Now that mild weather has departed this region, I am shamefully reminded of a visitor who came to our house one December evening some twenty years ago.  

Henry was a longtime friend of my parents-in-law who were already planning to celebrate Christmas with us. At our suggestion, they invited Henry, who would otherwise have been left to himself, to join us. Though our small  sparsely furnished house did not offer all the comforts that this visitor was used to, still we hoped he would have a good time.

As it turned out, however, Henry looked all evening as if he was having a perfectly miserable time. He sat politely and clearly tried to make the best of it but his distress was evident. As I came to realize only later, he felt frozen.

Then in his middle eighties, our guest was used to temperatures in his own living room almost equal to his age.  To be sitting in the home of other people who set the thermostat in the low or middle sixties was painful for him.

At one point in the evening I remember turning the heat up but I am sure it did not come close to Henry’s comfort zone.

At that time I believed it healthier to keep the temperature lower than most other Americans do. I judged that it might even be unhealthy to stay in a house that was too hot. My house would be a model of modest energy use.

Of course, I was then middle-aged and had not yet myself become very sensitive to the cold. I was used to living in a house where the thermostat was kept low. Beyond that, the house itself had poor fitting windows and doors that allowed cold air to seep through. As a result, I got used to wearing sweaters inside the house and adopted some-thing of a macho approach to coping with winter.

But in my seventies, I now know from personal experience what it is like to feel uncomfortably cold. As an elder, I have become very sensitive to cold air. Whenever the temperature outside drops, I am now prepared to raise the temperature inside far higher than ever before.

My winter clothing no longer seems adequate to me. Wind and cold air pass right through my jacket that featured, when purchased, high-tech ways of keeping out the blasts. But nowadays my poor midriff feels every bit of the cold and I shiver when it en-gulfs me. Things have gotten so bad that I feel forced to wear a hat, something I have not done since Jack Kennedy abolished them from American life.

I have also tempered my attitude about going to Florida or Arizona for the winter or even for the duration. Not without traces of prejudice, I used to ask: “Why exchange the rich cultural life normative in New England for the cultural wastelands of the south and the southwest?” Let others join flocks of snowbirds but never I.

That fundamental resolution has not changed. Now, however, I understand much better why so many of my age peers decide to go. The prospect of warmth and freedom from snow has become increasingly attractive to me. At least, let me plan to get away occasionally in order to break up the winter.

I presume that most other people in later life cannot bear the same cold that they easily accepted when younger. But, I have discovered,  the reasons for this remain unclear even to some physicians. The two doctors whom I consulted for this column surprised me by not exactly knowing the answer.

The first doctor has noticed the difference in himself. “I don’t tolerate the cold as well as I used to,” he acknowledges. And he realizes it’s not simply in his head. In his view.  “it’s a physiological issue, not just a perceptual change.”

My second contact, now a physician/journalist rather than a medical practitioner, seemed unfamiliar with the phenomenon, despite years of experience as a geriatrician. He does recognize in himself much less willingness to undergo pain for pleasure – by facing cold blasts on the ski slopes, for instance. But he pleads lack of information about feeling cold in normal settings.

Of course, the physicians know about hypothermia, the crisis that results when body temperature drops too low. Many of the causes of this condition are familiar to doc-tors, especially illnesses such as arthritis and Parkinson’s disease that limit physical activity. Certain medications can also make the body more vulnerable to the threat of hypo-thermia.

So at the end of this column I am no more enlightened about the subject than I was at the beginning. But I retain a strong sense of having changed in my response to cold weather.

And I now know first-hand what Henry went through in my living room on that Christmas day decades ago.

Richard Griffin

If you have an attic in your house, I hope it is not as cluttered as mine was until recent weeks.  That’s when we took action and had the space cleaned out of a great variety of long-nested materials.

This included books galore but also furniture and even a sculptured wooden figure.  Sorting out the material was no easy task but, with the help of experienced workers, we managed to restore the space to its original openness.

Among the items brought down from above, I appreciate the journals in which I wrote about various travels.  I depend on them to recall many features that I would otherwise have forgotten.

Unable to remember past actions clearly, I rely upon written accounts to bring back the details of my many journeys.  This enables me to recapture and relive a great variety of places, people, and things. I find names and facts, as well as my own reactions and feelings.

Perhaps I can present brief parts of two trips.  They are very different in character and time. But both indicate how I was able to capture my feelings on paper and preserve them for decades.

In July of 1998, I went to France with my wife and sister. The place that had the largest impact on us was our visit to Oradour, the village where, on June 10, 1944, soldiers in the German army slaughtered 650 men, women, and children.

It remains now as it was that day, in ruins, and viewed by silent visitors.

In reflecting on what we saw I wrote: “all this filled me with chagrin that people are capable of such merciless outrage.”  Later, I spoke of: “a renewed sense of the death of optimism –  – how can anyone possibly believe that human goodness left to itself can avail anything. We act like wild animals to one another.”

Several other stops on this French trip remain fixed in my memory. Among them my notes include Lascaux, with its caves dating from the Stone Ages; Lourdes, a pilgrimage place marked by faith and healing; and Vichy which marks the unfortunate French compromise with their Nazi conquerors.

          Let me also recall a much earlier and different kind of trip.  This was a visit to Mexico, where I stopped to see my friend Carlos. We had remained close after first becoming acquainted in college back in the late 1940’s.

In July 1974, he invited me to his new home outside Mexico City.  He had moved there, away from where I had previously visited him and his family in July of 1969. (That’s when I had shared with him one night the unforgettable vision of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.)

During the 1974 visit, Carlos took me to “lunch” at the Banco National. (If I use quotation marks here, it’s because the meal was actually a full course dinner.) As we ate, my friend explained for me the history of the bank and its role in Mexican development.

This experience was important for me in part because it gave a clearer idea of how Carlos functioned in the business world.  It also helped me in my thinking about the role of wealth in responding to the needs of the poor.  (No answer is recorded.)

These brief reports on my travels hint at the importance of records in my life.  They continue to provide much that I could not otherwise remember.  Thanks to them, the past still lives for me, and perhaps for others as well.

Jotting down much of what seemed to me most important in my travels remains a creative part of my legacy.

It has long been a mystery to me why the Catholic Church has done so little to provide spiritual guidance to its members in the later stages of life. When you consider how many of these members, both here in the United States and around the world, are over sixty, you become convinced that the church has bypassed rich opportunities for pastoral care of the aged and of those who feel concern about them.

Friends and colleagues active in other churches and religious groups assure me that this neglect of opportunity is not confined to my church. These groups also tend to ignore the special needs and rich possibilities available to them in their own older members.

I remember one Protestant minister, a scholar interested in aging and spirituality, confirming this fact. He went on to share with me his opinion that the chief reason for this neglect is because the clergy are in denial about their own aging.

Just recently the silence about elder ministry on the part of Catholic officials has been broken dramatically. At least on the highest levels, strong evidence has suddenly appeared showing that the church recognizes the spiritual needs and the potential of its older members and wants to respond.

Three documents have been published that reveal a new level of awareness on the part of church leaders about the resources represented in its elders and their claim both to minister and to be ministered to.  The first two of these writings come from Rome and are addressed to Catholics throughout the world; the third was sent by the American bishops at the recent conclusion of their semi-annual meeting.

The first document, called “The Dignity of Older People and their Mission in the Church and in the World,”  was issued by the Vatican’s Council for the Laity in October, 1998. Positive in outlook and including much enlightened gerontology, the text offers fine material under such headings as “The meaning and value of old age.”

The second piece, also from Rome, is a “Letter to the Elderly” written by Pope John Paul II. Issued in October 1999, this long letter comes from the 79-year-old spiritual leader who wants to share with others his experiences of growing old.

This document is filled with hope, as John Paul’s writes in a personal way about God’s work in his own life and in the world. Among other  remarks about his own experience, he says: “Despite the limitations brought on by age, I continue to enjoy life.”

Looking toward the new millennium, he finds many signs of hope. Among them, he cites the new consensus about universal human rights, recognition of the dignity of women, and the ongoing dialogue among world religions.

For an appraisal of this letter I interviewed Monsignor Charles Fahey, director of Fordham University’s Third Age Center and the leading priest-gerontologist in this country. Not always an enthusiast for church documents, Monsignor Fahey calls this letter “the best statement on the spirituality of aging” that he has seen. He hopes that people from other religious traditions will draw spiritual profit from it also.

The third document appeared only two weeks ago. It was issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and entitled “Blessings of Age: A Pastoral Message on Growing Older with the Faith Community.” Monsignor Fahey served as a consultant to the American bishops for this statement and brought his wide knowledge and experience to the project.

At the beginning the bishops state three reasons for writing: 1) to affirm and challenge older people; 2) to present a new view of older people that sees them as active participants in the church’s life and mission; 3) to help develop structures in parishes that will encourage and make easier the contributions of elders.

Another feature of the bishops’ letter is their directing words to groups of people who may not themselves be elderly but who have some stake in their well-being. Thus they offer advice to caregivers, to pastors and pastoral staff members, and to younger adults.

In the past I have often found church documents less than stimulating, to say the least. But these recent writings strike me as different. They show a positive,  hopeful outlook and they demonstrate remarkable confidence in the people to whom they are addressed.

The kind of spiritual gerontology they offer meets a need that I have found widespread. In this age of both soul-searching and great uncertainty, they offer much that for both reflection and prayer.  My hope is that many others will find in them some of the inspiration that has come to me.

Incidentally, the best way to find the first two documents is through the Internet at the Vatican web site. Its address is www.vatican.va. The Pope’s letter is not yet available in printed form but “The Dignity of Older People” can be purchased for a nominal price at 1 (800) 876-4463.

The American bishops statement can be found at www.nccbusee.org/laity.blessings.htm. [link no longer active] You can also get it in printed form by calling 800 235-8722.

Richard Griffin

It has become fashionable to badmouth public television, of late. Just about everyone I know resents the incessant fundraising and aggressive tactics used to get more money. At least one friend has announced that she has stopped giving to our Boston channel altogether.

Such critics ignore, however, the marvelous programs that continue to appear. Two of them related to aging caught my attention recently. They each delivered images that, in the days after their showing,  have continued to nourish my soul.

The first was a Masterpiece Theater drama “Lost For Words” written by Derec Longden and based on his own experience. It stars two fine British actors, Dame Thora Hird and Pete Postlewaite who play an aged woman in serious decline and her adult son.

When we first meet the mother in flashback, her life is still active. In fact, she then enjoys greater freedom than earlier when her oppressive husband was alive. “I’ve been very happy since he died,” she confesses. “It took me a long time to be able to say that.”

At this stage, she feels lighthearted enough to reply impishly to a question put to her by her son. “Mum, do you want to be buried or cremated? he asks. “I don’t know,” she responds, “surprise me.”

Later, hit with two strokes, the mother eventually has to leave her home and be placed in a residence for the elderly.

The sign of her mental deterioration comes when she imagines seeing “little devils” around her house. To block their entrance, she stops up the faucets and other outlets. “I’m daft, aren’t I?” she asks her son who comforts her with great patience and sensitivity.

Soon she starts calling her son by his father’s name, “Jesse” instead of “Deric.” Her face displays the confusion and terror felt by people who go through this bewildering experience; his face is full of compassion and support.

I asked my friend and next door neighbor George Hein why he so strongly recommended my viewing this drama. “It was so sensitively done,” he replied. “It was spectacularly unromantic. It did not pretend that dealing with your parents in old age is either easy or satisfying. For those who have been through it, or are going to go through it, it’s very revealing.”

My friend George also admired the way the son stuck with it, never complaining because he had to drive eighty miles to where his mother lived.  The son’s wife, with whom he shares a deeply affectionate marriage, is blind. Though she cannot do much to help her mother-in-law, she shows herself always supportive of Deric’s efforts.

Prejudice against the old and weak emerges when Deric takes his mother to a nursery where one of the attendants tells him: “You ought to keep her on a bloody lead.” This comes as a shocking contrast with the way he treats his mother consistently.

Near the end of the drama, Deric finds the right residence for his mother. We see one of the aides there admiring a photo of the old woman as she looked when young. Then the television camera focuses on Deric’s hand enfolding his mother’s, a sign of his persevering love for her.

The second episode that moved me was an interview with the great French mime Marcel Marceau, shown on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. This famous performer was born Marcel Mangel in 1923 to a Jewish family in Strasbourg. His father was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and never seen again.

We see him in the role of Bif, the comic character he created in 1947. In another role viewers see him struggling to take off the laughing mask in an episode that reveals “the solitude of man.”

The first shock that comes with the interview is to hear Marceau talk at all. He speaks fluent English though he accompanies his speech with constant use of his dramatic hands and marvelous facial expressions. What a lithe body he has at age 76, with his frizzy hair, supple limbs, and eyes full of light!

“Is your art metaphysical?” asks interviewer Elizabeth Farnsworth. “Absolutely,” he relies, “I like to reveal the essence of our soul, the inside of ourselves.”  He believes in “the stream of silence” and tries to bring complete silence to theaters where he performs.

He does not like to call himself religious but “when I do the creation of the world, God is in me.”  What difference has age made to his art, Farnsworth perceptively inquires. “Age has helped me to go deeper. I think that with age I cover more of the experience of my life.”

Asked finally about his legacy, this dynamic artist focuses on the language of gesture. “What is important is understanding why the gesture is there: not one word, not one gesture too much.” He feels gratified that mime has now been accepted as an universal language now and that it has become part of American culture.

Richard Griffin