, AARP worries about us older users fearing that we are generally less proficient and less confident than those who are younger, more affluent, and more educated. We remain “at risk in an increasingly technology-driven commercial environment.”

I have other reasons for not buying online, especially my desire to deal face to face with familiar local merchants. This is especially true of the independent bookstore where I often buy books from people that I know and want to prosper.

Those older people who use the Internet only for email have discovered a precious resource. Even though they may never take advantage of the information, games, chat rooms, and other services available on the net, they have made themselves rich in establishing contact with family members, friends, and others through the exchange of messages across the airwaves.

I remember talking with a boy from an immigrant family living in Boston. When I asked him about email, he told me that his grandmother sends him frequent messages. The grandmother, it turned out, lives in Saudi Arabia and corresponds with her grandson, presumably in Arabic.

I like to think of this enterprising woman as representative of millions of us who have entered bravely into the new world of far-flung communication.

Richard Griffin

Atheism

During the last several years of his long life, a man widely regarded as the most influential philosopher in the world became one of my frequent associates. That does not mean that we were intimate friends but we did talk frequently, usually over lunch with other people. I came to feel much affection for him, even though we agreed on very few of the most important questions of life.

In particular, this eminent philosopher whom I called Van made clear to me that he did not at all share my faith in a personal God who created the world and cares for human beings. In fact, he did not even think that the question of God’s existence has any meaning.

At first, it came as something of a shock to discover that a person with whom I had a fine relationship held an outlook on reality so radically different from mine. In time, however, this contact has helped me appreciate my own faith anew.

Though I recognized that Van was incomparably more brilliant and intellectually accomplished than I, his views did not seriously tempt me to undervalue my own. After all, my faith has been carefully nurtured over a lifetime and has become part of my personal identity.

In any event, faith, as understood in the Judeo-Christian tradition in which I am steeped and confirmed by long experience, does not depend on the power of intellect but rather is received as a gift. Besides, this faith is not so much an assent of the mind to a set of statements but comes much closer to a loving trust in God.

That is the kind of faith that impelled Blaise Pascal, the great French thinker of the seventeenth century, to write these words, found hidden in the lining of his coat after his death: “Fire: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and thinkers. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.”

So Van and I remained friends who could talk about all sorts of subjects with an unspoken agreement not to discuss those vital matters on which we differed. Incidentally, the topics outside discussion included politics in which his surprisingly conservative views were in sharp contrast to my own.

For many reasons this personal contact with unbelief was valuable for me. My friend’s view of the world allowed me to see what it might be like not to believe in God. In the United States it’s not easy to meet atheists or agnostics. National polls consistently show that Americans who profess belief in God or a universal spirit has consistently remained in the mid-ninety percent range over the last six decades.

Entering into my friend’s mentality, I imagined what would be for me a terrible void. If you do not see God as the supreme reality, then you are left with a world that, to my mind, lacks explanation. And your own life can easily seem meaningless, especially after you suffer the loss of people important to you.

When my friend’s wife died, he himself was ninety years old. Her loss left him obviously bereft and, it seemed, disoriented. This event made me fantasize about what it would be like to undergo such a trial without faith in God. In writing my friend a note of condolence, I found it difficult to know what to say.

The one temptation I did not experience was superiority or smugness. I was aware of the truth in what Carlo Martini, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan has written: “There is in each of us – whatever our religion, even in a bishop – a believer and a non-believer.” These words suggest that atheism is often not far removed from people of faith. The line between faith and unbelief can be thin indeed.

Personal contact with someone for whom belief in God had no meaning has served to remind me that God goes beyond mere human ideas. God can never be captured by our concepts. Whatever can be said of God has to be qualified to make sure that we do not make of him a mere superhuman being.

Part of the Christian tradition reminds believers that God cannot be defined. As the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco observes, that tradition has a concept of God who “cannot be named because he cannot be described with any of the categories we use to designate the things that are.”

Richard Griffin

—

Many people whose faith has been lifelong enter into crises of belief. They can experience times of severe trial when their certainties are shaken. When this kind of dark night envelops them, they can feel a kind of atheism that may show them how faith in God may become different from what they have known previously.

This experience can also purify their faith, free it from some of the merely human factors that sometimes masquerade as true faith in God. A person can emerge from this kind of crisis spiritually renewed and enriched in mind and heart.

So if there is a thin line separating faith and atheism, that is a tribute to the quality of faith. It may be experienced as frightening and this entering into fear and trembling may shake us to our roots. But this is spiritual experience at its deepest and most valuable. Doubt can live with a lively faith and can even make that faith more dynamic.  

Of course, the dominant role of science and technology in modern times has put traditional faith on the defensive because the scientific viewpoint can sometimes seem the only valid way of looking at life. The other kind of atheism that looms large in modern life is Marxism, Fascisim, and other ideologies that have done so much damage to the world.

It remains a striking fact that some of the world’s great religions do not believe in God. In fact, Hindus and Buddhists, if they are orthodox, should not be believers in the God that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam profess.

What I have discovered, among other findings, is that the arguments for their position make some sense, if you accept their ideas about human life and the world.

However, considerably fewer (eight in 10) believe in a personal God, that is, a God who watches over humankind and answers prayers. And even fewer of these believers, six in 10, express complete trust in God.
 
Faith, however, does not come from intellectual argument. Rather, at least three of the great spiritual traditions of the world see faith as a gift from God that goes beyond human thinking. Faith is God revealing himself to us, a self-disclosure that enables us to grasp a reality that goes far beyond anything we can achieve on our own.

Many people in these three traditions remain comfortable with a belief in God acquired in childhood and retained at each succeeding stage of life. Of course, that faith changes and develops as the person grows in years and adapts to different circumstances. But some retain a simple almost childlike faith that continues to serve them well.

Since going through a test of this sort can be so difficult for a spiritual seeker, it seems best to have a guide for the time of trial at least. A spiritual director can provide assurance when everything seems threatening. A wise and understanding counselor can help stir us through these perilous passages.

Richard Griffin

Brando, De Niro, Norton

Movie stars from three generations – Brando, De Niro, and Norton, plotting a high-tech heist in Montreal – provided this senior citizen filmgoer with an absorbing two hours of entertainment last weekend.

The film that featured these actors is called “The Score” and has received mixed notices from the critics. For me, however, this movie gets high marks, largely because it displays three such talented stars along the age spectrum.

To see Marlon Brando, now aged 78, on screen inevitably stirs memories of a storied career. In 1947 his performance as Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire” took the American theater by storm, showing new acting possibilities to all aspirants to the stage.

Grant Keener, a friend who was present at the fifth performance of this play on Broadway, remembers vividly the power of Brando’s portrayal. “That night I felt challenged by a presence whose force I as a young male resented but reluctantly admired.” In particular he recalls the audience's gasp when Brando answered Jessica Tandy's line “A gentleman always clears his

dinner things” by cuffing his plate to the floor with “I cleared mine; want me to clear yours?”

When Brando turned to films, his roles in “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris” made him part of cinematic history. The critic Richard Schickel says of Brando: “His shadow now touches every acting class in America, virtually every movie we see, every TV show we tune in.”

It adds to one’s interest in him that Brando has been long targeted by some writers as a magnificent failure. Schickel, for example, writes of “the greatness that might have been.” But this critic adds: “Brando may have resisted his role in history, may even have travestied it, but, in the end, he could not evade it.”

If a quotation attributed to him can be believed, Brando himself realizes the corrupting influence that the film capital of the world had over him. “The only

reason I’m in Hollywood,” he once said, “is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.”

When he first appears in “The Score,” he is shown wearing a bear-like coat that surrounds his huge girth. The man looks to be encased in fat like some latter-day Henry VIII or, more to the point, the aged Orson Welles. It was shocking to see Brando so far gone to obesity in his old age.

In this film he plays the part of Max, a criminal who does not do jobs himself but specializes in procuring master thieves for the task. In this instance, he persuades Nick, played by Robert De Niro, to steal a precious artifact from the custom house in Montreal. Nick eventually agrees despite a heretofore firm principle of never doing heists in his home city.

De Niro himself is a magnificent movie actor with a long history of success. Aged 58 as of this August 17th, De Niro has a fascinating face especially suited to characters who are up to no good. In this film he is conflicted because of his girlfriend’s willingness to settle down with him in marriage if he will give up his extra-legal activities.

The third star, Edward Norton, turns 32 on August 18th of this year. Though obviously inexperienced compared to the other two, Norton is quickly making a name for himself. A 1991 Yale graduate, he has already received two Academy Award nominations for his early roles. Some people consider him the best film actor of his generation.

My enjoyment of this film and numerous others leads me to ask the following questions.

Why do so few of my age peers attend current films? How is it that even the presence of stars like the three discussed here does not inspire more of us to go to movie theatres?

A Gallup poll taken last year confirms my suspicion that only a small minority of older people go to the movies any more. Surveying Americans over 65, Gallup found that 57 percent did not attend a single movie in the previous twelve months! By contrast, only 12 percent of those between ages 18 and 29 have not attended a movie in the past year.

It is not hard to suggest some reasons for this phenomenon. The dearth of neighborhood theaters is probably one. Long gone are those like the theater in  Watertown Square universally known by local kids as “The Flea House.” Disabilities can make it even more difficult for many to reach a theater.

Also many elders, I suspect, consider current films as too complicated, not simple like the films of old. My resident 21-year-old often rags me about my failing to understand certain films that speak to her. And, yes, too much sex and violence for their own sake mar many Hollywood flicks.

But, again, the chance to see such performers as my age peer Marlon Brando, along with veteran actor Robert De Niro, and the up-and-coming Edward Norton, makes me want to be at the movies.

Richard Griffin

Two Spiritual Encounters

Two encounters buoyed up my spirit last week. Both of them were with people who seemed to me gifted with grace that goes beyond the merely human. Or, perhaps, they showed the merely human at its best. In any event, I detected in each of them an action that strikes me as deeply spiritual.

The first conversation happened in a chance meeting with a man in his forties. The occasion for the second was a visit I made to a nursing home to a 92-year-old woman who had asked me to come by.

Tom, the friend whom I ran into unexpectedly, told me about the death of his mother a few weeks ago. She died after having been in a nursing home for several months. He and I had talked last fall about her impending move from her own home because of her growing inability to care for herself.

What impressed me most in Tom’s account of his mother’s nursing home experience was how devoted Tom and his three brothers remained. They came to visit her each day! He himself made it a routine to arrive early every morning with coffee and doughnuts and stay a while with his mother before going to his office.

Later in the day his brothers would come by to see their mother, talk with her and attend to unmet needs. As a veteran of nursing home visits myself, during the years when my mother, mother-in-law, and another family member were residents, I feel great admiration for Tom and his brothers.

For most people, visiting a nursing home is not easy; it puts most of us to the test of patience and resourcefulness, among other virtues. Males, especially, find it difficult to sit with nursing home residents whose mental world has of necessity shrunk to a narrower scope. I used to fidget throughout and had to fight the urge to leave after only a few minutes. To my shame, I admit almost always feeling a sense of relief when the visit came to an end.

But Tom and his brothers were motivated to make their visits a part of their daily lives. To them it became a family ritual invented in response to their mother’s time of special need. They were giving back to her something of the love and devotion that she had given them all their lives.

Perhaps they felt something that writer Mary Pipher sees in such relationships. She quotes a woman who provided care for her parents under trying circumstances: “I know this sounds strange, but that last year was the best year of my parents’ lives. I was my best. They were their best. Our relationships were the closest and strongest ever.”

My second encounter was with Carmella, an elderly woman who only recently became a nursing home resident. She and I became acquainted three years ago when I interviewed her for another column. At that time I focused on her achievements as a painter, a late-life activity that she had converted into a new profession.

After a series of falls and some other serious health problems, she now must use a wheelchair and cannot manage any longer on her own. As of yet, she has not taken up painting again, though she hopes that will be possible soon.

What struck me most was a recent decision she has made not to return home but rather to remain permanently a resident of the nursing home. With considerable help, Carmella could perhaps have coped in her own home. To her credit, however, she has made the brave decision to remain where she is now.

This decision surely ranks among the hardest that Carmella has ever made. She knows how much she is giving up. Never again will she enjoy the independence that goes with being in her own home with the leeway to decide things for herself.

Carmella dares recognize that it makes sense for her to stick with the nursing home. It makes things much easier for her daughter Joan who is Carmella’s only child. Joan can now have confidence that her mother is safe and being taken care of instead of exposed to the hazards of home.

I came away from the nursing home with yet greater respect for this gracious woman and admired the courage she has shown in her nineties.

Richard Griffin

Phil In Summer

Summertime finds Phileas J. Fogg, our veteran indoor cat, unusually  lethargic. The heat lies heavy on a creature already wearing a fur coat. Phil looks as if he needs a cold shower but the closest remedy he finds comes from stretching flat out on the floor in hopes of finding subtle air currents close to the ground.

If only we could train this longtime familiar to seek other relief, perhaps in the form of the daily swim that is my own response to heat. However, idealist that I am, even I have given up hope of training Phil to do much of anything. Having failed to teach him to speak French, among other things, I now have accepted my severe limitations as a cat trainer.

For this pessimistic surrender, I have excellent authority to back me up. The New York Times for July 20th carried a fascinating obituary of Gunther Gebel-Williams, the most celebrated animal trainer in the world, who died after a long career with the Ringling Brothers circus.

The obit writer, after reviewing Gebel-Williams’s exploits with lions, tigers, leopards and other wild animals, mentioned a limitation that even this master of the ring labored under:

“After more than five decades in training and performing with all sorts of animals, Mr. Gebel-Williams concluded that there was just one animal that might be close to impossible to train: the house cat.

‘They do as they please,’ he said.”

How true this statement is, the millions of Americans who live with domestic cats have abundant reasons to know. It is indeed sobering to think that the famous trainer could cope with the challenges of the great beasts but was defeated by the likes of Phileas J. Fogg.

Yes, Phil does as he pleases. He stubbornly refuses to take direction from his housemates even when we assure him of our good will. Like an immature human being, he would rather do it his way than to be right.

But this is not to say that Phil’s habits are entirely fixed. Of late, I have noticed him doing something that he would never have done in his youth. He now will rub up against the legs of family members as if in token of affection. It’s still hard to think of him feeling any affection for us; we are always prepared for him to bite or scratch us instead.

However, there can be no other explanation of this new rubbing against, except at those times when Phil’s food bowl registers empty. Otherwise, this physical contact must be a sign that he cares something about us. Perhaps the approach of old age has taught him that we humans are more than mere providers. Phil is recognizing that we too need love and affection and he has determined to give them to us.

For fear this seem an unjustified leap of faith, what other interpretation can one reasonably attach to the leg rubbing?

Does it give Phil body heat? But in summertime, he surely does not want to be any hotter than he is. Does it reassure Phil that he exists? But he has always shown a strength of character that precludes existential doubts. Granted, we sometimes think that Phil would profit from a few visits to a cat shrink, but not because he harbors doubts about who he is.

Phil has occasionally allowed himself to back off from a stand based on principle. That has happened when he has agreed to eat food that has been in his bowl for a while rather than continue to demand that we put out stuff fresh from the canister.

Backing down like this, however, may indicate that, with age, Phil has found a new flexibility. When younger, he might have refused compromise but now he has attained a willingness to reach an accommodation with us. Seeing him yield encourages me to think that his last years will make him even more companionable.

Another instance of Phil’s new flexibility comes to light when we allow him to make a cameo appearance before guests. When friends visit, our practice has been to bring him up from his cellar lair and carry him in to greet the visitors.

On these occasions he is almost always on his best behavior, especially when children are in the house. Despite his relative seniority, Phil recognizes a certain kinship with the kids and he determines not to take advantage of their vulnerability. So he allows them to stroke him with impunity. They need not fear that he will spring to the attack as he might with older humans.

So the record is mixed. Gunther Gebel-Williams was certainly right about the untrainability of household cats. But, had he known our Phil, he would have recognized in this beast a creature with more flexibility than his sweeping statement would seem to allow.

Richard Griffin

Animals

Until recent years, I held fixed ideas about animals. In my worldview they simply belonged to a lower species of being and existed to serve the needs of humans, not their own. Unlike us, they were destined for extinction when they died and investing any human emotion in them was merely sentimental.

I also considered animals to be entirely programmed by nature so that they could not act with any spontaneity. They had been wound up like clocks to run at someone else’s behest and they had no freedom to vary the pattern. The main thing they did all day was to look for food.

Of course, it was not ethical to harm animals or subject them to pain for one’s entertainment. But the immorality of this action came, not because of the hurt that animals suffered but rather because such actions did harm to us human beings. It was beneath our own dignity to act like that.

In themselves, animals had no rights because their purpose was to submit to humans. Thus I regarded scruples about eating animal meat as unrealistic. That does not mean I wanted to be there when animals were slaughtered but I considered them to be at the disposal of hungry people.

More positively, animals in my view displayed God’s creative powers. Their beauty meant much to me and I cringed at the prospect of some species becoming extinct. I loved to see the great beasts and as a child welcomed the arrival of the Ringling Brothers circus when it came to Boston. My favorite wild animal was the tiger with its fearful speed and power.

At this point in history, however, much in my way of looking at animals has become old-fashioned and passé. Modern thought rejects the idea of them being merely our possessions. More and more people now see animals as belonging to themselves. The animal rights movement tries to assure that in law they will have prerogatives that cannot be infringed on by humans.

No doubt I have been influenced in my change of views by a decade’s experience living with a cat. Phileas J. Fogg, our house pet, has taught me to look upon his kind with different eyes. Like millions of other Americans, I have come to feel a kinship with an animal that has proven instructive. We have a relationship that is personal on my side and that has a certain undefined other quality on his.

New questions have risen in my mind, and previously unrecognized issues that need thoughtful response. Does my Christian tradition, as I used to understand it, give enough respect to animals? Are there approaches different from the ones I inherited that can help shape a spirituality based on reverence for non-human creatures?

By and large, the mainline Christian tradition has neglected animals. The classic theologians have held what the Oxford University scholar Andrew Linzey calls a “dismissive” attitude on the subject.

But the same scholar has identified secondary Christian traditions that provide a foundation for appreciating animals spiritually.

Following the lead given by the New Testament, from the early centuries many Christians believed that the saving work of Jesus extended beyond human beings to all of creation. That means animals, too, are touched by Christ’s redemption.

Christian writings not accepted as part of the Bible recommend two qualities that might shape a Christian’s attitude toward animals: kinship and peaceableness. These spiritual virtues stand out in the lives of some saints.

St. Francis of Assisi, of course, became the most famous, if only for his habit of calling other beings brother and sister in recognition of their status as fellow creatures of God.

The modern theology of animals says that “the value and worth of other creatures cannot be determined solely by their utility to us.” This radical statement overturns what I used to think.

Some thinkers are now trying to reinterpret human power over creation. Granted, God’s command in Genesis, “have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth,” seems to give humans complete sway. But if you accept the Christian view that lordship equals service, those same words can be urging us to act as servants to all creatures, especially animals.

Perhaps, as Andrew Linzey suggests, our best approach to animals could be through “moral generosity.” That would be a way of bringing together some Christian traditions with the modern mentality that regards animals as deserving protection and love.

Richard Griffin