Radiance and Shadows

Some twenty years ago, a neighbor who then lived across the street from us made a snide remark about me that I found, at one and the same time, irritating and instructive. Like other such bad-spirited observations, this one from a fellow with a reputation for being quite curmudgeonly told me something important about myself.

The neighbors had gathered outside after dinner, and the question of my absence from the gathering came up. When told that I was talking a course at a university that evening, the fellow observed with almost a sneer: “Richard is always trying to improve himself.”

This kind of remark lends itself to an obvious retort – “ Would that you, dear sir, might do something to improve your own disagreeable personality.” But this kind of rejoinder is not the point here.

Whatever his motive, that man had correctly identified one of my main impulses. And in holding it up to ridicule, he did me the service of revealing one of my traits that, in fact, had loomed large in my spiritual history.

Of course, it was more complicated than that – I have always been interested in knowledge for its own sake, as well as whatever  learning might lead to self-improvement. But, still, his stinging remark pointed to an issue important during much of my life.

Long before that incident, in the early days of my introduction to the spiritual life as an adult, I had set out at self-improvement by systematically rooting out my own imperfections. At that point, the desire to be perfect was so strong in me that I took pains to rid myself of every fault. My constant effort was to better myself morally and spiritually.

Some journal entries from those days long ago now make for  embarrassing reading. I blush with shame when I read such passages. One sentence, written during a retreat lasting thirty days, reveals my quest for self improvement.

In a reflection after a meditation on Judgment Day, I wrote:

“I see now that the delusions of my own heart are very real and very dangerous for my future safety unless I can ferret them out from their secret recesses.” This sentence, overblown in its rhetoric, suggests that I was involved in an all-out effort to tear myself apart in searching for my own faults.

Only many years later did I become reconciled to the stark fact that I would never become perfect and would have to live like other people, with a combination of personal virtue along with a fair number of bad impulses and actions. After deciding that the quest for abstract perfection was not what the spiritual life really meant after all, I settled on becoming merely human as my ideal.

Too many Americans consider spirituality as a means to self-improvement. Such a mistake comes easily: if you walk into a book store and look for books on spirituality, you will often find them shelved under the heading “self-help.” And there is no doubt that genuine spiritual life can better our character, making us more loving and honest.

But, still, spirituality is something worthwhile in itself and using it for other purposes can distort its meaning. Elizabeth Lesser, the author of The New American Spirituality, lists three reasons why the drive for self-improvement can even prove harmful. 1)You can become morbidly obsessed with yourself;  2) it is self-defeating to try to escape your basic character; and 3) you may cease to care about the welfare of the community.

Instead of being focused on any self-fix, Lesser advises her readers: “Don’t worry about being good. Instead, discover how both good and bad live within you. Deeply accept the shadows even as you seek the light.”

Similarly, in a journal passage written years ago on the occasion of a vacation visit to New York City, I made something of the same point, not without some rhetorical exaggeration about allowing myself to behave badly.

This is how I framed the issue then: “To me, the moral dilemma of life is the fundamental choice to live by faith or not. When you do live by faith, then you can behave badly, but you will not necessarily go wrong. Trusting yourself, and the merciful love at the heart of the world, you can find your way.”

Richard Griffin

BC Forum

“There should be healing of the soul and healing of the body.” Jerome Groopman, physician and writer, quoted this line from a prayer said in Jewish synagogues every Saturday.

Only recently did he ask himself why, in this prayer for healing, mention of the soul comes before the body. He now sees wisdom in this word order: “a time will come when the body will not survive but the soul can always be healed.”

Dr. Groopman made these statements in a forum held two weeks ago entitled “The Challenge of Medical Knowledge” and sponsored by Boston College and the Atlantic Monthly. This forum was the first in a series of discussions under the heading “Dialogue: Belief and Non-Belief in Modern American Culture.”

This event has taken its inspiration from a series of public conversations initiated by Cardinal Martini, the archbishop of Milan whose forums have attracted widespread attention. Underlying these latter discussions is the view that “there is in each of us – whatever our religion; even in a bishop – a believer and a non-believer.”

Dr. Groopman’s co- presenter was Sherwin Nuland, a Yale Medical School-based surgeon who is the author of “How We Die,” among other books. He calls himself an agnostic but, at the same time, he professes a spirituality that takes inspiration from human love. Though he said “I have never been able to convince myself that life has inherent meaning,” he finds rich meaning in the human spirit’s longing for love.

Unlike Dr. Groopman, Dr. Nuland professes not to be a believer in God. At the same time, however, he admits “The wonder of the power of religion has never left me.” And he resists strongly the idea that the physician is like God.

He agrees with Dr. Groopman about the need for doctors to resist “this tremendous intoxication with power.”

In Jerome Groopman’s view, “within everyone there is a divine spark.” It is this spark that makes the practice of medicine “a truly humanistic profession.” He does not feel tension between his roles as doctor and as a person of faith. Rather, he draws inspiration from his own faith even as he quotes approvingly the theologian Paul Tillich who said, “the basis of all true faith is doubt.”

Dr. Groopman also finds inspiration in the faith of his patients. Among them was a woman named Elizabeth who died of breast cancer. In her he saw “an example of abiding faith that allowed her to pass through the storm without flinching.”

The death of a boy whom he calls Matt tested his faith, however. After recovering from leukemia, this boy died from AIDs contracted from a blood transfusion. “I found myself empty over such a horrific tragedy,” Dr. Groopman confessed.  

Dr. Nuland, for his part, feels vulnerable when his patients die. Though intellectually he recognizes that doctors cannot be godlike, he still says, “I always think it is my fault.” He adds, “There is no faith to help me in these situations.” But he wrestles with the moral issues around medical care, death and dying. Part of his approach is to recognize the biases in himself toward other people.

Returning to an earlier theme, Dr. Groopman stressed the limitations in the power of the physician. He thinks that physicians must be prepared to step back from power and finds this position strongly supported by the religion, notably in the writings of the rabbis who point out the dangers of egoism. Idolatry, after all, means the worship of the self.

Forum moderator Margaret Steinfels, editor of Commonweal magazine, asked about devising an “ars moriendi” (“art of dying”), reviving a medieval way of helping people prepare for death. In reply, Dr. Nuland said “We doctors must restore our pastoral role.” Instead of relying on technology for everything, doctors could begin by “accompanying”dying people when it becomes clear they cannot be cured.

In the question period audience members came forward to ask about prayer and evil.

Both physicians remain extremely skeptical about prayer at a distance. They do not think that someone else can help you by their prayers. Dr. Groopman calls prayer “a mechanism to look deeply into your heart and mind.” Dr. Nuland says it as a way to exalt the deity and to express love.

About evil, Dr. Groopman acknowledged our lack of understanding and quoted a rabbi who once said, “God exists where man lets him in.”

Richard Griffin

Dynamic Couple

Barbara Washburn and Brad Washburn, married sixty years, would be judged dynamic people even if he were not ninety years old and she but four years younger. Keeping up with the energetic repartee between them as I tried to recently, as they talked about their lives, proved a challenge.

The two of them are widely known, with Brad famous throughout the world for his expertise in aerial mapping, among other  things.

When she was a young mother, Barbara became  the first woman to climb Mount McKinley, North America’s tallest peak. “When I got home, Mayor Curley gave me the keys to the city,” she recalls.

Brad first climbed that mountain in 1942, and is the only person to have reached its twenty thousand, three-hundred-and-twenty-foot summit three times.

These adventures are among the many that have marked their life together. They have operated according to an activist  motto formulated by Brad: “If there is something you can do, or think you can do, do it.” To top it off, he quotes Goethe: “Boldness has power and magic in it.”

Now resident at Brookhaven, the continuing care retirement community in Lexington, these energetic partners continue to seize opportunities for new involvement in the larger world. I got acquainted with them during a recent weekend in Portland, Maine where they were giving talks at a conference of business executives. Both the Washburns spoke eloquently about their private life together as well as about their world-wide adventures.

It’s not as if they have not known adversity. “I’ve been recycled three or four times,” says Brad, referring to the triple bypass surgery he underwent in his eighties and a later aneurysm. And Barbara became desperately ill in Katmandu and had to be rushed to a medical center elsewhere for emergency treatment that came just in time.

Experiences like these have led the Washburns to adopt this as a philosophy – “You’ve got to have a sense of humor to get on in life.”

Lightheartedly, Brad attributes his initial interest in mountain climbing to a desire to get rid of an allergy. “Hay fever made me climb Mount Washington,” he claims, and at the top he found none of it.

Beside his reputation as an explorer and intrepid mountaineer, Brad is known as the founder of the Boston Museum of Science and first director, lasting forty-one years in that position. It started in a location in Boston’s Back Bay and was then known as the New England Museum of Natural History.

He takes great pride in the growth of this institution from its modest beginnings. When he started, the museum had a budget of forty-four thousand dollars. Now it boasts a budget of thirty-nine million and attracts 1.6 million visitors a year.

He first met Barbara when she applied for a job as his secretary. Before taking the job, she was convinced she could get something better. Brad, struck by her personality, had to call her for fourteen straight days before she finally agreed to it.

On her first day at work, she recalls, the great zeppelin, the Hindenburg, sailed over Boston. That was in 1937 and this airship was on the way to Lakehurst, New Jersey, where a spectacular fire would destroy it.

At the Portland conference, Brad showed slides of the splendid aerial photographs for which he is famous. He has flown over the tallest peaks on earth and made records of them much prized by geographers and other scientists. He is remarkably skilled at this art as well as courageous enough to explore forbidding heights. He boasts of having made 697 helicopter landings in the Grand Canyon.

I found these two elder adventurers not only dynamic personalities, but also people glad to share their experience with others. At the conference, they took obvious pleasure in talking with those younger than they, and joining in their social events.

Though their level of activity does not involve the risk-taking it once did, they remain vitally interested in life around them. Their minds are well stocked with the adventures of a long life together, a storehouse from which they draw readily for the benefit of others as well as their own enjoyment.

Over the years, they have received much attention in the media. As far back as 1947 Brad made a movie for RKO and their exploits have been documented in many other formats. But again, they do not seem spoiled by all the publicity. Instead, they keep at their projects, Brad writing and taking care of his mountains, Barbara playing vigorous tennis and taking long walks.

They have managed not only to remain married but they give evidence of enjoying one another’s company. The secret of their staying together in marriage? “We did a lot of things together,” they suggest.

That such vigorous people have adjusted to one another’s ways for sixty years attests to remarkable flexibility of character. No wonder conference attenders several decades younger than the Washburns listened to them with fascination as they described their adventures, public and private.

Richard Griffin

Thanksgiving 2000

The autumn leaves – muted red, pallid yellow, and crisp brown – continue to hold on precariously. One nearby tree when in sunlight still features a large spray gone from bright crimson to a kind of orange red.

Some, though, have already dropped, fallen to earth and ready to enter the ground in the unending cycle of the seasons. Who knows where the time goes?, asks the pop song now become old. We are like the leaves, gifted with a fragile beauty.

Thanksgiving, the New England holiday par excellence, has arrived once more. Old and young prepare to gather around family tables for the feast and renew bonds of affection or, at least, consanguinity. Others in their isolation unfortunately must make do, despite being left out.

My neighborhood comes together each year for a communal meal, cooked by local residents and served forth with festivity. Our school hall brings old and young alike to partake in this ritual of food and greeting. Some enterprising burghers come from other parts of the city, attracted by succulent food and the spirit of our community.

Our immediate neighborhood has much to celebrate, too. A new resident, Peter, was born two weeks ago and now graces our street. He is part of a phalanx of young children who have brought us new life. Their comings and goings offer a welcome spectacle to onlookers: Who could not love the image of the local father who carries his five-year old daughter high on his shoulders as he takes her to school each morning?

We also celebrate the memory of a long-time resident who died a few months ago. A Harvard professor of Buddhist studies, Mas brought to our locale not only diversity but a courtesy and grace that we came to value. The stylish Japanese garden around his home attests to the heritage he shared with us.

Nor can some of us forget Maud, a flamboyant personality now three years departed. Her house, up for sale for many weeks, has been reported bought by newcomers.

The modern Jewish sage, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, once wrote, “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”   That sharp-eyed insight provides spiritual power for appreciating Thanksgiving Day. It’s such a favorable time for remembering blessings received throughout long lives.

Letting the memories roll, I review the gifts of the years. Love, clearly the most precious, heads the list, having encompassed me from the beginning. As the great painter and muralist Marc Chagall has said: “In our life there is a single color which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”

Our Thanksgiving table brings together the family members who, not seen during much of the year, remain cherished. We share a heritage that binds us together through the joys and sufferings experienced as individuals.

Friends galore who stay scattered remain lodged in my affections. Having just celebrated the seventieth birthday of David, based in Philadelphia, I harbor fresh thoughts of his personal gifts. At the Chinese restaurant where some seventy-five of his family and friends came together in his honor, I legitimately claimed the greatest longevity of friendship. We first met in 1949, long before any of his colleagues got to know him.

I also celebrate my privileged place in later life that has allowed me to know so many of my age peers and my seniors. My affections go out to the residents of Cambridge Homes, the assisted living residence where I have come to appreciate people who are aging gracefully and with wisdom and courage. Talking with them gives an added edge to my life.

And I toast the readers who contact me to speak their minds about columns. A Mormon bishop based in Nigeria comes to mind. He emailed me from that once distant part of the world to express appreciation for an article describing a visit to the new temple in Belmont.

Thanksgiving stirs in me the instinct to appreciate all the giftedness of existence. As Rabbi Heschel said, being is blessing and holiness. The fallen leaves are signs of a world full of beauty, ever unstable, ever renewed. They can speak to us of a hope that goes beyond death toward transformation.

A whole lot is wrong with our world, and, with time, some of this wrong gets worse. Perhaps that suggests the need to feel thankful for the many people old and young, who risk much to give the deprived some chance for having reason to give thanks.

I remember my friend Brinton who could avail herself of constant comfort. Instead, she leaves academia and ventures forth into troubled parts of the world to help poor people develop the tools they need to get a fair share of the world’s goods. She will be spending Thanksgiving in South Africa with new friends, in a landscape whose leaves are not brightened by autumn but still display for her the color of love.

Richard Griffin

Loving Self

Last week I traveled to Philadelphia in order to celebrate the seventieth birthday of my longtime friend David. At the end of a festive dinner at the city’s leading Chinese restaurant, many family members and friends in the group rose to speak about their feelings for him.

We cited the numerous virtues found in David’s character and recalled experiences through which our affection for him grew strong. Several of the speakers, men and women both, finished by saying explicitly that they loved him, a sentiment that struck a resonant chord in my own heart.

David thus received compelling evidence that his friends really do love him. Though it does not always work this way, I like to think that this outpouring of affection worked to strengthen the love that David has for himself.

Jesus told his listeners, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This commandment, rooted in the Hebrew Bible, is honored in virtually all the religious traditions of the world. It urges on spiritual seekers an ideal that enhances the value of human life. It tells us of our duty and privilege to treat others as we would wish to be treated.

What lies almost hidden in this sublime commandment, however, is its assumption that we ought to love ourselves first. Caring deeply about ourselves is the bedrock on which this religious requirement rests, the starting point for a love that embraces all other people.

Ironically, many people have grown up in religious surroundings that taught them a kind of self-hatred. In the name of spirituality, they learned to be harsh and unrelenting in judging themselves. For reasons that seemed spiritual, they became their own worst critics as they habitually found fault with their own actions and even with their own thoughts and feelings.

Thus, not a few people whose upbringing has been religious do not show much compassion toward themselves. While knowing about the teaching of the great spiritual leaders, they still find it difficult, even impossible, to treat themselves with tenderness. Instead they often feel a gnawing guilt that makes their life much less rewarding than it could be.

Burdened with that guilt, many people think less of themselves than do their friends. They dare not believe the appreciation that friends and family members feel for them. Instead they stay fixated on their own faults, continuing to blame themselves for past sins and mistakes.

Religion often seems to approve of this stance. “Self-love” is often advanced as something that clashes with spiritual well-being. Masters of the spiritual life typically teach their pupils to overcome their self-love by humility and acts of penance.

Used by these spiritual guides, however, the expression “self-love” means something different from what Jesus meant in his commandment. What it points to here is egotism,  the pride that cuts us off from God and other human beings. It suggests an unhealthy focus on oneself that narrows the soul.

Both good mental health and a flourishing spiritual life lead toward an appreciation of ourselves as loveable and loved. Genuine spirituality encourages us to have a high esteem for ourselves, to admire what we are. It teaches us to reject the inner voice that says “If other people really knew what I’m like inside, they could never love me.”

Of course, this should not limit our ability to recognize our own genuine faults. When we have done something wrong, feeling guilty is altogether appropriate. But this feeling of guilt remains compatible with a strong love for ourselves. In fact, a true self-love can free us to admit it when we have done wrong.

Given the wonderful way in which the life of a human person has been created, you might think that loving oneself, being compassionate toward ourselves, would be easy. But, in fact, a proper-self love has to be developed and cultivated. It is part of growing toward spiritual maturity and is a gift that becomes more precious as life goes on.

As the young pastor in Georges Bernanos’ Dairy of a Country Priest says: “How easy it is to hate oneself! True grace is to forget. Yet if pride could die in us, the supreme grace would be to love oneself in all simplicity – as one would love any one of those who themselves have suffered and loved in Christ.”

Richard Griffin

Change in Mid Life

What are successful business leaders most interested in as they approach middle age? The brief answer to this question is personal change.

At least that’s what I discovered from a group of such leaders recently when they called upon me to consult with them. In advance of our meeting, I had prepared materials about growing older, along with information about the age revolution that is likely to transform American society in the next three decades.

But they focused much more intently on their own careers than I had expected. Several of these company presidents were feeling themselves at a turning point and envisioned the time when they would sell their businesses and set off in a different direction.

To my surprise, these leaders were fascinated by what they read in my own vita. Evidence of the sharp transitions in my career stirred in them questions about how those changes happened. How, they wondered, could I have moved from a long career as a member of a religious order and an ordained priest all the way to living as a layman – as a husband, father, and a person employed in the secular world?

What was the secret to being able to make this leap in middle life? Surely I must have some tips for other people anxious to embrace major life change. One man asked: “What would you, at age 72, say to yourself at age 36 about your own future?”

My answers at our meeting were more halting than this column would suggest. To a large extent the focus on my own life caught me off guard. But since our meeting of a few weeks ago, I have continued to reflect on the questions raised then. Here, then, is an indication of what I would say in response to this inquiry.

One caution, however, deserves mention. The answers that I give here are more rational than the real life process itself was. Looking back, one can analyze the events of life coolly and clearly in a way that is difficult to see them as they are happening. In daily life emotion plays a much larger role than we tend to remember later. As one approaches middle age, elemental forces often drive us forward without our being fully aware of the direction in which they are leading us. At least, that’s the way it was with me.

The first thing I would advise middlers interested in personal change is to write a memoir. A written review of their lives up to the present time usually proves a powerful tool for plotting change. Support for this view came to my attention recently from the Odyssey program at Harvard Business School, an educational approach to mid-career change for which HBS charges $10, 500. Those who enroll are required to write such a memoir.

I found the writing experience enlightening indeed. Writing about my life enabled me to see patterns previously hidden. Review of events both outside and within opened themes and motifs not evident before. As a tool for enhancing self-knowledge, the autobiographical enterprise is uniquely valuable.

Another major influence for me was paying more attention to my dreams. I began the habit of placing a pencil and paper next to my bed so as to write the dreams down before they could escape like fish not securely hooked. Again, I found in these nocturnal adventures symbols and patterns that revealed more of myself.

Closely connected with this opening to imaginative life was a gradual increase in emotional expressiveness. Both my home upbringing and my religious order training had combined to make me rather rigid as a young man. But I later learned to trust friendships with both men and women as the source of a richer affective life. These emotional ties with other people  enabled me to accept change and even seek it out as desirable.

I also allowed external events to have an impact upon my thinking and feeling. Within the church, the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) radically changed the way I looked at the spiritual world. So did the turbulence within American society during the latter 1960s and the first half of the 1970s. Mainline institutions entered into crisis in those years and came to seem much less secure.

This kind of social change had the effect of shaking some of my rigid outlooks. So did living in Europe for two years among colleagues and others from different nations. They did not see things the way I did and that variety of thinking helped loosen my approach to the world.

Obviously, these few paragraphs cannot do more than suggest more detailed answers to a far-reaching question. However, they may point the way toward an agenda for men and women to whom personal change has become a priority. Much more needs to be said but these fragments from one person’s experience  may prove helpful as a start.

Richard Griffin

New Zealand Pastor

Sometimes the simplest messages carry the most precious spiritual meaning. That truth applies to words heard two summers ago by a young woman college student from the United States who was working in New Zealand on assignment for a student-run travel publication.

One Sunday, she felt homesick and went to church in the town where she was staying. Her feelings about being away from home were soon soothed when she heard the message from the pastor. (I have this account from my own pastor, Monsignor Dennis Sheehan who recently told it to a group of new collegians, their parents, and others in our congregation.)

Addressing his congregation, the New Zealand pastor made three points. First, you are welcome. This he intended to be, not just for the people as a group, but for each individual. He wanted them to feel that, wherever they had come from, whatever the color of their skin or economic standing, they belonged there. The college student felt this pledge directed to her and she took comfort in it. The words made her feel at home, something she longed to feel at that time.

Secondly, the pastor told his listeners, “You are loved.” Again, he meant that each individual there was loved by God and by the community of faith. Each person could count on being appreciated for herself or himself, not because of their status in society or for some other distinction.

The pastor’s third point was, “You are needed.” This adds another dimension to the love pledged earlier. It meant that people were also valued for the personal gifts that they brought to church. Being loved themselves, they were now urged to reach out to others in need.

Clearly, this was a wise pastor who knew how to speak to people’s deepest needs. His was an approach that emphasized the positive and responded to the need everyone feels to be appreciated.

Being welcome, being loved, and being needed are precious human gifts and also find their roots in spiritual attitudes. When extended as wishes to others, they give evidence of something that goes beyond the surface of human life.

A time when I felt overwhelmed with hospitality takes me back in memory to Mexico City. There on a first-time visit I was welcomed into the home of a friend who had been a college classmate. I cannot forget the words he then spoke to me: “Mi casa es su casa”  (“My home is your home”), the first time anyone had said that to me.

And he followed through, giving me the best bedroom in his house, serving me delicious meals, and plying me with heady margaritas to drink. From the graceful way he made me feel welcome, I knew myself, after many years of separation, still his dear friend.

Many experiences of feeling loved stay lodged in memory. Among them, I will cite only one – the birth of my daughter. That ecstatic event evidenced for me an altogether special gift from a loving God who gave to my wife and me, in our mature years, a child healthy and full of promise.

The experience of feeling needed also has been mine many times. Probably that awareness reached fullest expression on the day of my ordination to the priesthood. In that rite, the community of faith was announcing that my services were recognized and accepted. Even though many years later I decided to leave this first calling, the memory of being needed remains for me a source of value.

As a reader of these words, you also can go back in memory to your own peak times when you have known yourself to be welcome, to be loved, and to be needed. If you sift these experiences for their deeper meaning, you can perhaps discover their spiritual roots. Deep down, they are signs of our value as human beings. Our lives do indeed go beyond appearances and have in them a meaning and a destiny that ennoble us.

The New Zealand pastor spoke a message simple yet profound. He also expressed an agenda for his community of faith –making everyone indeed feel welcome, loved, and needed. If we ourselves could adopt that triple agenda in our dealings with other people, would we not go a long way toward enriching our own lives as well?

Richard Griffin