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Dona Nobis Pacem

Never had the familiar words struck me with such force as they did at a concert last week. Those Latin words “dona nobis pacem” (grant us peace) come at the end of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and express a request for a gift needed at every stage of history.

This prayer rang out even more eloquently than usual at this time when war once again so menacingly looms before us.

This petition  for peace had a special impact on me because it was sung by a combined chorus of some 200 college students. Massed on the stage of Sanders Theater behind a professional orchestra, the youthful singers gave eloquent expression to my own desire for peace and that of many other people around this country and, indeed, the world.

In my 75th year, there is nothing I hope for more ardently for my own daughter and others in the rising generations than for them to live in peace.

Beethoven himself lived in a time of armed conflicts that roiled the countries of Europe. When his Solemn Mass was first performed in 1824, listeners would have been reminded of Napoleon’s recent invasions of Vienna where the composer lived.

At the beginning of the words “Dona nobis pacem” in the score, he inscribed German words translated as “Prayer for inner and outer peace.”  This heading showed his understanding of the spiritual meaning of peace as well as its external manifestations.

This winter has brought us all a turbulence that strikes me as different in character from any I have experienced in a lifetime of ups and downs. Andrew Delbanco, a Columbia University professor of literature, in a recent talk, referred to these months as “a time of great darkness and pessimism.”  That is what I hear from many people encountered on my daily rounds.

This period perhaps could also be called a “phony war,” evoking the October 1939-April 1940 waiting period before World War II heated up. We feel ourselves on the edge of a crevice, ready to leap over or disastrously fall in.

Many people, now senior, grew up believing in the adage “there is nothing new under the sun.”  By now, we know better. The current time of tension stretched out over many weeks is unique in our experience. Some 250,000  warriors ready to spring on Iraq, intense diplomatic struggles at the United Nations, continued erosion of personal savings, and much more, mark this as a period that tests the inner resources of just about everyone.

I also bemoan our decline in representative government. How, for instance,  can the president promise some 30 billion dollars to Turkey without any debate in the Congress that has the responsibility to appropriate major expenditures?

Is not the veteran senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, right to bemoan the silence of the senate at a time of such crisis? “There is no debate,” he lamented, “ no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.”

The thunderous silence on the floor of the senate in the face of decisions that may affect our national well-being and will determine our nation’s place in the world troubles me. Our representatives ought to be debating the wisdom of alternative courses of action.

I find the conduct of our federal government profoundly disturbing in other ways as well. Though it is delicate to question personal religious practice, the strong reliance of the president on religious motivation, something he himself talks about, especially bothers me. As a person to whom religion has loomed large over a lifetime and continues to do so now, I have learned how hazardous it can be to interpret a particular course of action as willed by God.

To justify the use of massive force against Iraq, the president puts faith in “regime change” and the creation of democratic rule. A  new government in Baghdad will supposedly serve as a model inducing other Arab nations to change their ruling structure. What a utopian plan built on wishful thinking!

But, in case you don’t like that scheme,  he comes up with alternative rationales as occasion requires. No one of them justifies an assault on Iraq without the backing of the UN. That is the conviction of most spiritual leaders of the world, including those of my own tradition.

I have chosen to write about the threat of war this week because of feeling torn by it. In doing so, I assume that many other people of my generation feel the same way. Even those of us blessed with long life have never previously experienced quite this set of circumstances. We have survived many other crises but this combination is different.

“Grant us peace” remains my prayer, along with the hope that our nation will find paths leading  to the well-being of our own people and peaceful  solidarity with the other nations of the world.

Richard Griffin

Sarceaux Father

One morning last month, if you had been in the village of Sarceaux in northwestern France, you might have seen a man named Olivier, 33 years of age, placing in the mailboxes of townspeople a sheet of paper with a shocking message that he had composed on his computer.

The message angrily told what it was like to grow up the unacknowledged son of a Roman Catholic priest. For his whole life almost up to that point, everyone had considered him fatherless. On his school identification papers he had always written “Father’s name: X,” as was customary for children of  unknown paternity.

In 1989 he had discovered his father’s identity.  However, he did not feel free to discuss the matter until this past January when his mother went on television and talked openly about her 40-year relationship with a priest whose name she did not disclose. Several times previously, she had talked about it on television, but anonymously.

Now, with the backing of his mother Françoise, Olivier had decided to reveal his father’s name to the residents of Sarceaux.

His father, it turns out, is Jean Mabille, now 80 years old and the parish priest of Sarceaux. In addition to his son, he also fathered two other children by Françoise, sisters younger than Olivier. Since the end of last year, the priest has also been a grandfather.

When they first came together, Françoise was only 16 years old and the priest was 25 years her senior. When Olivier was born, he says, he could not have acknowledged his paternity but he promised his bishop not to see Françoise again. He managed to keep this promise for 13 years but the couple ultimately came together again.

After keeping her lover’s identity secret for so many years, Françoise finally decided to expose the father of her children. The Paris newspaper Le Monde, which recently reported the story, quotes her as saying: “I would be remiss to wait till he was dead before witnessing” to what the priest had done.

Now that the news is out, the local church has had to take action. The bishop of Sées, with the backing of his diocesan council, has told Jean Mabille to acknowledge his children. Through the years, the priest has been giving some money to Françoise for the children’s support, but this new requirement goes further in requiring him to go public.

In general, Francoise does not feel bitter against her quasi-husband. However, she has one complaint, namely that “he shares the joys and sorrows of other people but not ours.” She was baptized as a Catholic but now is an agnostic.

People in Sarceaux appreciate their pastor, one recalling how he comforted her when her father died. There also seems to be widespread feeling that priests should be allowed to marry. “A pastor is not a stick of wood,” says one man. Listeners to a call-in radio program said, in essence: “It’s better for a priest to produce children than to be a pedophile.”

His son feels thankful at not having to appear a half-orphan any longer. Were he still a schoolboy, he would not now have to mark his father’s identity with those humiliating X’s. Olivier has been in touch with the bishop by both  telephone and email. The prelate admits that there’s a basic underlying question connected with the story–the celibacy of priests.

How the daughters feel, Le Monde does not tell us. It would not be surprising to find them identifying with their mother and what she has been through in this longtime affair.

The advance of age can bring surprises, some of which can be quite unsettling. The situations of Jean and Françoise, she only 56, he 80, surely differ between them. And having unfolded in such a small community, this crisis has an especially dramatic edge.

I wonder how the pastor feels about having been exposed at his advanced age. Perhaps he has been fearing the revelation just now made by his clandestine sexual partner. Or maybe he had confidence that, after so many years, the secret would never be revealed.

As a psychiatrist friend has suggested to me, this crisis in Jean’s life can be seen as a rich opportunity for a spiritual breakthrough. Confronted with the public knowing about his illicit liaison of years past, he can now accept the consequences of what he did and reach out to his children and their mother with love and sympathy.  Whether he feels in inclined to do so, however, seems doubtful, at least if the newspaper reports are accurate.  

The best index of his current feelings may be his reported failure to telephone Françoise since the time when she went public. The bishop wants him to acknowledge his wife and children, but he apparently shows himself more distant from her than formerly.

Further details about the story are available online in French editions of both Le Monde and Figaro.

Richard Griffin

Soul’s Week

Following my usual practice, I have reviewed the events of the past week for spiritual meaning. As I survey my calendar, the last few days of February turn out to have been rich in happenings relevant to the life of the spirit.

The full meaning of these events would probably have escaped my notice, however, unless I had taken pains to sift them for what they say to my soul. Like elusive fish, their meanings would have escaped my soul’s net if I had not cast it more widely and deeply.

The first of these events was the funeral of a man whom I did not know well. However, I felt personally connected with him because he was the father of an old friend. When she recounted for me the circumstances of her father’s dying, I felt all the more tied to him.

Bill shared many of my values, including a love of opera. And he did not die that Saturday afternoon until the radio broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Don Giovanni, to which he had been listening, had concluded. For a rabid opera fan of many years, what a way to go!

More seriously, he also did not die until the arrival of his other daughter, who had come home from France and reached the hospital only a few minutes before her father’s departure from this world. That was a dramatic arrival, perhaps made possible by Bill’s managing to delay his own death. In any case, it served as a consolation to all the members of his family gathered around.

Seeing the box of his ashes before us gathered at his funeral, I felt touched, as always, by the mystery of it all. Never having lost a childlike wonder at the way people pass from this life, I continue to feel stirred to ask questions. How can the rich complexity of a person’s physical and psychic life be reduced to this small material scope? Despite what lies before us, I believe that ultimately it cannot, but that life will be restored in a new way, difficult to imagine.

The second event that I continue to ponder is an informed account of President Bush’s religious faith. Evan Thomas, a distinguished editor and writer  at Newsweek, told how the president reads the Bible every day. And he prays to God with steady fervor. In fact, Mr. Bush “has a pretty close relationship with his maker,” the editor reported.

The religious component looms large in the president’s hard line against Saddam Hussein. President Bush apparently believes himself called by God to the mission of toppling the Iraqi dictator. He takes it as a duty sanctioned by the Supreme Being to bring down the enemy.

I find this approach of our country’s leader to be deeply problematic and personally troubling. Leaders in my spiritual tradition, from the pope to many other bishops in this country and around the world, constantly brand the proposed war as unjustified. They believe it does not satisfy the basic requirements for a war to be morally valid and warn of its consequences to the people of the world.

A third event of his past week for me was seeing the film “The Pianist.” Marvelously well made by Roman Polanski, this movie presents an agonizing account of the German army’s murderous assault against Polish Jews in World War II. I often found it difficult to watch the brutality of soldiers against the civilian population, one of the many mass atrocities of the 20th century.

This imaginative experience raised for me again the mystery of evil. How can it be that we human beings treat other members of the human family outrageously, simply because of racial, religious, or ethnic differences? And for Christians to mistreat people who share the Jewish heritage of Jesus makes no sense whatsoever.

These three events, all of them raising difficult issues, brought me up close to mystery. The death of one person, the religion-supported decision to wage war, and the horrific portrayal of human degradation and slaughter, has confronted me with the reality of our human situation.

These issues provide much to reflect upon and to pray over. They challenge hopeful attitudes toward the world but can also be seen to underline the value of a deeper spirituality.

Richard Griffin

Prescription Disadvantage

“I don’t know what they’re trying to do to elderly people.” That is what a friend, on the verge of her 87th birthday, says about elder service program cuts that she has heard talk of recently.

For the past six months or so, she has been enrolled in Prescription Advantage, the state’s drug program for people over 65 and low-income people under that age with disabilities. She finds that it provides excellent coverage, regards herself as lucky to be on it, and hopes the program will continue.

Some human service advocates are worried, however, about what has already happened to the program and what is likely to happen in the future. Already, as of February 1, the state office of elder affairs has cut off any further applications for membership. And Governor Romney’s budget, if enacted, will require increases in costs for current members. As of now, those increases are planned for April 1.

For the last two years, however, Massachusetts residents have enjoyed the benefits of “Prescription Advantage,” getting badly needed help with the costs of drugs. Our state has thus stepped out in front of the nation in doing something practical about the health needs of some of its most vulnerable citizens

But the new elder affairs secretary, Jennifer Davis Carey, has pronounced Prescription Advantage to be “unsustainable” because of insufficient money given her in the new budget. And yet she has cut off new enrollments despite expert opinion that larger enrollments are the key to making the program affordable for the state.

If the reductions kick in, Massachusetts will run the risk of surrendering its position as a leader in helping older citizens to meet their prescription drug needs. The only state plan in the whole nation to offer prescription drug coverage to all citizens over age 65 will have lost much of its clout.

The amounts required in premiums, co-payments, and deductibles will take the advantage away from the prescription program. These higher costs may cause many moderate-income elders to drop out.

It’s no use waiting till politicians in Washington take care of those of us over 65 and those younger but disabled. The pols of both parties have frittered away opportunities to include a prescription drug package under Medicare. Last week the president was again talking about taking action but talk will not do it.

With huge amounts of money promised or spent on tax cuts, military forces sent to the Middle East, and even some 30 billion for Turkey, there will be nothing left for Medicare improvements. No time soon, it appears, will relief come from Washington.

Many of us, perhaps, will have to see if we can buy drugs in Canada, as residents of some other states have been doing. Perhaps the Commonwealth will have to charter buses for us to travel to Montreal and other points north.

Other reasons for concern have emerged from the new governor’s budget priorities. What is happening to the drug program is of a piece with cutbacks in vital services to elders in need. The home care program for which Massachusetts decades ago established a nationwide reputation finds itself at its lowest ebb since the 1980s. Advocates such as Al Norman of Mass Home Care report that 2000 fewer elders are receiving services than 14 months ago. Adequate funding is being nibbled away.

These advocates worry about the shrinking of home care, in part, because it may drive many more people into nursing homes. This is likely to have the self-defeating effect of costing the state more money by driving up the costs paid through Medicaid.

It also seems that the state office of elder affairs is  losing much of its clout. Again, Massachusetts was the leader back in the 1970s as one of the first states to establish a cabinet level office to serve the interests of older people. Through the intervening years, it has functioned remarkably well, giving organized elders leverage to ensure that their needs are met by state government.

Last week when Governor Romney announced his budget plans, it became clear how far the elder affairs office has fallen in his hierarchy. Instead of reporting directly to him, he wants it to answer to the secretary of health and human services who will control the money and determine budget priorities.

Al Norman characterizes the elder affairs structure that will be left as only a “shell organization.” It does seem a shame that what so many leaders such as Frank Manning and Elsie Frank fought for on behalf of older citizens may now be sacrificed in the name of reorganization.

Yes, Massachusetts, like all the other states that face severe budget shortfalls, must make changes. The challenge is to make changes that will serve the greatest good and ensure the well-being of those who are most needy.

Richard Griffin

Winter Storm

This long hard winter seems endless. Despite the breaks offered by the arrival of a few relatively warm days, it is hard to believe in the promise of spring.

The skin that covers my hands bursts in protest against days of freezing temperatures, producing small but painful fissures. Even bundled up against the cold I feel the winds going through my winter jacket and I get my feet wet sloshing through puddles.

I feel impatient about putting on heavy clothing every time I leave my house.

But a great blizzard brings with it some redeeming virtues. The new-fallen snow, three feet of it in some drifts, has a beauty about it that is altogether special, at least before the dirt sullies it. People, young and old, walk down plowed streets finding delight in the splendor all around them. Some sporty types convert these passageways into avenues for cross country skiing.

Even the arduous labor of digging out my car becomes a social experience filled with good feeling. Two neighbors come over to help me and take on the task with gusto. Soon we have cleared the snow off the roof and hood, freed the wheels, shoveled out the snow surrounding the vehicle and thrown it to the other side of the street.

Then I am ready to gun the car in the effort to break out to the roadway. It works; I’m in the clear, and the space can be occupied until someone else comes along and takes it when I leave. I resist the impulse to place a barrel there illegally, to save the space against poachers. The area is public, after all; it belongs to the whole community, even if someone else sends me around city blocks searching for another parking space.

I relish conversing with the two neighbors who help me dig. They are decades younger than I, one a fellow writer, the other a high-powered freelance entrepreneur. Gathering together around a common task on a bright, sun-lit morning brings out the good feeling among us. We banter about the storms and about our neighbors, all in a lighthearted spirit infused by the joy of our task.

Where is the spiritual meaning in this experience? Is there anything about the snowstorm and our response to it that goes beyond?

Surely the wonder of it all rates reflection. Nature continues to provide nourishment for us. The water that comes down from the sky in frozen form renews the earth. And the storm presents us with the gift of panoramic beauty, white coating for the landscape.

The coming together of people in response to the snowfall is worth thinking about. I love the community of feeling that results from the shared experience of natural forces. We have something in common that brings us out of our houses and gives us something to talk about together.

The austerity is worth something to the soul. The cold, the inconvenience, the exercise against resistance: all count.

Perhaps these experiences of natural beauty, struggle, and social cohesion are not the most profound soundings of spirituality. But they do have their own depths deserving of contemplation.

The storm can, of course, be seen as simply the cause of widespread inconvenience. It strands some of us and forces us to miss connections on trips and disrupts our work. Even many of us hardy New Englanders, at this point in the winter, wince at the prospect of yet another storm.

The searching soul, however, can find matter for pondering weather just like all the other areas of daily life. What happens in our world outside has its meaning for the world within.

Even when we remain inside the house and let the storm outside simply accompany whatever we choose to do, that has its virtues too.

This, at any rate, is what Billy Collins, currently poet laureate of the United States, suggests in a poem called “Snow.” About snow falling he writes:

“It falls so indifferently / into the spacious white parlor of the world, / if I were sitting here reading / in silence, / reading the morning paper / or reading Being and Nothingness, / not even letting the spoon / touch the inside of the cup,  / I have a feeling / the snow would even go perfectly with that.”

Richard Griffin

Molly and Andy, Pet Therapists

A golden retriever named Molly has a remarkably fine record as a pet therapist. Her handler, Bonnie Malm of Lexington, tells of the impact her dog had on one person who was a patient at the geriatric psychiatry unit in Mount Auburn Hospital:

“A gentleman had five family members visiting. This man never smiled. I brought Molly in and she headed right for him and put her head in his lap and now he had the biggest grin on his face. He loved the dog.”

Another woman, Lynne Peters of Arlington, speaks in similar glowing terms about the work of her dog Andy, a greyhound: “There was a lady here, she was quite depressed, you could not see any recognition of anything from her. Andy went up to her and gave her a little kiss and looked at her and she looked at him and they said that was the first time she had recognized anything around her in some months.”

Lynne Peters points out another beneficial effect of Andy’s presence: “I think it’s a good thing for family members, too; they enjoy seeing their loved ones enjoy themselves and seeing others care about their relative.”

Watching Andy and Molly interacting with elderly patients at the hospital on a recent Sunday afternoon was my introduction to the Caring Canines program. Started in 2001 by Marilyn Gilbert, a Winchester resident, this program now boasts 92 dogs who are trained, approved, and registered for visits to facilities where elder citizens, children, and others of various ages welcome them.

Another of the dogs I have met is Zoe, the English cocker spaniel handled by my friend Deana Furman, an 11-year-old girl who lives in Arlington. She and her mother, Carole Bohn, take Zoe to several elder residences and nursing homes, much to the delight of elderly residents.

Of the dogs who visit Mount Auburn, Marilyn Gilbert says: “I select them very carefully; in a psychiatric unit you need our most engaging dogs.”

Andy has a special trait: he is trained to lean against people. “He leans, so he’s a good therapy dog,” boasts his handler Lynne Peters.

The patients in the room where the dogs were visiting all seemed delighted with them. “Molly and I are buddies,” announced one man.

Two other patients, both women, also praised their visitors: “They’re beautiful, they’re so friendly.” Another explained why the dogs please her: “I like the dogs because they’re very well behaved. They have nice personalities.”

My only problem with the program is that so little  time is given to visiting. At Mount Auburn, the dogs come only once a month and stay for a half hour or so. Marilyn Gilbert says it’s because the program does not have enough dogs and volunteer owners to satisfy the demand from nursing homes, hospitals, adult day care centers, and assisted living residences.

To take part in Caring Canines, a dog’s handler must follow a series of rules designed to safeguard the patients’ well-being and comfort. You can find these rules and other information about the program at its web site, www.caringcanines.org. This site features handsome photos of the dogs, along with tallies of how many visits they have accumulated thus far.

Throughout my first experience of pet therapists, I kept wondering if Phileas J. Fogg, our household cat, could ever take part in such an activity. Unfortunately, I knew the answer as soon as the question rose in my mind: Phil is simply too ornery ever to submit to the discipline required of pet therapists.

In looking for reports of research done on pet therapy, however, I did find mention of two cats who take part in animal visitation at Bayside Medical Center in Springfield. They have visited patients in intensive care units and, according to nursing staff there, “eased the patients’ isolation and depression symptoms.”

An article with the arresting title “Take One Pet and Call Me in the Morning,” appeared two years ago in the periodical “Generations.”  The author says research suggests “the human-animal bond is perhaps stronger and more profound in late life than at any other age.” That conclusion, however, is based on companion animals who live with people rather than visiting animals.

A huge number of Americans have such companions at home, some 60 percent of households.  Of these the author says, “Companion animals offer one of the most accessible enhancements to a person’s quality of life, increasing happiness, and improving physical functioning and emotional health.”

Obviously, more research needs to be done if the value of visitations is to be proven scientifically. But many people do not need to wait to be convinced: they already experience at first hand the benefits of visiting dogs like Andy, Molly, and Zoe. 

To inquire further into the program, you can call the director at (781) 729-8285.

Richard Griffin

Spirituality and Dementia

This week I am still mourning the death of a friend of many years. By current standards of longevity, Jack was not old when he died; his life was cut short by Alzheimer’s disease, that terrible illness which continues to afflict so many people.

Some four million Americans currently suffer from this disease, despite the intermittent progress achieved by scientists trying to discover a cure or a means of prevention.

Like others whom this disease has hit, my friend gradually lost the ability to think logically and to recognize other people. With the loss of memory, Jack eventually could no longer function on his own.

In time, he became resident in a special ward in a Veterans’ Administration hospital so that he could receive skilled professional care. Little by little, the disease broke down his body’s defenses until he finally succumbed.

Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias, in addition to posing challenging medical questions for doctors and research scientists, also raise vital spiritual issues for all of us. When patients lose all mental ability to function on their own, what do they have left and how should they be treated?

The temptation is to think of them and deal with them as if they had ceased to be persons. In a society that tends to esteem people to the extent that they do something of monetary value, we can consider those afflicted with dementia as of no account and, moreover, a drain on the nation’s resources.

I am glad to report that my friend Jack’s family members and friends did not respond to his illness in this way. They continued to treat him as the unique person he was and showed him love and affection.

A colleague and friend, Stephen Sapp, has written insightfully about the spirituality of relating to people with dementia. A professor at the University of Miami and an ordained Presbyterian minister, Dr. Sapp has clearly reflected and, I suspect, prayed deeply about this subject.

His first bedrock principle is that all humans are “created in God’s own image and are worthy of respect and protection, especially those who cannot care for themselves or who do not measure up to the world’s standards of value.” Even if we cannot, or can no longer, produce anything or even think rationally, that does not make us any the less deserving of reverence.

Professor Sapp identifies several mistaken notions behind the common American negative attitudes toward people with Alzheimer’s.

First, if people are impaired in one way, we tend to judge them as deficient in many ways, even making of them deficient persons. Just because a person cannot remember names, for instance, does not mean they cannot profit from spiritual exercises. They may recognize in familiar words and sacred actions support from God in their struggle against the dark forces of their disease.

A second tendency is to judge declining brain ability as eliminating the person’s character, personality, and preferences. That can lead to ignoring patients’ lifelong taste for certain foods or other pleasures.

Another fallacy is to assume that the actions of people with dementia are meaningless. Some actions, apparently nonsensical, may have a significance for a sick person, except that we do not know what it is. A patient who wanders may in fact be seeking to perform some action that will guarantee his or her safety.

One woman with advanced Alzheimer’s used to scream loudly every time nursing home attendants took her for a bath. No one could figure out why that was happening. The water was not cold and she was not in pain or suffering for any other obvious reason. Finally, someone figured out that she was screaming because the door to the bathroom was being left open without regard for her dignity.

Ultimately, we do not know what goes on in the soul of a person with dementia. On the surface, only confusion may show but that does not mean nothing positive is happening inside.

There is no denying the terror that Alzheimer’s brings, but maintaining personal respect and reverence for the soul and body of the person afflicted brings us closer to the mystery of that person’s experience. And it may lead toward a spirituality that gives us the courage and insight to cope with a difficult situation.

Richard Griffin