Category Archives: Articles

Coffe Hour as Ecclesial Reality

The coffee hour after church seems, on the surface, to be like any other kind of social gathering. The smell of freshly brewed coffee greets the arrival of guests. People enjoy finding doughnuts and pastries to munch on, as they drink their coffee, tea, or juice. It offers much small talk as those present discuss politics, sports, personalities and the other staples of conversation.

To me, however, this weekly event has a meaning that goes beyond mere socializing. I consider it part of the experience of church. It can be seen as an extension of what happens during the public worship that precedes it. Coffee hour and liturgy have something vital in common.

In my tradition at least, the worship of God does not establish merely a one-to-one relationship, me to God. Instead, it forms a group of people into a community of spirit. We pray, not simply as individuals, but as those who have a spiritual bond that ties us to one another.

When, at a point in the liturgy, the time comes to profess the faith, the phrase used is “We believe in one God.” These words do not provide any quarter for egoism, for concentration on the self, but rather they focus attention on the bonds that make us one.

What I love about the gathering at coffee is the variety of people present: children and grown-ups, young adults and the old, people of color and whites, those with disabilities and the able-bodied, those of modest incomes and the rich, the highly schooled and those of more modest education, all come to share experiences with one another.

This shows forth a microcosm of what church is meant to be. Ideally, at least, we come together without pretension, minus the titles and achievements that set us apart in so much of daily life. Here, by virtue of the spiritual bond that mysteriously works within our souls, we are one.

If yours is a spirituality of finding God in all things, then the coffee hour is a happening where you may make that discovery. A French-speaking friend likes to play on the name of a commercial coffee establishment down the street, by calling our gathering “Au Bon Dieu.” She does so lightheartedly but this fanciful name does point to the presence of God in our midst.

In talking to others in this setting, you discover something of their satisfactions and their struggles. You learn of personal breakthroughs but also of trials and reverses. At least sometimes, people reveal what the quality of the past week has been for them. You can identify with them in both the highs and lows of their lives.

Inevitably, this may sound like pressing the case. After all, some will say, it’s just a plain old assembly of people who wish to eat, drink, and talk. Looking for further meaning here seems to border on absurd exaggeration.

But this objection ignores the frame of reference established here. This gathering, after all, takes place just after the community has worshiped God by joining together in prayer, song, and sacred gesture. The bonds that tie the congregation together have been given expression once again, and people have come away from that experience at least virtually strengthened in their identity as members of the community of faith.

Welcoming newcomers, visitors, and those who have returned gives further meaning to this weekly event. It makes a difference to those unfamiliar with the community and the area to find themselves warmly greeted on arrival. To those of us already long on site, it can prove stimulating to get acquainted with new people with the perhaps unfamiliar experiences they bring.

The people who are obviously hurting often bring out warm-hearted responses from members of the community at coffee. Some members of the community suffer from psychic problems or physical disabilities. Being able to find help in the community, even if only in the form of a sympathetic conversion, can make a difference in their morale. Somebody cares.

The smell of coffee is not incense, to be sure, nor does the conversation amount to prayer. Nonetheless, this hour has a spiritual value that makes some people who cherish faith, and those seeking it, return again and again.

Richard Griffin

Rachel Encounter

Turning the pages of a large book on the store’s table, I suddenly saw a photo of a woman I had known for the previous four years. This photo was one of a series taken of employees at Harvard University, with which I have been long associated. All of them pictured there had also been interviewed and an edited version of what they said about themselves and their work was also published.

When I glanced at my friend Rachel’s text, I felt the blood rush to my forehead. I could not believe what I was reading. All of a sudden, my world felt turned upside down. She was telling everyone something important that I had never known: she used to be a man.

Yes, she was tall and her voice rather deep. These personal characteristics might have served as clues for me, but that she had ever been a he had never occurred to me. The disorientation that I suddenly experienced made me, for a time, lose my psychic bearings. How could I have been fooled like this, I wondered?

Part of what felt to me like deception came from my knowledge that she was the single mother of a young boy, admittedly adopted, but now become her own son. From time to time she would share with me details of her son’s behavior and problems. Without ever questioning her background as a mother, I just assumed her to have been always maternal.

This marked the first time I had actually known anyone who has changed genders. I had read about Christine Jorgenson and other pioneering people who had made the leap, but never had I actually met a person like them. To me, it seemed almost unbelievable that I had been blind to a matter of such vital moment.

Ironically, in her printed interview Rachel argued that changing genders was a matter of little importance. For her, going from being a man to being a woman counted for hardly anything surprising. Though she admitted having been the object of harassment at earlier workplaces, she felt herself to have carried off the transition rather easily.

For me, however, this transformation amounted to a gigantic event. It went against all my categories, especially those that defined what it was to be a woman and what it was to be a man. My spiritual tradition has always placed great emphasis on the differences between the sexes, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden. Though I have never been fundamentalist in my thinking, I could never slough off this distinction with abandon.

I resolved then and there to continue treating my friend with respect and affection. Admittedly, I had to go against immediate emotions that inclined me to change my approach to her. I felt almost queasy about contact with someone who now looked to me decidedly different.

Fortunately, these feelings had dissipated by the time I next saw her. It was different now, but not so as to harm our friendship. Something in my mental world had changed, but my behavior had not. In fact, my inner world had been enlarged, quite to my amazement.

Before this experience, I had already encountered changes in my notions of family and community. Considerable contact with gay and lesbian people had taught me not only the fact of sexual diversity but, to my surprise, it value. Among other experiences, belonging to a liturgical community where such people worshipped along with my family and me had led to greater understanding and acceptance. Once gay and lesbian weddings became legal in Massachusetts, I would take part as a guest and congratulate the same-sex spouses as I would more conventional partners.

Still, I felt myself changing radically under the pressure of these events. They went against so much of what I had taken as certain. My upbringing had been quite sheltered: until reaching my early twenties, almost incredibly I did not even know that homosexuality existed. Then, after finding out, I had no contact with anyone avowedly gay or lesbian and my theological studies emphasized the sinfulness of that situation.

For a parallel in psychic change, I cite the experience of astronomers. Until the year 1919, those scientists all thought there to be only one galaxy, our Milky Way. Since then, they have come to know that there are some 140 billion other galaxies in the universe! And the roster of their further discoveries goes on without end.

To have discovered their world to have been too small to an almost infinite degree must have come as a tremendous shock. But, they will have admitted, an exciting one as well. In this other sphere, I too now find excitement in discovering how much more diverse the world of human beings is than I ever imagined.

In late life, perhaps I can apply to myself what Hamlet said to his friend: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Richard Griffin

Sunday Afternoon, 63 Years Ago

“Where were you on the afternoon of December 7, 1941?” This question, posed by the narrator of “I Can Hear It Now,” introduces the cataclysmic event that took place 63 years ago this week.

Once more I have listened to one of the old LP recordings that recalls this history and brings it back excitingly. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin,” the voice announces, sharing with the American people the grim news of the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor.

We also hear President Franklin Roosevelt speak to a joint session of congress on December 8th as he brands the day of the attack “a date that will live in infamy.” At the same time, he boldly predicts: “We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.”

In answer to the question at the top of this column, I must reply: “In my room, banished there for bad behavior.” Then a 13-year-old adolescent, I was being punished by my father for an offence long since forgotten.

To console myself, I had turned on the radio and thus was the first in my family to hear the fateful news. Immediately I bolted out of banishment, ran downstairs and breathlessly announced the Pearl Harbor events to my parents. In the emotion of the moment my misbehavior appeared petty and I was free, my punishment forgotten.

My father, a writer for the Boston Post, realized at once the implications of the surprise attack. It would bring us into a new era of history and change the lives of all Americans. Following his lead, the mood of other family members turned somber as we envisioned the effects on us of our country being at war.

Roosevelt’s confidence on the next day improved the morale of just about everyone. However, most of us did not realize the extent of the destruction that rained down on the American fleet. It took boldness on Roosevelt’s part to predict victory when American military preparedness was so feeble. Then, a few weeks later, when we took on the other major powers in the Axis –  – Germany and Italy –  –  the challenge became even more daunting.

My age exempted me from the military service into which so many fellow Americans were drafted or enlisted. In any event, I would never have been accepted for the armed forces because of a disability dating from my birth. Thus my experience of war would remain second-hand, gained through the media (though we did not then use this word).

Habitually I would read with rabid interest newspaper accounts of the fighting in both the Pacific theater and the European. In addition I saw movies that presented the enemy in almost exclusively negative images.

I still remember pilots of the Japanese Zero fighter planes, grinning as they shot down American defenders. And the deadly comic portrait of Hitler as portrayed by Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator made an indelible impression on me.

Like almost all other Americans, I was wholeheartedly supportive of the war effort. Long after that war had ended, I discovered that my friend, the scholar Gordon Zahn, and some few others had registered as conscientious objectors and were confined to a camp in New Hampshire. But they would have struck me as weird in opposing a war that seemed amply justified.

Only much later, as an adult, did I develop a political consciousness that prepared me to take a critical view of some actions of our national government. That shift in awareness ranks as one of the most significant developments in my interior life.

Living in international communities was a chief factor in bringing about this transformation. My year in Wales with colleagues from a variety of European countries made me see my own country in a different perspective. Even more did the following year in Belgium where I studied with people from Africa, South America and other places.

Entering into their worldview, I came to evaluate the actions of the United States government more critically. That shift in perspective would become most evident during the Vietnam War. Like so many others, I felt stricken by the tragic mistakes of our leaders in that agonizing time of struggle.

Tracing the physical events in one’s life usually does not present great difficulty. Recognizing the shifts in consciousness is much more difficult. Unless you have documented those shifts or can call on the observations of friends, recalling how your psyche has changed is a challenge.

My shifts in outlook from that nationally traumatic December 7th go far to make up the story of my life. Thanks to journals and other writings, I have been able to put together at least a fragmentary account of inner changes to accompany the ones that happened in full view.

To have been given enough length of days for giving expression to that story continues to gladden my heart.

Richard Griffin

Father Bullock As Spiritual Leader

On his deathbed, Father Robert Bullock made a singular request. He knew that his friend Padraic had quarreled with someone and he wanted to know whether the two had reconciled. “We have to fix it,” he said of that relationship.

Bob Bullock himself was at odds with no one. He died peacefully last June, mourned by members of his parish in Sharon, Massachusetts, by many other residents of that town, and by loads of others people.

In tribute to him and his legacy, Temple Israel in Sharon hosted a celebration last week, attended by some 450 people. Jewish leaders took the lead, recognizing all that Father Bullock had done to promote spiritual understanding and genuine friendship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. In a program of spoken reflections, video presentations, and musical offerings, the temple lauded him for all that he was.

Father Bullock felt flattered by those who called him “Rabbi,” said television reporter David Boeri. “He could see himself as a descendant of Abraham,” Boeri added, as he told of his pastor’s spiritual stature.

A woman parishioner said of him: “He saw God working through ordinary people.” Another described her pastor as “a moral compass, visionary and wise,” as she gave thanks for his role in her life.

Rabbi Clifford Librach who was Bob’s close friend described him as “a lover of the Jewish people.”  His love showed itself in many ways, the rabbi said. Notably, “the negative portrayals of the Jewish people he took quite personally.”

Before beginning his 26 years as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows church, Father Bullock had served as Catholic chaplain at Brandeis University, where his feeling for the Jewish tradition had grown and deepened. He also played a vital role in the founding and growth of Facing History and Ourselves, the pioneering organization that has promoted an understanding of the Holocaust and other forms of prejudice against Jews and others.

Being pastor was the work that Father Bullock liked best. In a poignant letter he wrote to parishioners when he knew himself to be dying, he said simply: “I love being pastor here. It has always seemed right for me and the conviction that this is part of my vocation has never wavered.”

About his death from cancer, he wrote as only a deeply spiritual person could: “It is not for me a great misfortune but a necessary part of my life to which I feel called. I have always felt fortunate, blessed by the Lord, and I do now.”

I count my own friendship with Bob Bullock as one of my most valued spiritual gifts. That friendship lasted almost 61 years, beginning with our high school days together. Knowing him early in his life gave me an almost unique perspective to admire his human and spiritual development over a long period.

That development is what I consider my friend’s greatest legacy. When an adolescent, he showed only some of the personal qualities that would make him so outstanding a spiritual leader. His brother Myron, who was a year ahead of us in school, was the star student in the Bullock family.

But Myron would later write a letter comparing himself to Bob. In that letter he says of his brother: “He was far greater, far more extensive and far, far more enduring. He was wise with a wisdom that cannot be taught and that only a few develop to its full capacity. He was understanding and could penetrate to the heart, the substance, whether of a book, or situation, or person.”

This tribute attests to Bob’s growth into a leader whose own spirituality was large-hearted and solid. What he did in ministry to others flowed from his inner resources, built up over a long time. That helps to explain why he had such an impact on so many people.

I take the tributes to my friend as consolation for losing him to death. The recognition he has received comes as a blessing to those of us who knew him. He went to his grave accompanied by the grateful prayers of the many who loved him and esteemed him for the spiritual gifts that he was glad to share.

Richard Griffin

Are Women Better Than Men?

Are women better than men?  Do they have spiritual qualities that make them more fully human than men?

Crime statistics would seem to indicate so. You don’t find women convicted of violent felonies in nearly the numbers that men exhibit. And precious few women have ever begun wars or led others in the slaughter of their fellow human beings.

In a recent lecture, a Catholic theologian, Edward Vasek, suggested reasons for favoring women over men. He sees them as being more spiritual and loving than most of mankind. To back up this opinion he cited two unlikely authorities.

One is John Paul II, Bishop of Rome and Pope. The other is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican office responsible for Catholic orthodoxy.

The main reason why the pope especially values women is that he sees them as more directly pointed toward “being for the other.” They have a more spontaneous tendency to love and serve other people, a tendency that goes beyond what most men show. “Perhaps more than men,” the pope writes, “women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts.”

John Paul thus envisions women as those who “help to make human relations more honest and authentic.” Because of their special talent for human relations and spiritual values, the pope adds, “society owes much to the genius of women.”

Coming from a man, this kind of praise must, unfortunately, be looked at critically. Often it may contain a hypocrisy or sentimentality that may render it suspect. When it issues from a man who has ruled that ordination to the priesthood is out of bounds for women, it will always lack credibility to some extent, however sound the thinking behind his words.

Though this credibility problem tends to overshadow his teaching, the pope’s statements about women’s spiritual stature find ample support in the real world. Female human beings are generally more contemplative than males. They have a heartfelt orientation toward silence, receptivity, prayer, and interiority that distinguishes their gender.

Cardinal Ratzinger, for his part, sees in Mary, the mother of Jesus, a model of femininity. She possesses qualities that are valuable for both church and society. These qualities include “listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise, and waiting.” Continuing, he writes: “While these traits should be characteristic of every baptized person, women in fact live them with particular intensity and naturalness.”

The theologian referred to above, Edward Vasek, attributes the spiritual preeminence of women to their being receptive to God. Without discounting the value of men, he sees women as helping to civilize them, to make men more open to non-pragmatic values.

To him, it is important to recognize the difference between the sexes. “Their brains are different; so is their cardio-vascular system,” he says.  At the same time, however, he insists on the basic unity of male and female persons, under God who created us both the same and different.

Father Vasek endorses Cardinal Ratzinger’s hope that women will continue to reject being power hungry and aggressive, as so many men are. The special sensitivity that women have is a gift that is worth cultivating.

American society stands in desperate need of the qualities associated with contemplation. The tendency to be caught up in feverish activity detracts from our capacity to appreciate the fullness of human life. If we do not find time to wonder at the mystery of it all, we are missing something precious.

American life is so noisy and pressured that it makes moments of repose often impossible. But spirituality remains largely off limits to anyone who cannot ever be silent and listen to his or her inner self.

Perhaps the aging of the American population will make a difference. Of the change that happens with many men after retirement, the psychologist David Gutmann writes: “A significant sex-role turnover takes place, in that men begin to live out  .  .  .  the ‘femininity’ that was previously repressed in the service of productivity.”

“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” This is the sexist complaint of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. When it comes to spirituality, however, perhaps we can ask the opposite: Why can’t a man be more like a woman?

Richard Griffin

Bob’s Continuing Presence

On a brilliant June morning, I departed from the cemetery along with a crowd of other mourners, leaving my friend Bob’s body behind. His coffin would be buried sometime later in a plot next to his mother’s grave.

Since that time, I have been thinking about Bob, his life and his death. That he died only a few weeks after discovering a fatal disease still shocks me and his many friends. We had thought we had more time with him than that.

Understand that Bob and I were friends for 61 years, ever since we entered high school together. We had stayed in touch all during that time, bound as we were by ties of respect and affection. Also we shared spiritual values that became even more important as we aged.

I feel Bob to be still present to me despite his death, but I continually revolve in my mind and heart how that is true. In this contemplation, I have found help from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who was executed by the Nazis in 1945.

In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer wrote the following words to his wife: “Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through.

“That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary, keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.”

This passage formed part of a memorial service for another friend, a priest-psychiatrist whose death I also recently mourned. It was read by another physician who also values Bonhoeffer’s words. For me, the words carried a vital message as I thought about Bob.

I find at least two important ideas in this passage from the German theologian’s letters. First, that God does not fill the gap that is left in our hearts when a loved one dies. Asserting that God does so is too facile; that would be God taking away from us something humanly valuable, the empty place in our hearts that nothing can fill.

And, secondly, that God does us a favor in keeping that place empty. It’s God’s way of helping us preserve the bond with the one we love. At the cost of allowing us to feel pain, God lets us experience a vital absence.

This approach goes against conventional wisdom and the way we think about death. Bonhoeffer’s message could make us think differently about people who have lost a friend to death. Of course, their feelings of loss will normally diminish in intensity over time but these emotions can still serve as signs of spiritual value.

In this way, the absence turns into a kind of presence. We are continually reminded of our loved one, of that person’s place in our life. So long as the gap remains, we feel him or her to belong to us.

That is the way I am now feeling about my friend Bob. Though his bodily presence has disappeared, he remains present to me spiritually. Bonhoeffer is right: the gap abides and God is not taking it away.

Does Bob still feel that way about me?  This question brings us further into the realm of mystery. The very act of asking it plunges the questioner deeper into reality than we can handle.

Yes, I believe that my friend can still hold me in affection. Yet, I have no evidence for this nor do I want such proof. Rather, I leave it to the realm of hope rather than science. That is the way Bob would have approached the question, had I been the one to die first.

To me, Bob’s life was worth so much, was so precious that I cannot imagine it lost. The gap that I feel serves for me as testimony of my friend’s ongoing life. The convergence of faith, hope, and love that we shared suggests a communion of friendship that abides.

Richard Griffin

Beyond Death

A visit to a wake or funeral always stirs in me the ultimate question: What lies in store for us beyond the grave? Though I often see mourners who give every indication of ignoring the question, I cannot do so myself. This greatest of mysteries never fails to provoke my wonder.

Sometimes one receives from people in their last days indications of what might be the experience of living after death. Such recently came to my attention when friends revealed what two women said when they were dying.

The first, Daria, described what she was going through by the single word “surreal.” I do not have details that might enable me to judge what she meant by this expression. But I suspect that it was for her a premonition of what death would bring.

She would seem to have had some kind of vision of a reality different from that of our everyday world. It was apparently an experience of awe that promised something that she had never known previously.

Amazingly, the second woman, Marj, used the same expression: “this is a surreal experience.”  As if in confirmation of this awesome sequence of inner events, she then added: “I feel as though this is happening to someone else.”

But she found another metaphor in her love of sailing. Nothing pleased her so much as heading out on her boat accompanied by friends, with the wind in her face and herself sitting at the helm. A charming photo on her funeral program shows her sitting cross-legged, on the boat, the ocean in the background, a floppy hat protecting her from the sun, and a broad smile on her face.

Shortly before her death, she said to a priest who was ministering to her: “I hope heaven is another ocean.” These words struck me as a beautiful statement of what the next life could be. For Marj, it featured the activity that she had most favored in life.

Presumably, heaven would bring all the beauty of water, wind, sand, stars, the company of fellow seafarers and whatever else made for pleasure on earth. Except now, it would be unimaginably enhanced.

My book group this month is reading My Antonia, a classic novel by the 20th century American writer Willa Cather. In it she tells the story of a young boy, Jim, who has been sent from Virginia to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. The farm they run is isolated from human society, but it brings the boy close to nature.

One warm day Jim lies down in the middle of the family garden, to rest and take in the surroundings. “I kept as still as I could,” he says. “Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more.”

He continues: “I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun or air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”

As a reader, I find myself skeptical that a young boy would have such deep reflections about death. However, I especially identify with becoming part of goodness and knowledge, part of something complete and great. Transposed into more standard religious terms, this description would seem to be expressive of union with God.

A writer friend, Fred Buechner, approaches the mystery from a different perspective. He detects intimations of immortality as he tells of answering a question that his mother, in old age, posed to him out of the blue. “Do you really believe anything happens after you die?”

In one of his responses, her son writes about the way life feels to him: “It feels as though, at the innermost heart of it, there is Holiness, and that we experience all the horrors that go on both around us and within us as horrors rather than as just the way the cookie crumbles because, in our own innermost hearts, we belong to Holiness.”

Amen.

Richard Griffin