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Ten Thousand Portions

A friend has shared with me a saying of the Buddha. According to tradition, this great teacher of humankind left these words:  “Every human being is allotted ten thousand portions of joy and ten thousand portions of sorrow.”

Immediately, this saying strikes the hearer as intriguing. It summarizes human life in one sweeping sentence. And yet, the more we hear it, the more we perceive the need for reflection on its meaning.

The first part makes the human heart leap up in exaltation. So much joy, who would not want that?

But then the Buddha balances it by affirming that an equal amount of sorrow awaits us all. This seems like a heavy burden indeed.

Perhaps the wisdom of these words lies in their suggestiveness rather than in their literal truth. They amount to a kind of poetry, not a mere prosaic statement of fact. Accustomed to the factual, we can make the mistake of taking the words as precise instead of suggestive.

Thus the number ten thousand does not reflect an actual count of people’s joys and sorrows but rather stands for “a large amount.”  Everyone has a great many chances at the two, the teacher seems to be saying.

The idea of our being given so many opportunities for joy amounts to a welcome message indeed. However, it makes you wonder about those who are afflicted with long-lasting disease or disability. Can they possibly lay hold of an allotment of joy equal to their grief?

And how about those who die young? A friend who died recently at 45 after three years of agonizing illness; can she have known as much joy as sorrow?

Actually, the answer may be yes. She was a person who knew how to celebrate life even when she knew her time on earth would soon end. She found joy in her husband and two young children, along with her legion of dear friends.

A central difference between shares of sorrow and joy, it seems to me, is that we never seek out sorrow, but joy requires an effort of us. It is a gift to which we must open our hearts. Spiritually gifted, my friend knew how to welcome joy into her life despite her narrow prospects for surviving her disease.

Were I asked to suggest ways of opening ourselves up to joy, I might list three.

First, take care of your relationships. Make sure you are not at enmity with anyone, especially members of your immediate and extended family. It is hard to imagine feeling joy in one’s heart while harboring ill will toward other people.

Nothing compares in importance with this first suggestion. Relating to the everyday people in our lives with respect and fairness goes far to make possible a joyful heart. This enables the Spirit to send gifts of joy to us like unexpected flashes of light.

If we can go further and treat others with love and affection, that behavior brightens our chance for joy. Seeing those close to us as gifts that we have received can enhance our lives no end.

A second suggestion: find something to do that you love. Too few of us love the work for which we get paid but, if we can arrange it, that employment can become a source of joy.

If this proves not possible, then we can look for activities aside from the workplace to bring us pleasure.

A friend of mine, recently retired, spoke to me last week with anticipation of a trip to South Africa where he and his wife will observe birds not seen in North America. Birding is not for everyone, nor can everyone travel so far, but everyone can find something that provokes enthusiasm.

Thirdly, cultivate the inner peace that leads to joy. If we dare be silent sometimes, away from the intrusive noises of our society, we will increase our chances of developing a peaceful heart that is the best environment for joy.

In my tradition, joy is seen as one fruit of the Holy Spirit. She, the Spirit of God, is the one who gives this gift that goes so far to make life rich. If this gift becomes our portion, then we may find ourselves better able to deal with the challenges that earthly life always brings.

Richard Griffin

JFK and JFK

The year was 1960 and Jack Kennedy was running hard for president. His campaign exhilarated me back in those more illusioned days. We shared much in common−Boston, Harvard, the Church−and my father was a friend of his father. Jack’s charm and urbanity captivated my younger self and made me follow his campaign with high hopes.

It made a difference for me that Kennedy was a Catholic. I identified with his religious tradition, one that I shared and took to be the source of my most cherished values. When he was challenged by those who opposed him for his faith, I rooted for him and cheered when he skillfully defended himself against accusations that he would be a tool of the pope.

Probably I should have regarded the election of 1960 as more crucial than I actually did. Had I foreseen how the Cold War would heat up with the Cuban Missile Crisis, I would have felt the stakes to be higher. Fortunately, in what proved his finest hour, Kennedy made wise decisions when they were most needed.

More than four decades have passed and now another Catholic, John Kerry, is running as the Democratic nominee. My affective identification with the second JFK is not nearly so close as it was with the first, but I want more desperately for this senator to be elected president.

I do so, not so much because of Kerry’s personal qualities, but because the White House incumbent has proven such a menace both to our nation and, in fact, to the world at large. Never before have I felt such fear that a major party presidential candidate might seriously damage civil liberties at home and the prospects for peace among nations.

To me, joking about George W. Bush’s alleged dimness clouds the reality. In fact, this man has been smart enough to bring about changes on an unprecedented scale. He has initiated preemptive warfare that has replaced the doctrine of containment and deterrence that had prevailed at least since the start of the Cold War.

On the domestic front, this Bush has proven adept at getting his agenda adopted  by making the Congress dismayingly compliant. In doing so, he has plunged the country deeply into debt, placing a huge burden on coming generations. His tax cuts have benefited a few, and created a problematic future for the many.

Using blunderbuss tactics, he and his allies in Congress got members to pass Medicare legislation under the rubric of providing prescription drug coverage. This change is slated to cost elders dearly, while benefiting insurance companies and drug manufacturers handsomely.

Thanks to this law, Americans who receive Social Security now and over the next decades will find Medicare taking larger and larger bites out of their monthly payments. And, in an era when private pension plans are increasingly precarious, it is disturbing to hear Bush intent on privatizing Social Security.

My support for Kerry has grown stronger in direct proportion to the opposition that a minority of Catholic bishops is mounting against him. Unlike the first JFK, he faces persistent challenges from religious leaders of his own faith. To a degree unprecedented in previous elections, they have dared to give instructions to voters.

Religious leaders have a right, and many would say a duty, to provide moral and ethical guidance. The nation needs leadership in the difficult questions brought on by modernity.

But those bishops who oppose Kerry do so by selectively choosing one set of issues while ignoring others of great importance. We do not hear from them on war and peace, capital punishment, and the poor and dispossessed. Though their own church leadership in Rome has spoken out forcefully on these issues, the bishops choose to ignore them.

I feel more than empathy with Catholic politicians who sincerely judge abortion a social evil but feel they must at least tolerate legislation that permits it. When I ran for public office in my home city, people dissatisfied with my taking this position distributed flyers against me in various Catholic parishes, an action that did not make me happy.

Unlike some others, I regard Kerry’s religious faith as among his great assets. He takes seriously the dimensions of life that go beyond the material and practical, and this does him credit.

Admittedly, Kerry’s style of being religious differs from that of his opponent and many other people. It tends to be low-key, discreet, and underplayed. That is a style I consider appropriate for public life. By contrast, the religious enthusiasm that lays claim to special messages from the Deity can spell trouble.

In later life, I feel much less illusioned than I did when the first JFK was running. History has sobered me as it has done so many of my age peers. But I see the choice this time around as clear and of crucial importance.

Richard Griffin

Transfiguration

The icon of the Transfiguration shows Jesus in the center, with Moses the lawgiver on his left and the prophet Elijah on his right. These three figures who stand against a golden sky wear long robes, and Jesus is surrounded by a cloud of glory. He raises his right hand in blessing as he reveals his divinity.

Below the three standing figures sprawl Peter, James, and John, the most favored of Jesus’ disciples. They are clearly distraught, overcome by the dazzling show of the Lord’s glory. Unlike the Lord and the two great figures from the Hebrew Bible, they do not have haloes around their heads.

The icon described here bears the Greek title, The Metamorphosis, meaning the transformation. It celebrates the event in sacred history whereby the Lord Jesus reveals something of his divinity so as to strengthen his disciples before his forthcoming passion and death. This particular icon also celebrates the connection that Jesus has with Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah standing for the Prophets.

Icons like this one play a large part in Eastern Christianity. Members of the Orthodox and also the eastern Catholic churches make these images an important part of their spirituality. They draw inspiration from gazing on these works of art, allowing them to feed their souls.

Christians of the West tend to pay less attention to icons and leave them out of account in their spiritual life. Some, however, do find them helpful in developing prayerful patterns of daily living. For one day, at least, a group from my parish church took part in a day of prayer using the icon of the Transfiguration as a starting point.

For this occasion, a replica of this splendid icon was mounted on a stand for all to see. A lighted candle burned before it as a sign of spiritual presence. And the group of parishioners, following the lead of one of their priests, began by answering each part of a litany with the response “Let us pray to the Lord.”

This litany, or repetitive prayer of petition, came from the Byzantine liturgy that is used by many churches of the East. A recorded version of the Our Father in the Russian language was played, heightening an atmosphere conducive to prayer.

The first presenter, Ana-Maria, who in her professional life is a psychoanalyst, began her discussion by stating: “This icon is an image of you and me.” By saying this she meant that Christianity calls each person to share in God’s own life. Jesus, revealing his divinity, shows how people of faith can be raised above the human level and partake of the divine.

Ana-Maria acknowledged being sometimes “overwhelmed by life in general and by the mystery of God.” But she sees this experience of awe as an appropriate response to the glory suggested in the icon. For her, the Transfiguration also requires of believers that they share with each other their appreciation of the chance to live God’s own life.

Father Jim, in his presentation, rejected the idea of Christianity as enabling people to be good. Rather, this faith centers on the call to a transfigured life. “Don’t shoot merely for goodness,” he exhorted his listeners, “but for transfiguration.”

In looking at the icon, he suggested, one sees the purpose of life, namely to be transfigured, to be divinized. That is what God wants of human beings, according to basic Christianity. Another way of seeing it is that God calls everyone to become holy in the pattern of the glorified Jesus as shown in the icon.

Becoming transfigured is nothing humans can accomplish by themselves, however. Echoing Christian tradition, Father Jim stressed the role of the Spirit of God. “The Holy Spirit is the one who transfigures,” he said.

For those who follow the Christian tradition, spirituality refers ultimately to the Holy Spirit. It is not something generated by humans but instead depends on the activity of God in the human heart. One becomes a spiritual person through the loving initiative of the Spirit of God.

The people who took part in their parish’s day of recollection left after celebrating the Eucharist and reinvigorating their commitment to the transfigured Jesus. They returned to daily life with the image of the holy icon in their mind’s eye and with a renewed sense of their calling as Christians.

Richard Griffin

Tom O’Connor’s Boston

James Michael Curley, on being released from prison, returned to his mayoral office at Boston City Hall, and spent a short time signing contracts. As Mayor Curley left, he boasted to reporters: ““Gentlemen, I’ve accomplished more in five minutes than has been accomplished here in the last five months.”

His replacement, the usually mild-mannered John B. Hynes, was standing by to hear these words. Infuriated, Hynes decided then and there that he would run against Curley for election as mayor. He did so, and his election in 1949 marks a decisive turning point in the fortunes of the City of Boston.

This is the view of Thomas O’Connor, the preeminent historian of Boston, who last week engaged in a public dialogue with me about his native city. Now University Historian at Boston College, this genial 82-year-old scholar brings decades of experience to writing about the events and personalities of this area.

Filled with stories and anecdotes about Boston, O’Connor delights in his work as observer of three centuries of local history. He attributes inspiration for his career to his Aunt Nellie, a Miss Marple-like woman who used to take him to visit downtown.  When he was only an eighth-grader, this great-aunt gave him for Christmas a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays.

Back to the upstart mayor John Hynes. What he did, O’Connor says, is to break down the barriers that had long stood between the Irish and Yankee communities. Instead of carrying further the ongoing feud, this dethroner of Curley reached out to the bankers and other business leaders of the city and established alliances with them. Working together, Hynes and his new allies pointed the way toward a different kind of Boston.

Another important transition, Professor O’Connor holds, was that from Cardinal O’Connell to Cardinal Cushing in 1945. Cushing reached out in ecumenical friendship to Protestant and Jewish communities, something his predecessor as archbishop had never done. He brought to an end the era of Catholic triumphalism that had alienated other religious groups.

If people in Greater Boston now feel pride about their city, it is owing in large part to Hynes and Cushing, along with the later mayors John Collins and Kevin White. Tom O’Connor sees three events in the jubilee year 1976 as bringing the attention of people living in the suburbs to the transformation that had taken place in the city.

The visit of the Tall Ships, the visit of the Queen of England, and the concerts led by Arthur Fiedler on the banks of the Charles River alerted hundreds of thousands to the new scene. In O’Connor’s words: “The visitors looked around and said ‘look what they have done.’”

Asked why Boston is now regarded as open to diversity and tolerant of gay people in particular, O’Connor guesses that the very intensity of past prejudice has produced a backlash. Even in South Boston, where the historian grew up, people of color and of divergent lifestyles are currently accepted without question. This remains in sharp contrast to the past when minorities would fear to come to Castle Island and other places in Southie.

As to the changes in Boston’s Catholics, he attributes much importance to Jack Kennedy’s election as president. “Before that, you had to be a conformist.,” he says. “Kennedy’s rise allowed people to become critics as never before.” In this new atmosphere the Berrigan brothers could demonstrate against American militarism and religious sisters picket against racism.”  And, indeed, the young John Kerry could protest the Vietnam War.

For O’Connor, one insufficiently explored part of Boston’s history is the role of Irish women who worked in Yankee households. They became what he calls “culture carriers,” acute observers of how their employers lived. In time, when they founded their own families, they passed on some of the skills and values they had picked up from those economically better off.

Like many others, O’Connor is still reeling from what he calls the downfall of the Catholic Church in Boston. “It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane,” he says of the tumultuous events that have taken place here. “It is hard to get any perspective on it and I don’t know what the outcome will be,” he adds.

Drawing on the wisdom of a long lifetime, O’Connor expresses concern about some of the changes that have come upon his native city. “Boston may change so much that it becomes just another American city,” he warns. It will take prudent decisions if we are to build wisely upon the bold initiatives taken to improve the place.

In the preface to his book “Boston A to Z,” O’Connor writes: “It is this curious blend of the old and the new, the juxtaposition of the antique and the modern, that gives Boston its most distinctive flavor.” Preserving and enhancing this mix will challenge future leaders as well as members of local communities. In an era when change takes hold so quickly, keeping a sane balance will surely test the city’s mettle.

Richard Griffin

Daria’s Funeral

“Shed tears, weep,” we were advised by the preacher of the homily at our friend Daria’s funeral. But the homilist added: “Move to the realities that made her laugh.”

Daria’s death was, in fact, reason for both tears and appreciation of a person whose short life had been full of joy and laughter. Dying at age 45, she left behind family members and friends who loved her for qualities of heart and soul that will continue to enrich our lives.

The preacher also urged us to cling to Daria’s faith. She was a woman of symbol, of sacrament, he reminded us, for whom God could be reached through the ordinary things of the world. She also felt a “hunger for the Eucharist,” and regarded it as a signpost on the path to everlasting life.

For the theme of her funeral, Daria had chosen words from the 13th century mystic Julian of Norwich. Printed on the front of the program was the statement “You will not be overcome .  .  .  He did not say: You will not be troubled, you will not be belaboured, you will not be disquieted; but he said, You will not be overcome.”

Certainly, Daria had ample reason to doubt this message. Her three-year struggle against multiple myeloma was enough to make anyone tempted to lose heart. And the prospect of leaving behind a son, aged ten, and a daughter aged three, would have deeply troubled any woman.

She also knew that death would take her away from a husband who had shown his love for her in many ways. During the last two years of her illness, he kept her extended family and her many friends informed by posting detailed information on a web site. He and Daria in their marriage had succeed in bringing together creatively his Jewish tradition and her Catholic one. They were able to draw on the two spiritualities for the benefit of their family.

When, at the funeral, a close friend named Mary recalled Daria’s multi-faceted personal gifts, she mentioned “her fabulous taste in clothes and her knowledge of the interesting saints.” More important still, Mary said that her friend “saw what was truly loveable in us.” That gift, she added, made Daria’s friends the luckiest people.

As an associate editor of Commonweal, the New York based magazine published by Catholic laypeople, Daria brought a scholar’s appreciation to both poetry and children’s literature. Among her own favorite poets were two famous for spiritual insight, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

This funeral, as good funerals always do, stirred wonder at the mystery of death and the hope of life thereafter. How can it be that some people die at age 45 and others not until they reach 100? And why do some suffer so much while others go quickly and peacefully?

The writer Thomas Lynch does not have the answer to these questions any more than the average person. However, Tom combines two trades almost uniquely, those of poet and professional undertaker, giving him a perspective of special value.

In an essay entitled “Good Grief” in the just-published “The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004,” Lynch explains his idea of a good funeral: “It is about what we do−to act out our faith, our hopes, our loves and losses.”

He continues: “Our faith is not for getting around grief or past it, but for getting through it. It is not for denying death, but for confronting it. It is not for dodging our dead, but for bearing us up as we bear them to the grave or tomb or fire at the edge of which we give them back to God.”

This what Daria’s funeral was like, full of tears and loss, but also of love and hope. As we commended her to God, we knew ourselves to be taking leave of someone unique and irreplaceable but one who had left us an important part of herself.

The final hymn chosen by Daria for her funeral liturgy is one that is often sung at Thanksgiving. One verse thanking God is particularly evocative of someone who had the cherished the habit of both poetry and prayer: “For the joy of ear and eye/For the heart and mind’s delight/ For the mystic harmony/Linking sense to sound and sight.”

Richard Griffin

Catholic Socialist

“A man who is not a radical when young lacks a heart; a man who in old age is not a conservative lacks a head.” So runs a classic statement often attributed to the 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. If he said it, Disraeli was dead wrong about my friend John Cort.

By reason of his qualities of character and intellect, John Cort deserves to be better much known. In a 2003 memoir entitled Dreadful Conversions: The Making of a Catholic Socialist, he reveals himself to be a man dynamic in both youth and old age. Written as he neared 90, it recounts a colorful career full of dramatic events and memorable personalities.

However, his socialism, democratic as it is, does not give him a seller’s market in these days of capitalism rampant worldwide. It would not take many hands to count the number of American Catholics willing to be called socialists.

He became a Catholic just after finishing Harvard College in 1935, conversion number one. In the following year, he joined the Catholic Worker in New York City, under the leadership of Dorothy Day, who published a newspaper of the same name, founded a movement centered on justice and nonviolence, and provided food and  lodging to people down and out.

After a short stint at the Catholic Worker farm in Pennsylvania, John Cort took up residence in the House of Hospitality, two blocks west of the Bowery, and helped serve daily breakfast to those who joined the breadline. More significantly for his future career, he also helped found the Association of Catholic Trade Unions, an organization that served as base for his efforts to improve the lot of workers.

In 1950, after many more adventures than can be summarized here, Cort moved back to Boston. His work as business agent for the Boston Newspaper Guild has special significance for me. John entered into negotiations on behalf of the 300 members of his union who worked for the Boston Post. The management of the Post, a newspaper then in trouble, was represented by my father.

John remembers my father as a “hard negotiator,” not surprising in view of the reverses that the paper was suffering. The Post, at one time the dominant newspaper in New England, succumbed to economic pressures in 1956.

In 1962, Cort went to the Phillipines as a Peace Corps administrator; later he headed Massacusetts’ anti-poverty agency, and ran the Model Cities program in Lynn. During all this time, he continued his involvement in labor issues and the struggle for racial justice, both nationally and locally. Moving to Roxbury in the late 1960s, he and his wife acted to promote peace and justice there and elsewhere in a troubled city.

The father of 10 children, John Cort has good reason to value family life. As an experienced journalist, he often writes for Commonweal, most recently on the subject of funerals. He has plans for his own and hopes to be waked in his parish church in Nahant. But he is not yet ready for that event: there is too much work still to be done.

One of them concerns the reform of the Catholic Church. John constantly tries to get clergy and fellow laity to take leadership in that enterprise. He still takes inspiration from Pope John XXIII, whose willingness to enter upon drastic change in old age brought about radical change in the church.

Cort remains a Vatican II Catholic, holding fast to the promise of that great church council in the middle 1960s. Though the council’s innovations favoring shared power seem to have faded, he still believes that more democracy in the church is necessary. For that reason he supports Voice of the Faithful, the lay group working for reform but laboring under resistance from ecclesiastical authority.

In what he calls his “second conversion,” Cort became formally a socialist in 1975 when he was 62 years of age. It remains surprising that it took so long, because he claims that “any Catholic who takes the papal encyclicals [letters from the Pope on social issues] seriously should logically be a socialist.”

In 1977, Cort began a period of scholarship based at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge. There he did research culminating in his 1988 book Christian Socialism: An Informal History.

For him, democratic socialism means a system of economy that “places first the satisfaction of common human needs−namely food, clothing, shelter, health, education, respect, and the good jobs at decent wages that make possible all these good and necessary things.”

As should be clear, John is a good ad for longevity. The vigor in his thinking and his robust physique make long life look good. He would freely admit the good fortune he has had – marrying well looms large among those gifts – being blessed with good health in later life, a fine education, and enough financial resources (despite his voluntary poverty as a young man.)

Back to Disraeli or whomever, I believe he would have had the good sense to jettison his mot if he had known John Cort.

Richard Griffin

Milosz’ Poem

The following poem, entitled “If There Is No God,” appeared in the New Yorker of August 30, 2004. It bears the copyright 2003 by Czeslaw Milosz and is reprinted with the permission of the Wylie Agency Inc.

This five-line poem was translated from the Polish by Milosz and Robert Haas.  

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother’s keeper
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,
By saying there is no God.

Czeslaw Milosz, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, died on August 14, 2004 at the age of 93. Born in Lithuania of Polish-speaking parents, he grew up in Poland, living through the horrors of both world wars. In 1960 he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and was there in the era of student protest. In the latter stages of his life he returned to Poland, remaining there until his death.

In addition to his fame as a poet, Milosz acquired a reputation as a philosopher. For him, as Robert Taylor pointed out in a 1994 article for the Boston Globe, “the struggle between religious faith and nihilism characterizes our tormented century.” This struggle, reaching horrific outcomes in the 20th century, provided constant stimulus for Milosz’ reflection.

The poem quoted here is notable for its subtle irony. Though it envisions a situation in which God’s existence is denied, it suggests that belief in that existence is vital to human beings.

In the second line, the poet rejects the argument that many believers use to support their faith. Contrary to their claim about faith in God being necessary to prevent complete license for people to do anything, he affirms that even in a Godless world one would be constrained to respect human beings and the limits built into our lives.

Echoing a phrase from the Hebrew Bible, Milosz goes on to call each person “his brother’s keeper.” In the Book of Genesis, Cain murders his brother Abel and when the Lord asks where the murdered brother is, Cain replies with the question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That is exactly what a brother must be, the Bible teaches, and Milosz endorses that teaching.

In the final two lines, the poet offers a delicious twist of conventional thinking. Part of being his brother’s keeper, Milosz suggests, is respecting that brother’s belief in God. To tell someone that God does not exist would be to violate a basic value in his life. Ultimately, it would cause him deep sadness, to say the least.

I find this brief poem, originally written in a language foreign to me, a succinct statement that reverberates beyond itself. At one and the same time, it is intellectually subtle and emotionally stirring. It speaks too obliquely to qualify as a statement of faith, yet these few words are suggestive of faith’s importance in the life of humankind.

Milosz was in a position to see that the last century marked the worst imaginable outcomes of atheistic ideologies; unfortunately, our current century shows the results of a misbegotten faith that leads to fanaticism.

Belief in God is a human value that does support human decency. But such faith can all too easily be used to violate the most basic human rights. The atrocities witnessed daily in Iraq and elsewhere give morbid testimony of what havoc religious zeal can unleash on the world.

Taking part in the funeral of a woman of faith this week has given me a renewed sense of the difference religious faith makes in the life of a human being. One such virtue was cited by a friend who spoke at the liturgy. “She saw what was truly loveable in us,” said that witness.

At its best, faith does provide this kind of vision. It can free us to notice things that otherwise remain off limits. The insight lent by authentic faith opens human hearts to depths not usually accessible.

As a poet, Milosz almost surely did not see himself as a spokesman for belief in God. And yet, given all the horrors that he lived through in his long life, he does give voice in only five lines to values that remain essential to human dignity.

Richard Griffin