Category Archives: Articles

Doctor’s Appointment

Appointments with a doctor always make me nervous. Even when they are routine checkups, like the most recent one, my anxiety mounts with arrival at the clinic.

On this occasion my blood pressure has shot up to new heights, with the diastolic figure (the lower one) breaking the hundred barrier for the first time ever. “White coat syndrome,” they call it, but they could be wearing purple and it would still happen.

Why such anxiety? It’s elemental, irrational, based, I suspect, on fear of them finding something dire, an unknown lethal enemy lurking within my organs that will sooner or later do me in.

I always had fantasized that by this advanced age of mid-seventies, a kind of statute of limitations would have taken hold. This concept I imagined as working to quiet anxiety with arguments such as this: “You have lived longer than 95 percent of human beings in the history of the world, so why should you complain about the prospect of your life coming to an end?” But rationalizations like this never work.

Other professionals at the clinic, as they record my weight and height, undoubtedly see me as just another 73-year-old male but my primary care physician knows better, recognizing me as a unique, not to say peculiar, person.

By now, she has attended to my health for some fifteen years and we enjoy an excellent working relationship. Long on a first-name basis, we show patience with one another: I did not even mind her being a half-hour late for this appointment and she, for her part, puts up with my chatter.

She inquires for my daughter, as I do for her son. She also asks if I am still writing and gently wonders how my wife’s recent retirement has affected our household.

All of this conversation much pleases me, not only for itself, but because I place greater confidence in physicians who know the whole person rather than just the physique. Perhaps she is helping me, even at this late stage, develop a greater appreciation of my bodily self.

Body image tends still to be a problem for me, though much less as I age. The injury to my left arm suffered at birth does not loom nearly so large in advanced years as it used to in adolescence and young adulthood. Growing older has its rewards, after all.

After finishing her top-to-bottom examination of me, my doctor tells me something I have never before heard from her: “You seem younger than your age.” These words refer not to an immaturity she has observed in me, I hope, but rather correspond to my own image of myself as a person gifted with unusually good health and a buoyant appreciation for life.

But still, the doctor prescribes a pill for blood pressure control. Because of a bias against medication, I feel reluctant to take anything, unless absolutely necessary. In this instance I will go along with her prescription, at least till the next appointment.

She also wants me to undergo a test, one that strikes me as especially nasty. Probably, I will resist doing it for a while, without telling her, and then, after summoning up the courage, submit to the unavoidable. Being a devout coward when it comes to medical procedures, I have to steel my soul each time.

Routine blood tests, also ordered by my doctor, will pose no problem for me so long as I can have Joe, a veteran technician, do them. He is marvelously skilled at finding small veins without poking around, probing for them the way physicians and others are wont to do. This friendly, beneficent Dracula makes of the bloodletting no ordeal at all.

Had this visit been anything other than a routine check-up, I probably would have asked my wife to come with me. It’s not just that she would be a strong advocate, if I needed one, but she would be there for me in other ways as well. Her emotional support might make all the difference were a dire diagnosis to emerge.

Even a routine medical exam makes us confront ourselves as body. Inevitably, you reveal yourself as you really are, at least as far as can be seen and measured.

There is undeniably something humiliating about it, even when the physician is thoroughly discreet and sympathetic. We are confronted with our bodily self in all its ridiculousness and vulnerability.

Even though this latest check-up was quite upbeat, I do not feel complacent about my health. “The center does not hold,” the poet Yeats said in a different context, but the statement applies here too. I await the inevitable next crisis with a mixture of resignation and hope.

And, always, the question of identity lurks just offstage. Who am I, this embodied ego? How can my spirit be so intertwined with this physical structure?

Richard Griffin

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

A great many Americans, especially those no longer young, will remember learning this prayer in their childhood. Parents of many different faith traditions passed it on to their children to say at night before they went off to sleep. It was easy to learn because of its rhymes and its rhythm. In addition, only one word, the word “before,” has more than one syllable.

My memory of this prayer, beloved by so many, stirred this past week when I received for review a new book called “As I Lay Dying: Meditations Upon Returning.” Written by Richard John Neuhaus, this slim volume offers the reflections of a priest who very nearly died after surgery for cancer. To my surprise I discovered that Father Neuhaus continues to say this prayer as an adult.

He also surprised me by mentioning the distant origins of the prayer. Its model is commonly said to have been a Latin prayer published in 1160. This twelfth-century work was apparently a later edition of one from the hand of Pope Leo III who became famous for crowning Charlemagne in the year 800.

After researching its origins further, I discovered the reason why so many Americans came to know the prayer. It entered into this country’s culture through a book published in Boston by Benjamin Harris, who emigrated there from England in 1686. Sometime between 1687 and 1690, it seems, he issued a little book that would become famous in America.

He included the “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” prayer in The New England Primer which became a basic schoolbook among the Puritans in the American colonies. It was a catechism intended for children and illustrated with engravings designed to hold their attention. In addition to questions and answers about their religion, boys and girls could find pious sayings and simple prayers. The famous prayer under discussion here did not appear until the edition of 1737; from then on it became widely known.

The author of an introduction to one edition of the New England Primer says of its author: “Harris deserves notice as a confirmed scribbler .  .  . To this was added an ardent love of the Protestant religion, and an equal hatred of the Pope and all that this implies.” Presumably, he would have felt bewildered had he known how many Catholic children like me were to learn the prayer he had printed.

To test its current reputation, I recently asked a group of college undergraduates if they had heard of the prayer. My informal survey produced near unanimity: almost to a person these young men and women knew of it.

The prayer itself offers surprisingly rich spiritual content. It reveals a trust in God that helps explain why adults like Father Neuhaus continue to make use of it. It breathes the spirituality of abandonment, that is, the handing over of one’s security to God.

No matter what happens, even sudden death, the person praying remains confident of remaining in the care of the Lord. In its own way, the prayer accords with the words of Jesus on the cross: “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.”

This kind of commitment to divine providence does not come easy. Despite the simple and almost sentimental language of the prayer, actually trusting oneself to God requires deep faith and spiritual maturity.

A newspaper colleague has told me that he finds the prayer “scary.” He considers its message about death too disturbing to be given to children. But, in past centuries, death came to young people much more often than it does today, at least in middle-class America. And, to judge from my reading of The New England Primer, the religion of the people who used it was stern and rigorous.

Those modern-day adults who have adopted these words as a good night prayer and have gone to sleep repeating it as a form of commitment to God no doubt find it a more flexible and consoling private ritual. For them, it can express a deep spirituality and a loving attachment to the source of their lives.

Richard Griffin

Crisis of Confidence

“These are not easy days in which to stand up and be counted as a Catholic in Boston.” These words, written by the pastor of my church, appeared in our parish bulletin last Sunday, understated testimony to the pain, confusion, and anger felt by so many people in our faith community.

Just that day, reports of two more priests accused of sexual abuse against children had emerged, bringing past seventy the number of Boston Catholic clergy thought to have committed this terrible crime. Making matters worse, the Cardinal Archbishop, by his own admission, had assigned priests with a documented record of pederasty to positions in which they could victimize even more children.

Growing up Catholic in Boston suburbs, I never imagined the existence of such crimes. That priests would violate the innocence of young people in this way lay outside my mental horizons.

Later, I went to a high school where the faculty was made up exclusively of priests belonging to the Archdiocese and, though I had an unfavorable opinion of some as teachers and mentors, I never heard of any one of them showing the least sign of sexual impropriety toward me or my fellow students.

This continued to be my experience in adulthood. All during the years when, in my first career, I belonged to the ranks of the clergy myself, I never had any knowledge of sexual crimes against children.

Recently, however, I have read reports about crimes attributed to some priests of the archdiocese with whom I was acquainted. The graphic details of one priest’s alleged criminal activities have hit me hard because the actions were so sordid, evidently damaged so many children, and violated the trust that many of us had in him.

What does it mean for people in later life to have their certainties exploded, as many of us have through these revelations of evil?  How can we cope with massive disillusion in matters of crucial importance to us, such as faith in the Church and trust in its ministers?

Having our confidence in sacred persons and institutions shown to be undeserving ranks as one of later life’s most upsetting experiences. No wonder newspaper photos have shown senior members of parishes in tears when revelations about their pastors are made.

When our devotion turns out to be without foundation, we can feel at sea, deprived of our bearings. The scholar Peter Marris, in a new book treating  meaning and purpose in later life, writes that “the loss of this assumptive world is deeply threatening, even if nothing outwardly has changed.” He compares the experience to a death in the family that can throw us into sudden crisis.

But I believe it is also an opportunity for possible breakthroughs toward deeper meaning. I believe that, for Catholics reeling from unwelcome disclosures about the Church, the current crisis can lead toward some valuable outcomes, both for ourselves and for our faith community.

The revelations of corruption among church leaders can serve as a powerful reminder that religious faith is directed, not toward human beings, but to God. One of my favorite sayings of Jesus applies here. Correcting a young man who called him good he said: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

It is possible to come out of the crisis with a purified faith. Discovering the radical thrust of what Jesus said to the young man can help strip us of illusions about the integrity of human beings, even sacred figures in priestly vestments and bishops’ mitres ordained to lead the Church.

On the community level, the anguish of Boston’s Catholic people and those in many other places raises urgent questions that seem not even to be under discussion by Catholic leaders now:

Should the Catholic clergy be exclusively male? Why should not married people be priests in the Roman Church? How can lay people exercise greater influence in the Church, instead of being dominated by clerics? What changes need to be made in the Church’s teaching on sexuality?

As to the first two issues, it is hard to believe that women, were they in positions of pastor, would have behaved the way so many men have done. And married clergy might have been less likely to abuse children, though that is less certain.

Readers of a certain age may remember how, in the middle 1960s, the church adopted far-reaching changes that showed remarkable creative energy. The Second Vatican Council, bringing together bishops from all over the world, surprised everybody with its willingness to alter many long-established ways of thinking and acting.

Now may be the time for the Church to show bravery and vision similar to that evident at Vatican II so as to set right those elements of the institution that cry out for change both in the Boston Archdiocese and elsewhere.

Richard Griffin

Responding to a Spiritual Crisis

“What a great time to be a Catholic!” said my friend, jauntily but clearly using words laced with irony. She was referring to the crisis of confidence that many members of her church are feeling now.  

Revelations about widespread sexual abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston have shaken the trust long placed in the leadership of the church. As many as 70 members of the clergy have been accused of these crimes and the cardinal archbishop, by his own admission, has been guilty of placing some of these priests in positions where they could continue doing grievous harm.

Outrage has been the response of many church members. Parents, especially, have felt betrayed by the priests’ criminal actions that have damaged their children. But those not directly affected also feel deeply resentful about the crimes and confess a chagrin and embarrassment at events that have so shockingly come to light.

Among the most deeply discomfited are those priests who have remained faithful shepherds of their parishes. These members of the clergy, the great majority, have suffered pain at what has been done by their fellow priests. They feel that the good name of the priesthood has been dragged through mud and that the harm done to their profession is incalculable. One told friends recently: “Anyone would have to be crazy to enter the seminary now.”

How can members of the church respond spiritually in this time of severe crisis? What spiritual guidelines exist to help Catholics and others to deal with the mix of emotions they are experiencing?

First, righteous anger is surely justified in response to the terrible sins committed against defenseless children. Jesus himself, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, spoke angrily about such crimes, suggesting that their perpetrators would face dire punishment.

Secondly, church members have a right to hold their religious leaders accountable for failures to protect them against such crimes. By their protest against such negligence they affirm the ideals of a church committed to the teachings of Jesus.

Third, the crisis can be recognized as a time for important changes in the church. In fact, the archbishop has already announced some changes but others, not originating with him, may be needed. Many Americans other than Catholic clergy have shamefully abused children, but the history of this kind of abuse by ordained members of the church raises basic questions about recruitment, admission policies, and the exclusively male identity of those responsible for ministry.

As for the spirituality of church members, some truths need to be reemphasized. One must be wary of hypocrisy, not only in others who hold positions of sacred trust, but also in oneself. To maintain spiritual balance, we must be ready to expect others to be always less than perfect and sometimes much less. At their best, spiritual people will recognize their own temptations to betray the precious ideals of the faith they espouse.

It is spiritually important also not to place ultimate faith and trust in human beings, but in God. Jesus recommends this, in St. Mark’s Gospel, when he says to a young man, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

Catholics, like those of other traditions, belong to a community of faith made up of people whose conduct is exemplary, and of others who behave very badly. In one of his parables about a sower, Jesus indicates that among the good seeds in the field, weeds will be found as well.

The current crisis also calls for maintaining peace of soul. For people who have been violated, that will be very difficult, if not impossible, while they suffer the effects of betrayal. However, even for them it is spiritually important to pray for interior peace and gifts of divine consolation. In time, they may also ask God for the gift of being able to forgive those who have done them grievous harm.

Evil remains a mystery even to the most profound thinkers. In those who have aspired to the noblest ideals of service to God and the community, evil is especially baffling. In the face of such betrayal it may help to remember that God alone deserves absolute trust and that we must continually search our own hearts and pray for the strength to live honestly with fidelity to other people.

Richard Griffin

Assisi Assembly

An event that occurred on January 24 deserves much more attention than it has thus far received. On that day, in Assisi, the town in Italy associated with Saint Francis, representatives of virtually all the world’s religions came together to speak out for peace and nonviolence. All of them had traveled to this picturesque hill town from Rome on a special “peace train.”

Pope John Paul II had planned this “Day of Prayer for Peace” in order to get backing for his conviction that there is “no religious goal that can possibly justify the use of violence of man against man.”

The leaders, some 250 in all, joined together in saying: “Violence never again! Terrorism never again! In the name of God, may every religion bring upon the earth justice and peace, forgiveness and life, love.”

As photos taken of the event suggest, it must have been impressive to see these leaders sitting in rows alongside their host, John Paul II. Garbed in long robes of various colors, with most of them wearing headdresses of differing design and hue, these guests displayed the diversity of the world’s faiths.

Bringing them together was a major accomplishment in itself. Getting the agreement of all of them added something special to that first achievement. Pope John Paul clearly “was calling in credits,” as one journalist reported, credits built up over his entire 24-year tenure as Bishop of Rome.

Individual passages of the joint statement were read by individual leaders, each in that person’s own language. Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople led the way by reading the words known as the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

Bhaia Sahisbji Singh, the Sikh representative, read the assembly’s promise to educate people to “mutual respect and esteem.”

A French rabbi, Samuel René Sirat, speaking in Hebrew, read the passage that calls on leaders of nations to create “a world of solidarity and peace based on justice.”

The Buddhist, Nichiko Niwano, speaking in Japanese, called for “solidarity and understanding between peoples” and cautioned about technology that “exposes the world to a growing risk of destruction and death.”

While their joint statement was being read out, the delegates held in their hands lamps fashioned for the occasion by an artist nun. At the end of the general announcement each person placed his lamp on a tripod that will remain in the basilica of St. Francis as a memorial of the historic meeting.

As suggested by the names already cited here, the extent of representation from the religions of the world was truly impressive. Among those gathered together were thirty Muslim leaders coming from Middle Eastern countries – –  Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – – as well as from Pakistan. In a break from previous policy, a representative from the Patriarch of Moscow attended. So did the Patriarch of Constantinople, along with Sikhs, Confucians, Buddhists, animists, and others.

Jewish leaders and Protestants took part along with the Zoroastrians and Hindus. After the general assembly, the distinct religious groups came together separately to offer their own prayers.

The Assisi meeting was obviously meant to counteract spiritually the horrific attacks of September 11. The pope’s intention, ratified by so many other leaders from around the world, was to refute in particular the terrorist view that justifies violence in the name of religion. Unanimously, religious groups, large and small, reject this view as a perversion of true religious values.

Holding the meeting in the town where St. Francis was born, lived and died was clearly the best place possible. After all, he is a saint universally admired for his commitment to peace among people and with the world of living things. His life demonstrated how a person, because of loving God, can love other people and all of creation.

If this spirit, manifest that day in Assisi, can take permanent hold among the world’s religions, then the meeting will prove to have been an historic milestone indeed. A point often made is that world peace can only come about if the religions of the world are at peace with one another. If so, this event has significance for the future of our global society.

Richard Griffin

A Good Suicide?

On January 2nd, Chester Nimitz, Jr. and his wife, Joan Nimitz, committed suicide in the continuing care retirement community where they resided. They overdosed on sleeping pills and thus brought to an end long lives filled with adventure.

The jointly planned and carefully executed suicide of the Nimitz spouses has deservedly received widespread attention across the country. This action by two people with a famous name raises issues of great spiritual importance.

The husband, Chester Nimitz, Jr., was 86 years old and his wife, Joan, 89. They had been afflicted in recent years with serious ailments that made them wary of a future filled with disability and dependence. With efficiency typical of them, they determined to end their own lives together rather than suffer further illness.

I could never blame anyone for doing what the Nimitzes did. It is easy to understand why they took this drastic action in their old age. Everyone can sympathize with their desire not to experience further illnesses and the progressive loss of control over their own bodies.

But what they did violates my own spiritual values. Their action goes against a life-long ingrained conviction of mine that human destiny is in the hands of God. Of course, some end-of-life choices remain ours to make but, in my view, suicide is not one of them.

Though I could imagine killing myself under extreme duress, doing so would go against my conscience. I would be betraying my instinct never to do violence to the life given me as gift.

In these judgments I freely admit being guided by the basic teachings of my own religious tradition. As a child I was taught that my life came from God who created freely out of love.

Being God’s creature meant to reverence my life and preserve it from harm. As the catechism says, “We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.”   

My community of faith finds another motive for the sacredness of human life in the redemptive work of Jesus. Through baptism, believers have taken on a new identity and share in the life of Christ.

“You are not your own, you have been bought at a great price,” St. Paul, one of this community’s most eloquent spokesman, affirms. This mystical identification with Christ is what it means to be a Christian at its deepest level.

My spiritual community’s covenant of love with God excludes suicide. Belonging to Christ gives believers a spiritual freedom that extends widely. Ideally it delivers us from the false gods of money, power, and reputation.

But this faith also brings with it certain constraints, one of them being that we do not have the power to determine when we shall live and when we shall die.

That does not mean needing my life artificially extended past any hope of worthwhile living. No one is obliged to prolong his or her life by so-called extraordinary means. It is perfectly acceptable to stop using breathing machines, for example, when patients can no longer benefit from them.

I realize that even some of those who share my tradition may not share my convictions about suicide. When I shared my views of the Nimitz case with some close friends last week, I was surprised to discover that some of them look with favor on what the Nimitzes did.

Though these friends place a high value on our religious tradition, they still would feel free to avert such situations as suffering years of Alzheimer’s or Lou Gehrig’s disease before dying. They also argue that maybe the Church will ultimately change its position on suicide as it did long ago on usury, and has since then on other issues.

Still I regard the suicide of the Nimitzes with deep misgivings. It strikes me as another form of rationalism that clashes with spirituality. Though I admit that some spiritually-minded people might kill themselves rather than face a future of suffering, I still consider their action as out of harmony with a spiritual view of the world.

Hope in God is the bedrock of this worldview, something that I hope will sustain me when my end draws near.

Richard Griffin

Bill, the Street Singer

Asked how he feels about growing old, Bill Hamill invokes one of his many  sayings: “Whom the gods love grow young, they don’t grow old.” Then, playfully, he adds: “As a man becomes older, he becomes more delectable.”

These upbeat responses typify this 76-year-old street singer of songs primarily from the 1920s to the 1940s. In three-hour stretches, he belts them out to the wonderment of passersby in Harvard Square. His unabashedly in-your-ear  voice, often in high falsetto, carries across the sidewalk to the surroundings.

Six feet tall, 200 pounds, arrayed in red flannel pants, winter boots, green cap down over his forehead, broad face, and two pencil-thin mustachio lines, Bill loves to entertain the passing world. He knows 160 songs by heart and only rarely forgets any of their lyrics.

Students he considers his main target. Of them he says, “I’m bringing a sort of a mirror of what they are doing. They are actually falling in love and I’m bringing love songs. You see them holding hands as they walk by and I’m singing love songs.”

Bill has been performing in the Square for only the last seven years, but singing since he was a boy growing up in nearby Chelsea. When World War II came along, he joined the Navy and was sent to Bethesda, Maryland. After a medical discharge, he went to art school, traveled widely, and then came to Cambridge.

There he met a millionairess who taught him part of his guiding philosophy. “She gave me insight into the fact that what is money compared to love,” he recalls appreciatively. “I wanted love, I wanted art, I didn’t want money,” he adds.

Besides being a romantic, he also shows himself a patriot. The first song he rendered on a cold winter afternoon last week was “America the Beautiful.” Later he drew  “The Star Spangled Banner” from his repertoire and performed it with the same earnestness. When singing, he sheds all inhibition and lets go with abandon, often transfixing those who hear his voice.

Where does he get the chutzpah to set up his equipment on a public sidewalk and sing out so boldly? At the beginning, he confesses having felt “a little bit” embarrassed but, by now, “I’m completely relaxed.” No one harasses him: his Cambridge Arts Council badge, purchased for 40 dollars each year, makes him legit.

Some people like him a lot. A middle-aged woman who did not give her age evaluates Bill enthusiastically, “I think he’s great, I’m a vocalist myself.” Jason., 20-something, offers a less committed evaluation: “He’s something different.”

But Bill does not depend on his reviews. He loves the songs behind the sheet music covers lined up against the wall:  old favorites such as “My Foolish Heart” with Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward; “At the Balalaika” featuring Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey; “Babes In Arms,” with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland; and “Folks Who Live on the Hill,” by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein.

Among the composers Bill likes best, Jerome Kern tops the field. But he puts in a fervent plug for obscure composers who wrote great songs. No one remembers the writer of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” or another WWII song “There’ll  be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover” but they remain outstanding pieces.

After a lifetime of what he calls “running around,” Bill is glad to be settled in his chosen community. “Now I realize there’s no place like home,” he says. “I can be happy and revel right around here without going to the so-called enchanting places that people rave about.”

But he believes in good exercise. This he gets by riding his bike around the Boston area. “I’ve been cycling every day for the past 67 years,” he claims, not without some hyperbole.

He also exercises by pushing his song kit along. This cart comprises his microphone, sound system, and props. In addition to the sheet music covers, these latter include a toy cat and other animals. Assembled in one package on wheels, this material provides him with resistance exercise when he goes back and forth to his apartment some blocks from his performance sites.

As indicated earlier, this flamboyant gentleman trusts to his sayings. He can produce a quote or an original aphorism as commentary on almost any phenomenon. “I’ve studied quotations and proverbs, and the wisdom of the old sages in a concise way,” he explains. However, he adds: “I haven’t studied too much beyond that.”

Sayings about love loom large in his repertoire but they often veer sharply away from the romantic. “There’s a saying, leave women and they follow you, follow them and they leave you.” Interpreting this statement, he applies it to himself: “I’m a real Don Juan, I can do without women.” But then he laughs.

Richard Griffin