“One morning I was sitting at my kitchen table, staring into space. It was one of those windy days when the sun keeps coming out and going in. All of a sudden, a sunbeam crossed my kitchen table and lit up my crystal saltshaker. There were all kinds of colors and sparkles. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.

“But, you know, that very same saltshaker had been on that kitchen table for over fifty years. Surely there must have been other mornings when the sun crossed the table like that, but I was just too busy getting things done. I wondered what else I’d missed. I realized this was it, this was grace.”

These words were spoken by an 86-year old woman named Martha McCallum to Wendy Lustbader, a Seattle-based geriatric social worker and writer. Ms. Lustbader includes this quotation among many others in her new book “What’s Worth Knowing.” This small volume comes filled with meaningful encounters between the author and the older people she meets along her path.

At a recent national conference on aging, I heard Wendy Lustbader talk about her work with elders and her discoveries about their spirituality. The author’s skill in presentation dazzled me and others at the conference. There were times during one talk when tears came to the eyes of many who listened to Ms. Lustbader’s accounts of her discoveries about her clients and other people.

The revelation described by the woman quoted above happens in the midst of routine domestic life. As she herself notes, the same physical scene must have confronted her many times previously, but this occasion was different. Somehow she became aware of a reality that had escaped her notice previously. That reality was the beauty of the light.

What might have made the difference this time was not a change in the scenery but rather something inside the woman. The author describes the effect that a chronic illness had on her: “Once arthritis slowed her down, Martha McCallum would spend a lot of time sitting at her kitchen table. She had such a fully alive presence that to those who joined her at the table she herself seemed to gleam as much as her crystal saltshaker.”

Being forced to slow down, doing more sitting than she had done before, disposed the woman to be more receptive than she had been when busier. Her soul had become more sensitive to a scene that had not previously revealed its full beauty. For the moment she became like the 17th century Dutchman Jan Vermeer whose much-prized paintings display light that transforms scenes of daily life.

Or going back further, the woman had become like Mary in the Gospel of Luke. Her sister Martha was doing the household work to provide hospitality to Jesus when he came to visit. Jesus surprises his listeners by praising Mary for “having chosen the better part.” The contemplative role of listening is the one that opens the soul to the revelation of beauty all around.

Pay attention to what Martha McCallum calls the special moment when she noticed the colors in her saltshaker – – she calls it  “grace.” This makes it a divine gift freely given to open human awareness to the beauty that lies all around. It disposes the soul to become conscious that this world contains more power than we knew.

Ms. McCallum’s statement “I wondered what else I’d missed” also suggests on her part a new awareness that, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins says, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

This grandeur is missed most of the time even by people who are convinced of its presence. “Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” says T. S. Eliot in his play “Murder in the Cathedral.” But, as this incident shows, at rare moments we can be struck by sudden spiritual awareness that makes life precious.

In this instance the person receiving the sudden illumination was 86 years old. To those who may think that later life does not hold much value, this event is a forceful refutation of such a view. It is never too late for moments of revelation that suddenly provide insight into the beauty of things. No one can predict when those moments might come.    

Richard Griffin

Huston Smith, looking back over his 81 years on earth, feels grateful to his parents for the inheritance that they passed on to him. This inheritance was not money, but faith.

They were Methodist missionaries in China; there they brought up their son who would become one of this country’s foremost scholars of world religions. Through his appearances on public television, especially in a five-part program produced by Bill Moyers in 1996, Huston Smith has become well known to the many Americans to whom religion speaks meaningfully.

Now retired, Huston Smith continues to write about faith, religion, spirituality, and their importance for people of our time. Last week in New Orleans, I had the opportunity to talk with this man of insight and feeling. Looking into his deeply sympathetic face, I felt myself in the presence of someone who appreciates the splendor of human life and the mystery that surrounds it.

He summarizes the personal faith received from his parents in two simple sentences. We are in good hands. In gratitude for what we have received, we should bear one another’s burdens.

Of the inheritance from his parents he writes: “On coming to America for college, I brought that faith with me, and the rest of my life has been a struggle to keep it intact in the face of the modern winds of doctrine that assail it.”

This quotation comes from his most recent book “Why Religion Matters.” There he presents religion as a necessary way of understanding human identity and the meaning of the world.

Professor Smith knows about the modern winds of doctrine at first hand. During his long career he has taught at Washington University in St. Louis, M.I.T., Syracuse, and the  University of California at Berkeley. In academia, he had constant contact with ideologies quite closed to spiritual reality and dead to the legacy left by the great religious traditions of the world.

Professor Smith does not fail to admire science and the technology that has transformed the way modern people live. But he insists that science cannot answer the great “why” questions such as those asked by the French painter Paul Gaugin in one of his most celebrated pieces of art: “Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?”

Science, for all its wondrous achievements, cannot speak to “the basic longing that lies in the depths of the human heart.” That longing finds a response in the great religious traditions of the world, traditions that Professor Smith has devoted his life to studying.

Though most people do not see it, he believes that the modern world remains in deep crisis. “Giving a blank check to science” is the prime cause of this crisis, he says. Instead of recognizing that scientists cannot answer the “why” questions, our contemporaries expect them to know everything or, at least, be on the way to universal knowledge.

Going against the views of many Americans, especially young people, Huston Smith does not feel that spirituality by itself is the answer. “I am waging a one-man war against spirituality nosing out religion and turning it into a pejorative,” he told me with passion in his voice.

He knows and understands the criticisms people make about religion, its dogmatism and moralistic approach to life, telling you what not to do. But, he says, “I argue with them.”

“Religion is organized spirituality,” he explains. “As such, it takes on the burden of all the shadow side of the institution.”  

But, if there were no religious institutions you would not have the great treasures of spirituality, he argues. The Sermon on the Mount of Jesus and the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha would both have been quickly lost unless they were carried down over thousands of years by institutions.

What is likely to happen to the major organized religions in the twenty-first century, I asked. Professor Smith sees them as coming closer to one another in our global society. However, for those in the West, at least, they will have to come to grips with the question of their relationship to science.

These religious traditions must convince people that science does not have all the answers. The way science views the world is incomplete and requires religion to reveal a deeper reality.

Richard Griffin

“Why do I dread vacuuming?” asks Kathleen Norris, the author of several books on spirituality widely acclaimed for their winning style and sharp insight. By such works as “Dakota,” “The Cloistered Walk,” and “Amazing Grace” she has gained for herself an enthusiastic group of readers.

“What makes us resist repetition? Is it simple laziness or something else?” – – two other questions she asks herself and members of a large audience.

She then reaches back to childhood memories and recalls wondering about the need to make her bed in the morning when the same thing would have to be done all over again the next day. “I wanted to do things once and for all and be done with it,” she explains.

She likes to quote the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard who wrote about repetition and asserted that it is reality. And yet, the temptation to reject the repetition of daily tasks and recurring duties often assails, not merely Kathleen Norris, but many other people as well.

As she points out, the problem becomes more serious when it extends to the people who loom large in our lives. “How does a beloved familiar face become an object of scorn?” she wonders.

How indeed? This kind of change surely ranks as among the most painful and undesirable transitions that ever take place in human life.

And yet it happens all too frequently: people who were in love fall into bitter animosity toward one another and feel it necessary to split. That is when they do not take a gun and shoot their former beloved.

Surprisingly, Ms. Norris connects this phenomenon with the classical vice of sloth or “acedia” as it used to be called. The latter word comes from the Greek language and means “without care.” This vice inclines us to become discontented with our current situation, no matter what it might be.

Ms. Norris calls sloth or acedia “a vicious enemy of the soul.” From early on it was seen as such in monastic history: the monks of the desert connected this vice with the work of the devil. In fact they referred to it as the “noonday devil,” spoken of in Psalm 90.

C. S. Lewis, author of the spiritual classic “The Screwtape Letters,” first published in 1942, imagines an exchange of letters between Screwtape, the chief devil, and Wormwood, his young nephew, a devil in training. Analyzing the desire for novelty, he writes ironically:

“The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart –  – an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship.”

Screwtape goes on to explain that the demand for infinite change is invaluable for the devils’ purposes. “The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns,” he writes. Thus one is never satisfied with the latest new thing for long.

Sloth is the product of a deadened spirit. It also involves sadness, a spiritual condition that appears as melancholy, weariness with life, and dissatisfaction. Spiritual torpor and apathy can be evidence of this inner malady.

The opposite approach to life emerges from words written by Dorothy Day and quoted in space last week. This woman, whose name has been submitted to the Vatican for possible designation as a saint, said this about the work that she did for homeless people in New York City:

“Paperwork, cleaning the house, cooking the meals, dealing with innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all those encounters –  – these things, too, are the works of peace, and often seem like a very little way.”

With the last three words, Dorothy Day points to a style of life that is marked by care. In calling such care “little” she was probably conscious of an irony. What appears small, can have large consequences in the daily life of a person involved in the search for God.

Care for other people and care for things that are important in our life count for much toward growth of the spirit. In showing concern for details that go into caring, a person can resist the deadly temptations of sloth and gather spiritual energies for doing the work of God.

Richard Griffin

“Paperwork, cleaning the house, cooking the meals, dealing with innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all these encounters – – these things, too, are the works of peace, and often seem like a very little way.”

These words were written by Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement. In them she describes work at what she called a “house of hospitality” for the homeless poor in New York City. She also identifies these daily tasks as a unpretentious way of seeking God. The Catholic Church now calls this great-souled woman a “Servant of God,” the first step on the way toward official recognition as a saint.

This quotation comes from a little red book now given to incoming freshman at Boston College. Its formal title is “What Are We? An Introduction to Boston College and its Jesuit Traditions.” So popular has this pocket-sized volume become that the university has answered requests for it from many alums and interested others.

According to Father Joseph Appleyard, the Jesuit who serves as vice president for university mission and ministry, he and the others at Boston College’s Center for Ignatian Spirituality who conceived the book’s design simply said to themselves, “We want this to be unlike any other book that students will have.” That is how it turned out to have a plain red binding without any words or illustrations on the cover.

Thus the nickname “little red book” was not intended to remind people of the famous book of Chairman Mao referred to by that name. Almost inevitably, however, some readers will make that connection. Published in the 1960s, this collection of sayings by the Chinese Communist leader who revolutionized his country became faddish reading matter for many young people in revolt against the institutions of mainstream American society.

In fewer than 200 small pages, the Boston College “little red book” provides a wide range of passages from the great spiritual leaders of the world. In the first section, the readings come largely from the Jesuit founder St. Ignatius Loyola and other members of the order.

Other selections range from the Buddha to the 13th century Persian poet Rumi, from the Diamond Sutra to the Qu’ran, from the Dalai Lama to Anne Sexton.  Martin Luther King appears here along with Gandhi, St. Francis of Assisi, and the anonymous authors of  “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

These writings and sayings from the spiritual masters are printed on the left-hand pages of the book. The right-hand pages contain, among other valuable information, a running account of the history of Boston College, the educational and spiritual ideals that animated the Jesuits who founded it in 1863 and built it into a university, and guidance on issues that face students in the contemporary world.

Though the book is intended primarily for young people, in fact, Father Appleyard tells me, “all the positive response to the book has come from people over thirty.” That does not mean a lack of response from the undergrads but simply that they have not yet been heard from. The Center is about to begin an evaluation by email designed to discover what students think of the book.

Speaking of email, Father Appleyard expects the little red book to be available on line in the near future. Readers will soon be able to find it at http://www.bc.edu with a link to the Center for Ignatian Spirituality.

Pondering a great variety of what is contained in the little red book, readers may feel better fortified for the struggles of the spiritual life and consoled by the examples of those who have entered into harmony with God.

One of the many passages that speak to me comes from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a favorite guru of mine. “Prayer comes to pass,” he wrote, “ in a complete turning of the heart toward God, toward His goodness and power. It is the momentary disregard of one’s personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment when one forgets oneself and becomes aware of God.”

With words like these I feel inspired toward the kind of disinterested turning to God that has long been an ideal for me but too seldom realized.

Richard Griffin