Bill Philips is a Methodist who sings in his church choir, says grace with his family before meals, and prays at other times, though less often then he says he should. He considers himself a person of faith who cannot imagine how he would ever stop believing in God.

In his work life, Dr. Phillips is a physicist based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. For his scientific achievements in the field of quantum mechanics, he won the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics. He had done his graduate studies at M.I.T. where a mentor convinced him that he could do physics “at the frontiers, competing with the best in the world, and do it with openness, humanity and cooperation.”

I had the opportunity to hear Bill Phillips speak late last month at Harvard University. The occasion was a three-day conference organized by Science and the Spiritual Quest. This California-based agency promotes dialogue between scientists and scholars of religion. The Boston-area conference was one in an ongoing series of national and international events intended to stir thinking and discussion between the two cultures of science and religion.

Among the dozen or so scientists I heard speak about their own work and, in some instances, their own religious beliefs and practice, I was particularly impressed by Bill Phillips. His pleasing and witty style, his competence and, at the same time, his humility, all commended him as a model of  the religious man committed to scientific investigation.

He may have been eminent enough in his field to have won the Nobel prize, but he puts himself into perspective as another seeker looking into the mysteries of material creation and also looking for God.

He calls himself “an ordinary scientist and an ordinary Christian” but his deep understanding in both areas of his life suggest that these descriptions do not actually apply to him.

When he turns toward science, Bill Phillips has the unusual ability to explain lucidly how things work in quantum mechanics. At the submicroscopic level, he says, things behave strangely. For example, in the quantum world, an atom can be in two places at the same time and objects may have certain properties only when a person looks at them.

His specific area of research is the trapping and cooling of atoms. At the very low temperatures that he has achieved, these atoms move very slowly indeed and in doing so reveal waves that become large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Among other products, laser-cooled atoms will some day make possible quantum computers far more competent than today’s.

Dr. Phillips finds support for his faith in what he sees in his experiments. “When I examine the orderliness, understandability, and beauty of the universe,” he says, “I am led to the conclusion that a higher intelligence designed what I see. My scientific appreciation of the coherence, the delightful simplicity, of physics strengthens my belief in God.”

Belief, however, is not in itself scientific, though Dr. Phillips makes a point of saying that his scientific understanding supports his faith. In the expanded version of his talk, he goes on to write:  “ I have a feeling .   .   . that we will never find truly convincing scientific evidence about the existence of God.” But, as he takes note, faith would not be faith if you actually had such evidence.

The God of Albert Einstein is not good enough for him. The great theorist Einstein believed in a God who gave creation an order and intelligence but did not care about human beings. For Phillips, God is in personal relationship with us and loves us relentlessly. In his daily life he experiences the presence of the God who is active in the world.

Like many other thoughtful people, he also experiences doubts about God. The classical problems of evil and suffering leave this brilliant man without answers, just like everybody else. For him as a Christian, the question of Jesus’s relation to other faiths also seems perplexing.

Ultimately, however, in Bill Phillips’ view, what is most important about faith in God is how we act toward other human beings. To him, his faith-based mandate to love others as himself counts more than anything else.

Richard Griffin

“Kindling Your Inner Fire” was the name for a gathering of lay ministers, all alums of Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge. We assembled two weeks ago for a day of sharing stories about working in parish churches, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and other settings. Some twenty women and men, we welcomed the opportunity to explore with others spirituality relevant to our ministry.

As a way to stir reflection on our spiritual life, the group leader proposed identifying five themes that have helped shape the persons we have become. She herself led the way, listing the following themes in her own life and explaining how each had brought her to a new stage of development.

In turn, her life has been characterized by Helping, Longing for God, Making the World Better, Holiness, and the Global Family. For each of them she supplied detail so that everyone could understand how each stage affected her life. Of course, these stages were not entirely separate from one another but, rather, all of them flowed into and out of the others.

Another woman had become a priest in middle age and now serves in an Episcopal parish church. The five themes that she identified and shared with the group sound like classical expressions of the great spiritual tradition. Starting with her thirties, she first felt Restlessness, then experienced Hurt, Discovery, Desire for God, and the Call.

When it came my turn, I needed to make two lists of five inner experiences. For me, the two groups were necessary because my spiritual life can only be understood in the light of dramatic changes that took place in my middle years.

In the first group I listed the following: Death, Priesthood, Community, Perfection, and Asceticism. These items may sound abstract but, for me, they had deep reality. In fact, they led me to leave home at age twenty-one to join a religious order.

My second group of five includes strikingly different spiritual priorities. Freedom, Ordinariness, Creativity, Fatherhood, and Friendships qualify as leading themes in the latter part of my life.

It is tempting to explain each one of the headings, some of which do not have meaning easily understood. However, I list them here to suggest one way for you, the reader, to reflect on your own spiritual life. You, too, can make a list of the dominant themes that have helped make you into the person you are.

After working in small groups to assemble our lists and explain them to one another, we lay ministers once again all came together for discussion of our findings. Attempting to find common themes, we identified several that, often in different words, ran through the lists made by individuals.

The first such general theme was called “the Hound of Heaven.” The phrase refers to a poem of the same name written by Francis Thompson, a nineteenth century English poet. There the poet envisions God as a stalker of the soul, pursuing human beings until they surrender to him in love. Some members of our group have felt themselves pursued by God.

Another such theme was described as “Churning,” the dissatisfaction that many people have felt with the world, a feeling that has stirred in them the desire to serve God. Breakthroughs, Encounters, and Struggle also came up for discussion.

Further discussion flowed from an attempt to identify those factors that have helped and hindered our “ministerial vitality and sense of God.”

Some of the resources the group found helpful include continued learning, good mentors, humor, prayer groups, annual retreats, and physical exercise. Problem areas identified included what women called “the stained glass ceiling” preventing them from going to higher levels in church jobs, isolation, possessiveness about one’s own work, and workaholism.

This brief description of the “Kindling Your Inner Fire” experience may suggest some of the wealth of spiritual experience shared by members of the group. It may also suggest to you the rich potential of your own interior life and the value to be gained from reflecting on your spiritual history. Undoubtedly you yourself have known many of the themes mentioned here and can profit from continuing to reflect on them and perhaps praying over them as well.

Richard Griffin

By reading writers that lift my spirit, I continue to find much treasure in which others may wish to share. The publication of a new collection, “The Best Spiritual Writing 2001,” presenting many recent articles excellent in both style and substance, is an event worth celebrating.

The first selection in this new paperback is one that I have read previously. However, its excellence struck me once again. This short essay is called “Secrets of the Confessional;” in it Lorenzo Albacete shares with readers deep insights into the spiritual meaning of this ancient Catholic ritual. Father Albacete, a priest who teaches theology in the New York archdiocesan seminary, sums up his unusual views in one paragraph:

“Confession is not therapy, nor is it moral accounting. At its best, it is the affirmation that the ultimate truth of our interior life is our absolute poverty, our radical dependence, our unquenchable thirst, our desperate need to be loved. As St. Augustine knew so well, confession is ultimately about praise.”

The article from which this quotation comes is only one of twenty-five contained in this, the latest paperback in a series that began four years ago. Edited by a Smith College lecturer in religion, Philip Zaleski, this year’s edition is yet another filled with ideas that will almost surely inspire readers intent upon the interior life.

In his preface, Professor Zaleski focuses on the life of the spiritual writer. Two qualities are vital for this kind of writer, he suggests. The first is silence, a condition of soul to which writers must return often. Following the lead of Thomas Merton, Zaleski says: “The best spiritual writers are entirely at home in both the world of words and the world of silence.”

The other quality needed is close contact with the real world in which people must bear pain and hurt. In Zaleski’s judgment, “The spiritual writer expunges suffering from his work at his peril, for suffering is the greatest spiritual mystery, a path to wisdom and a mode of salvation.”

This preface and an introduction written by Andre Dubus III are themselves worth the price of the book. Dubus, a distinguished novelist and short story writer, and a native of Haverhill, Massachusetts, also defines what a spiritual writer should be. Or, rather, what such a writer should not be.

He or she should avoid everything that implies being at a remove from the real world. It is vital to shun “the implied belief that spiritual means above everything, free of the smells and texture and unanswered questions of our lives, not through an act of transcendence but one seemingly of avoidance and escape.”

For Dubus, the proper subject of fine spiritual writing is the soul. That moves him to quote approvingly the editor’s definition: “I take the best spiritual writing to be prose or poetry that addresses, in a manner both profound and beautiful, the workings of the soul.”

Spiritual reading traditionally plays a vital role in the interior life of seekers after enlightenment. For me, it fills a need that otherwise remains unsatisfied. Whenever I go for long periods of time without reading anything that moves my heart, then my inner life remains dry. This is why I always welcome coming upon a good book, or receiving a recommendation from a friend steering me toward writing that will provide me needed inspiration.

When reading writings that speak to me, I find phrases worth underlining in red so as to make them stand out for later review. These words feed my spirit as I walk along the streets and look out at the varied scenes of each day’s outings. At times of silent reflection I seize on them interiorly in hope of renewed insight. If I am especially fortunate, these thoughts might say something further, not heard the first time I encountered them.

The authors mentioned here will serve purposes like these for some readers of this column. So will other writers represented in “The Best Spiritual Writing 2001”. The authors display a range of tastes, traditions, and styles that does further credit to the editor. They may not be everyone’s best writings of the current year, but readers will almost surely find among them authors who speak to their souls.

Richard Griffin

As recently as 1916, astronomers thought that the Milky Way was the entire universe. Now they know better: the Milky Way has been recognized as only one among more than a million other galaxies!

This fact I learned recently during a talk given by a university astrophysicist who stands at the forefront of research into the far reaches of the universe. Like other information coming from scientists who study the skies, this news filled me with awe.

To imagine the immensity of distances across galaxies stirs me to realize how easily I sell short the wonder of it all. Astronomers measure the breadth of the Milky Way as only one hundred thousand light years across. And there are so many other galaxies at least as wide.

The number of stars in our galaxy comes to one hundred billion, a figure easy to say but incredibly difficult to grasp.  

Our earth and the orbit in which it spins count for so little by comparison with the vast spaces and the other bodies within them. And even when our lives last long, their total time amounts to only one millisecond in the age of the universe.

Such knowledge challenges us to revise our notions of God and of our own lives. The temptation to narrow the divine to a merely human scale must be resisted if we are to preserve an appropriately awesome sense of the creator. And human life, set in a vast universe, emerges as even more precious than we usually think.

To not a few people, modern scientific discoveries about the size of the universe have been unwelcome and troubling. These findings, made possible in part by huge mountain telescopes, far from distrac6ing city lights, have threatened some familiar notions of religious faith. At least these discoveries put that faith to the test: is God really greater than the almost unimaginably vast universe?

But people of faith can embrace expanding knowledge of an expanding universe. We can interpret the growing scientific understanding of creation as a call to become discontent with the limits of our grasp of who God is. Whatever we think or say about the divine being, God goes beyond. That is what it means to call the creator infinite.

And an expansive view of the universe can help us appreciate more the wonder of our own lives. For each of us to exist at all, forces in the universe had to make it possible. You could easily imagine changes in those worlds that would have prevented our being born.

One moral of this way of thinking is to appreciate our life with deeper awareness. Some religious traditions regard “mindfulness” as an important value. I have some problems with this idea: to me, it can put too much pressure on people to have them always consciously aware of reality.

But certain times devoted to mindfulness can be valuable indeed. To choose times for reflecting on the wonder of our lives makes important sense. It can enrich our days to develop the habit of contemplation about who we are and how we fit in this vast universe. Contemplation of the vast spaces should not be the preserve of astronomers; it’s there for the rest of us to grasp at also.

When it comes to talking about meaning and ultimate answers, most scientists are reserved. Given that their profession is oriented toward observation, experimentation, and quantifiable data, this shyness is appropriate. But, since they are also human beings, they want to know more than their scientific disciplines can teach them. So they have their own views about issues that go beyond what they can measure or theorize about.

At the conclusion of his 1996 book “Our Evolving Universe,” my friend Malcolm Longair, an eminent astronomer who teaches at Cambridge University in England, tells of an exchange that he had with the chaplain of Trinity College there. After they had discussed recent findings of astronomy, the chaplain said “Whatever the correct theory for the origin of our Universe, I never cease to wonder at the work of God’s hands.”

In concluding his book, Professor Longair offers this simple and direct appraisal of the chaplain’s statement: “That seems to me a very healthy and proper attitude.”

Richard Griffin

A middle-aged friend (whom I will call Ann) tells of having to go home in the middle of the work day in order to check on her father. He recently came to live with her and Ann has assumed responsibility for his care. Now aged 91 and coping with Alzheimer’s disease in its early stage, he goes to an adult day health center most days, an arrangement that makes it possible for his daughter to carry on her professional work. But Ann still must leave work occasionally to make sure that he is all right.

Situations like this one have become commonplace in American families all over the country. Millions of adult daughters and sons, as well as other relatives and friends, find themselves responsible for the care of older people connected to them by blood and affection. This kind of elder care has become a rite of passage for most people as longevity has increased.

When asked what they feel as caregivers, many people spontaneously reply with the single word “stress.” Eldercare has acquired a reputation for thrusting its family providers into a highly stressful situation. Many who are living through it speak eloquently of the pressures that they feel.

For those who must balance workplace responsibilities with care of elders, the stress can be especially difficult. So, too, is the position of those who must at the same time care for children. These members of the so-called “sandwich generation” must manage their time so as to provide for both their elders and their kids.

Usually it is women that take the lead in providing elder care. Daughters, daughters-in-law, and other female family members or friends more often than not assume the main burden of caregiving. Some men fortunately emerge as exceptions to this generalization, especially the spouses of ailing wives, and take charge of their elder’s care.

Eldercare, then, is widely known to be demanding and often draining of available energy. Oftentimes, people feel pushed to the brink and wonder if they can continue bearing so much responsibility. The physical and psychic demands thrust upon them can seem unfair and insupportable.

However, many caregivers have discovered a different approach that can make a crucial difference. They have found that bringing spirituality to the task of caring for the needs of others can transform the experience into something humanly precious. The burdens remain but they become occasions of grace, pushing people toward a new level of being human.

In her perceptive book “Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders,” Mary Pipher writes eloquently about taking care of parents. In one passage she summarizes the experience thus: “Parents aging can be both a horrible and a wonderful experience. It can be the most growth-promoting time in the history of the family. Many people say, ‘I know this sounds strange, but that last year was the best year of my parents’ lives. I was my best. They were their best. Our relationships were the closest and strongest ever.’”

Mary Pipher knows what she is talking about, having gone through it herself. She does not try to sugarcoat the ordeal but discovers its deeper meaning. After a time, she came to recognize that the new relationship between parents and adult children can, contrary to expectation, become the source of blessing for both sides.

Of course, it takes some spiritual discipline in addition to wisdom. Caregivers must be patient enough to listen carefully to their elders as the latter give expression to the frustrations they will inevitably feel in times of physical and sometimes mental decline. Elders, for their part, will help if they can find spiritual motivation for accepting, gracefully if possible, their own need to be helped.

The spirituality of caregiving and care receiving can make a decisive difference in an experience that so often bears a bad name. In other passages in her book Mary Pipher presents it as the best opportunity that middle-aged caregivers will ever have for growth as human beings. “How we deal with parents,” she writes, “will influence the way we grow and develop in our life stages. This time is a developmental stage for us as well as for them. Our actions will determine our future lives.”

When eldercare is seen in these positive terms, one can learn how to make of it a vital human experience.

Richard Griffin

At times of crisis, Americans have special reason to appreciate groups of people who cultivate values. In this season of Jewish holidays, one can give fervent thanks for the presence in the Greater Boston region of the Jewish community. According to a new book, that community is flourishing now, in some ways more than ever. Nowadays, Jews in this region are enjoying an unprecedented confidence, a vibrant creativity, and a return to roots on the part of both older and younger people.

At least this is one message in “Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora,” written by Larry Tye, a distinguished local journalist and author. This volume is based on detailed investigation of Jewish communities in seven cities of the world, as well as of the state of Israel.

Tye writes, not just about ideas but also of family history and the lives of individuals. He shares with readers his own family’s story, much of it centering on Haverhill, the city where he grew up. The family’s original name was Tikotsky but his grandmother influenced her husband to change it to Tye.

His main point is that representative communities of Jews around the world –Düsseldorf, Dnepropetrovsk, Boston, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Paris, and Atlanta,  – should no longer be seen as merely people dispersed and waiting to go home to Israel. Instead, that notion of diaspora is out of date. Those communities are here to stay and have become signs of a new vitality.

This vitality is especially vibrant in Boston which “finds itself on the cusp of a wave of Jewish renewal.” To describe this renewal Tye focuses on three distinct spiritual elements that he calls “the three foundations of the new Jewish identity.”

The first is education. Jewish adults who, for a long time, were renowned for being much advanced in their knowledge of secular subjects – science and literature – in recent years have begun to remedy their ignorance of Torah and other religious matters vital to the Jewish tradition. Instead of beginning with their children, many adults have decided that it makes more sense to start with themselves.

This accounts for the success of programs such as Me’ah which in Hebrew means 100. That is the number of hours adults who choose this course spend in the classroom studying the Hebrew scriptures and the history of the Jewish experience. This study is requires serious commitment and work, an investment that has led many to a revitalization of their faith and religious practice.

The second basic foundation stone in the renewal of the Boston Jewish community is the service of God. This centers on the Hebrew concept of “chesed,” God’s loving kindness. This spirituality finds a focus in the synagogue where congregations experience vibrant community life and learn to imagine God in new ways.

The final experience is social action, acts of loving kindness on the part of these renewed people. Called in Hebrew “tzedakah,” this approach involves reaching out to others in need.

As an example of reaching out, Tye quotes a privileged woman who tutors children of color in Boston: “I feel like I am engaging in something that is very Jewish by working with these kids. There’s something spiritual to me about taking what I’ve always thought of as a Jewish values of helping out, and going out there and doing it.”

Boston is not alone among the Jewish communities that put into practice religious education, worship, and social justice. However, Jews in this region have pushed the agenda further than other places have done and the resulting reengagement has been more striking.

People of all faiths have reason to hail this flourishing of Jewish spirituality in our midst. It benefits everyone to realize that the inheritors of a great tradition are repossessing its riches.

Of course, there remain issues of importance still to be reckoned with. The Jewish community continues to grow smaller in numbers, in large part because of assimilation and intermarriage, now at least 34 percent of all marital unions. And some 50 percent of people Jews by heritage are unaffiliated or unconnected to the Jewish community.

Larry Tye, however, feels undeterred by these statistics. The way he envisions his community in the future is “fewer Jews but better Jews.”

The ferment underway among the Jews of Boston and other large population centers thus gives promise of leading to a spiritual community that is even more varied and vital.

Richard Griffin

Gretchen,

I had something else prepared for today but, in view of yesterday's horrific events, I am substituting the following column. I hope that it works.

In the continuing struggle between good and evil, September 11th was one of evil's most triumphant days. In their effort to spread mayhem and death around the lower end of Manhattan, terrorists succeeded beyond all expectations. The two tallest buildings fell into rubble, people burned to death or choked on clouds of black smoke, and a great city was panicked. And the Pentagon, the nerve center for American military forces, was wounded as well. It was action Hollywood-style but made astonishingly real.

After watching television during much of the morning last Tuesday, my wife and I walked at noon to our parish church. To take part in the Eucharist may not have been a logical response to the disaster, but to us it made sense. We felt the need to be with other people to share faith and to speak to God about the suffering imposed on so many of our fellow Americans.

The worship we offered also expressed our concern for those directly affected by the monstrous crime. We prayed for them, for those who love them, for the public officials responsible for the common good, and even for the murderers. Despite the strong temptation to seek vengeance, we asked the Lord to protect us against the desire to hate them and to make the blood of these enemies flow.

After the liturgy, outside the church's front door, we shared thoughts and feelings with others who had come for the same reasons as we did. Everybody felt somber in the face of such tragedy. People were as one in suffering shock at what had happened and in sorrowing for those lost to terrorist violence on a new scale.
It had helped us all to listen to the word of God and take part in the sacred meal.

As in peaceful times, I came away from these spiritual exercises fortified by faith that good will eventually triumph over evil. Despite the spectacular victories that evil keeps scoring, I believe that the promise of the great spiritual traditions of the world remains true – when everything is finally revealed, good will have overcome.

Meanwhile, spiritual seekers will have frequent occasion to cry out as King David did in the 89th Psalm: “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old?”  It seems as if the Lord has forgotten the need of His people for peace and security.

Meditating further on the horrific events of last Tuesday, I focus on three themes for their importance in the spiritual life.

1. The need to rid ourselves of illusion. We cannot go on naively believing that we ourselves and other people too are nothing but good. Something is terribly askew in human beings. The deep hatred in the embittered hearts of so many people gives the lie to easy optimism about ourselves. My spiritual tradition has passed on this belief about the human condition, that we have a fallen nature. Personal experience makes it easy for me to believe it. When you look at the world as it really is and its history, you can see how flawed we are.The awful evidence is all around us. Consider, for example, that an estimate twenty-seven million people in the modern world are held as slaves. The world that we love loves violence and one must deal with this fact.
2. The vital importance of hope, as contrasted with optimism. Hope is grounded in God; optimism in human beings. Though we cannot afford to believe that things will always turn out for the best, still we can remain hopeful about the human prospect. The spirit tells us that the world belongs to God and God knows what we are like and God still loves us. With divine grace, we can rise above the tendency to worship ourselves and instead learn to love other people better.
3. Our nation's responsibility to use its power and share its resources for the other people of the world. We Americans have the lion's share of the world's goods. Many other people live with only the crumbs they can gather from this rich earth while most of us enjoy what are unimaginable luxuries to them.

While this does not at all excuse murderous acts of terrorism or even provide a convincing rationale for them, it can remind us of our responsibility toward brothers and sisters around the globe.

Richard Griffin