The Vietnam War Ends

The Vietnam War ended twenty-five years ago this week. This anniversary of an event that roiled American society and changed so many lives cannot pass without mov-ing me to memory and reflection. Looking back on this time of turmoil, I recall myself as caught up, for the first time, in a struggle against the policies of my own national gov-ernment and moved, with others, to take previously undreamed of action to reverse those policies.

Until the war heated up in the middle 1960s and the United States became more and more deeply embroiled, our national involvement in Vietnam seemed to me a matter of only slight concern. Since the mid-point of the century, after all,  my life had been caught up with the search for God and the service of the church.

What did this spiritual quest have to do with political and military matters, no matter how pressing? During much of the previous war, that in Korea, I had been living in monastic seclusion and, literally, did not even know that the war was going on!

From a vary different vantage point, however, namely that of a university chap-lain, I began to look at American politics in an entirely new way. Now the connections between my religious faith and the actions of my government started to emerge more clearly. Prodded by students, colleagues, and others for whom those connections were already clear, I saw the Bible and the teachings of the church as a call to take a stand against an unjust war.

So I joined others in demonstrations and used my position as a platform for speak-ing out against bombing and other military measures that seemed to me in violation of basic morality and the teachings of Christ. I remember sitting down in the streets of Bos-ton outside a marine recruiting center in protest; another time I sat outside the Kennedy Building, along with thousands of others, barely escaping  arrest and the Mace used against many of my fellow protestors.

I also went to Washington more than once for mass demonstrations against the policies of Johnson and Nixon. The latter’s decision to continue bombing of North Viet-nam during Christmas of 1972 especially stirred me to righteous indignation. This action seemed to me clearly to violate principles of justice and peace proclaimed by the church at the Second Vatican Council concluded only a few years before.

At this time I published an article blasting a fellow Jesuit, John McLaughlin, who was one of President Nixon’s assistants. He had attempted a religious justification of Nixon’s bombings of dikes in North Vietnam in a way that I judged outrageous.

In 1971, I made a decision that amounted to the most radical action of my life. I accepted an invitation to go with a group of forty religious war protesters to Paris in order to talk with leaders of the Viet Cong and North Vietnam governments. Only later, after my return, did a lawyer friend inform me that what we did was in violation of United States law and made us liable to prosecution and prison sentences.

While in Paris we did discuss peace with our “enemies” and took part with them in religious services. A photo of me with two Vietnamese priests was widely circulated and I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times which quoted them about the freedom of religion promised them by their government.

I also carried with me to Paris a secret plan from the then governor of Massachu-setts to propose to the North Vietnamese that, if their government agreed to release pris-oners from Massachusetts,  the Commonwealth would not send any more of its citizens to fight in Vietnam. My instructions from a staff person in the governor’s office were to wait for a signal to proceed with this proposal.

In fact, the go-ahead did come and I passed the word on to a delegation member. However, nothing further happened: the North Vietnamese presumably decided it not worth pursuing. This is the first time I have revealed the plan, one that even to me now seems highly unlikely.

As I look back on this series of adventures into new territory, religious and politi-cal, I cannot help but feel mixed. My younger self was admittedly somewhat naïve. I knew little or nothing about the world of power politics. The Paris expedition in particular now strikes me as a mixture of zeal and simplicity.

However, I feel gratified about having taken decisive action in accordance with my faith convictions about non-violence and peace, convictions that still mean much to me. The cause was just and my friends and I had acted in the great American tradition of civil disobedience. With all the ambiguities that are involved in great public events, our protest may have helped change our nation and bring to an end a conflict that our nation should not have been fighting in the first place.

Richard Griffin

The Cannonization of Ronald Reagan

Last week I witnessed the “Cannonization” of Ronald Reagan. His biographer, devoted fan, and long-time friend, Lou Cannon, gave a speech in which he extolled the former president as one of the greatest ever to occupy the White House. At the very least, “his successors have made him look ten feet tall,” said Cannon as he listed the man’s vir-tues and praised his accomplishments as president.

“I was going to keep on writing about Reagan,” Cannon promised himself long ago, “until I got it right.” When Reagan himself heard about this promise, he commented, “Good line.” No wonder Cannon called the most recent of his books about the man “The Role of a Lifetime.”

“Ronald Reagan was a success in everything he did,” Cannon told his audience. As this biographer explained it, Reagan’s success came about for three main reasons. First, “Ronald Reagan was very happy with himself.” That quality armed him against criticism and freed him to follow his own instincts.

Secondly, he had a type of intelligence that enabled him to deal superbly with other people. Borrowing from theories about intelligence developed by Harvard School of Education professor Howard Gardner, Cannon admits that Reagan ranked low on logical intelligence but very high on interpersonal and language intelligence. From that flowed his trademark way of communicating – by way of telling stories.

Thirdly, he strictly limited his agenda. In 1980 as he began his presidency, Reagan resolved to accomplish three things: cut taxes, increase military spending, and balance the budget. Even his champion Cannon admits that the third of these objectives could not be accomplished if the first two were. Reagan, however, did not mind settling

for the first two: “I think it will be great if we accelerate the arms race,” Cannon quotes him as saying.

Many other things that interest other presidents did not interest him. Among them was politics, at least the kind of detail that tends to fascinate political junkies. Nor did he much care about whole areas of government. Cannon recalled Reagan meeting his own secretary of Housing and Urban Development and calling him “Mr. Mayor.”  This gaffe was understandable when considering that Reagan, during his eight years of presidency, never once visited HUD.

According to Cannon, Reagan’s ability as a negotiator was far greater than the experts thought or the public believed.  He negotiated skillfully with Gorbachev and the Reykjavik negotiations, regarded by many as a near disaster, were actually another deci-sive step toward arms control. Both men agreed that nuclear weapons should be done away with. “The world is safer today because Reagan was president,” concludes Cannon.

Many more of Reagan’s virtues came in for discussion during this talk at Har-vard’s Kennedy School of Government. Students, most of them undergrads, asked further details about the Reagan presidency. Like the speaker, they showed themselves almost entirely positive about the man and offered hardly any criticisms from the historical record.

Lou Cannon himself did not go so far as to exempt Reagan from all defect, how-ever. He admits that the former president cared too little for detail. He was also an incon-sistent conservative, his biographer says, allowing his pragmatism to blunt his convictions on some issues such as abortion. Reagan was admittedly poor on the AIDS issue. Perhaps most telling, he naively believed  the old saw about a rising economic tide lifting all boats.

The most moving statement made by Lou Cannon came at the beginning of his talk. “I want people to realize that there is still a stigma attached to Alzheimer’s disease,” he told the audience solemnly. “It’s a public health crisis, “ he added as he appealed to the audience for attention to this devastating disease now afflicting the former president.

By way of personal response to the above, let me agree with Cannon completely in his remarks about Alzheimer’s. I, too, feel for President Reagan and his family in the suffering that afflicts them currently. For me, Ronald Reagan’s 1994 letter on the subject of his own illness was moving and amounted to a public service.

But much of the rest of Cannon’s presentation went against my own convictions about Reagan’s presidency. Unlike one of my neighbors who told me recently, “Reagan was my hero,” this man was my least favorite president. I am only too well aware that he was wildly popular with the American public at large. The last poll of his presidency showed 63 percent rating him positively.

One of the prerogatives of later years, however, is to assert one’s own judgment in the face of majority views. No one ever accuses me of being normal anymore.  I continue to hold against Reagan, the president, that many of his policies changed our society for the worse. My biggest complaint is that he espoused economic policies that drove deeper the wedge between rich and poor Americans. And that’s just the beginning of my qua-rrels with him.

Richard Griffin

Easter Bunny

How did it ever happen that the bunny became associated with Easter? What historical connection is there between this small animal and the central Christian feast of the liturgical year? Why did the Easter bunny take hold in the Christian tradition and remain a staple of popular celebration right up until today?

These are questions posed to me recently by a colleague known for his wide knowledge of world history. Despite all of his learning and scholarly achievements, he did not know the answer nor, to my embarrassment, did I. A lifetime of being steeped in Christian symbolism had never moved me to focus on this connection. I had to plead ignorance by reason of never having asked myself these questions.

One easy answer that leaps to mind is the rabbit’s well-known ability to procreate. The bunny has become notorious for its fertility. People who reside in areas where they live are often surprised to see how many come forth each spring.

There may be something to this answer – the abundance of the species perhaps has some imaginative link with the central reality of Easter. Insignificant as this animal remains, the bunny does suggest life abounding.

But the historical record reveals a different meaning. According to the “Encyclopedia of Religion,” a standard reference work, ancient cultures attached meanings to this animal that lent themselves to adoption by Christianity.

In ancient Middle-East cultures the rabbit was taken to be a sign of death and re-birth. In Mesopotamian and Syrian society of some two thousand years before Christ, this animal was adopted as a symbol for some kind of rising again after dying. “In Egypt,” according to this source, “it was probably associated with Osiris , the god of rebirth and immortality.”

Later in the world of Greece and Rome, “as belief in immortality became more popular, the hare was increasingly used in funerary art.” Its meaning in ancient societies of the Middle-East thus made it appropriate for the first Christians to take it over as one of Easter’s emblems.

Along with the egg, more clearly a sign of new life, the rabbit was made to serve as a reminder of Christ’s rising from the dead. The author of an article on the subject from the encyclopedia cited above notes that “early Christians accepted this rabbit symbolism and depicted rabbits on gravestones.” I myself have never seen this animal depicted on an old gravestone in America, but perhaps such a motif would be worth looking for.

Thus the bunny is one of many creatures of the world taken over by the early Christians and used in connection with Christ. In that, the bunny is like the fish, the lily, water, and fire. All of these creatures, and many others, were seen as reminders of the central mysteries of the Christian faith. They became part of a sacramentalized world where everything could serve as full of meaning because redeemed by Christ the Savior.

Despite the bunny’s connection with Easter, however, the Christian church seems never to have explored in depth its symbolism or made much of it in popular piety. As another author in  “The Encyclopedia of Religion”  notes, “although adopted in a number of Christian cultures, the Easter bunny has never received any specific Christian interpretation.”

This statement is supported by personal experience. Never in my lifetime have I heard an authoritative Christian voice speak of the bunny as an important symbol. It re-mains strong in popular culture – greeting cards for Easter certainly make wide use of it, oftentimes ridiculously. But no one seems to take the connection of rabbit and resurrection seriously for its religious value.

Admittedly, this information about one of the symbols of Easter may not have a major impact upon people for whom the Easter faith is important. It may serve to remind us, however, that, in the eyes of believers, every creature belongs to a world that has been redeemed.

All of God’s creatures, bunny rabbits included, have a part to play in the great drama of dying and rising again. They can imaginatively move us closer to the religious mysteries by which people of faith live. Like people of long ago, we too can allow our-selves to feel the mythic power of humble creatures like the rabbit as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Richard Griffin

Disability and Spirituality

What kind of spirituality do people with life-long disabilities practice? How does God seem to them?

These are the main questions driving research done by two faculty members of the Wes-ton Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge. Reporting on their findings last week in a talk entitled “Guts and Grace: ^The Spiritual Lives of People with Disabilities,” psychologist Katherine Clark and theologian Francine Cardman announced results that overturn expectations.

From the beginning it should be understood that the two researchers deliberately sought out people who have enjoyed a high level of worldly success. The thirty men and women chosen do not, therefore, amount to a sample that represents the disability community at large. However, those chosen for the study do reveal some spiritual attitudes that have significance for others with or without major disabilities.

For purposes of the research, the professors set out “to discover  patterns of spiritual resilience in people who live with life-long disability.”  They looked to see what people set their hearts on. In doing so, they defined spirituality as “beliefs, practices, relationships, and orientations to life that embody a person’s overall way of being in the world.”

The first question asked of the thirty was what they thought about the reasons for their disability. Why do bad things happen to good people? How can a caring God let bad things happen to me?

Surprisingly, many respondents said they had never thought about such questions. Others asked another question in response: why not me? Still others expressed their confidence that there is a reason even though they do not know what that reason is. And, finally, others answered: that’s just who I am.

Overall, one theme emerged most strongly: having a disability served as a source of identity. It had shaped their lives, made them who they were.

When asked how having a disability stood in relation to spirituality, people said that it made them ponder life more deeply. For others, it led toward them knowing they have a purpose in life. It helped some develop a compassion for other people and moved them to work for a better world.

The theologian, Professor Cardman, discovered that most of the people who were polled did not think their image of God affected by their disability. Thus, not a single person blamed God for his or her condition. Instead, many saw God as loving and accepting them; God did not make any distinction between abled and disabled. At the same time, some imagined God as beyond any human description.

Two-thirds of the respondents are active in Church or synagogue. They consider these as important to belong to and to have their families associated with. But many feel conflicted because these religious institutions often practice ways of exclusion. For example, the church-goers among them say that no church building is accessible.

Not surprisingly, personal relationships are vital. Two-thirds have marriage partners or the equivalent. Friends are critically important, especially those who themselves have or understand having a disability. Most of those polled have connections with the disability community and some serve as advocates for societal change.

About their identity, many say “this is just my life.” And they are likely to affirm, “disability is not a tragedy.” Thus it is often difficult for them to deal with people who cannot accept differences, who lack the spiritual insight to recognize the basic unity of the whole human community.

Some people felt a sense of shame in being different. For these people, a key spiritual task was reversing this shame. Some escaped that feeling altogether, presumably those whose families accepted them as normal when they were growing up. Just about everyone would resent others expressing pity for them or treating them as if something were lacking.

Francine Cardman listed three basic parts of a spiritual pattern that marks many of the people studied. First, they felt a strong sense of trust that things are basically good. This trust, however, remains compatible with a critique of things in society that need change.

Secondly, people have moved from being apologetic about their condition toward being prophetic. They are ready to be critical of the able-bodied who do not recognize the needs of others.

Finally, they refuse to serve as models for the inspiration of others. Instead, they prefer to say, “It’s just my life.”

In closing her report, Katherine Clark, referred to the title and concluded provocatively: “You don’t live successfully with a disability unless you live in the guts of it.”

Richard Griffin

Ken Dychtwald

Ken Dychtwald describes himself as “the nation’s foremost visionary and leading authority on the implications of the aging of America.” As should be evident, he does not suffer from shyness. This 50-year-old Californian has been making predictions about this country’s shifting older population for the last 25 years and claims even greater authority now that he has reached life’s midway point himself.

Even a short press conference with this whirlwind of an opinion-former leaves journalists like me with ideas enough for many columns. A sampling of Dychtwald’s opinions expressed at the recent San Diego meeting of the America Society on Aging will serve here to inform readers about important issues and to provoke further thinking. Each set of opinions, incidentally, came in response to a question asked by a journalist.

1) The older workers scene. People past middle age who want to work still expe-rience strong barriers. The presumption that older people cannot and should not be employed dates back to Franklin D. Roosevelt who inadvertently “created a century of age discrimination.” Social Security had the effect of moving older people out of the workplace so that younger people could have jobs.
Once members of the baby boom generation experience the difficulty of getting jobs in middle age, they will lead a revolt against the system. Putting up with the subtle bias of employers will stir them to resentment.
Though, according to Dychtwald, “we have made almost no progress on age dis-crimination,”  some signs of change in employer attitudes have appeared. In fact,  the space voyage of 77-year-old John Glenn can be called “the watershed event of the last 25 years.”
Elders, for their part, will have to make changes if they wish to be employed. We must be willing to reinvent ourselves. Perhaps we should look on work for its psychic rewards rather than for making a living. As things stand now, older Americans volunteer at the lowest rate of any age group.

2) The long-term care system. This system displays misplaced priorities galore. Instead of putting money into home and community-based care, we have favored institutions, especially nursing homes. But now the federal government is practically fighting a war against nursing homes and no one wants to go into the business because a decent profit cannot be made.
The solution is three-fold: a) organize an all-out push to solve Alzheimer’s disease; b) develop a better home-based system; and c) make elder care a benefit that goes with employment.
If these steps are taken, one can envision a future with very few nursing homes.

3) Intergenerational relations. Relations between the baby boomers and the older generation are currently excellent. Today’s older people are much admired by their juniors because of their achievements in war and peace. However, when the boomers become old, they may not enjoy the same repute from the so-called Generation Xers, people born after 1964 and notoriously self-centered.
Both the current older generation and the boomers are overwhelmingly white. But that will change as the ethnic mix among today’s young comes to the fore. The racial and ethnic dimensions of the population will then become interesting. “How, for example, will a  35-year-old Latino feel about contributing to the support of elders who live in country clubs?” Dychtwald asks.
Questions about longevity will then arise. People with money will be able to buy themselves another 10 to 50 years of life. Will not that increase the tensions between rich and poor?

4) The situation of women. Increasingly, it looks as if American women will be unpartnered and without children. Perhaps that will lead to new and creative life styles. Even  now, many older women do not feel content to take on the traditional role of widow, but instead reach out and form friendship networks that invent innovative forms of social life.
Another approach to this question would be an effort to make men live as long as women. “No one seems troubled that men die earlier,” says Dychtwald. But if men were empowered to take better care of their health, he feels, then the overall social situation would improve.

5) End-of-life issues. Of the three options, active euthanasia, passive euthanasia, and suicide, the first seems unlikely to find widespread acceptance. About this option Dychtwald says, “I don’t think we’ll ever be comfortable with it.” But he believes that  the latter two options will find increasing acceptance. The baby boomers, accustomed to self-empowerment, will want the right to end their lives when  the quality of life has declined irreparably.
This, then, is a sampling of leading-edge opinion about five areas of vital interest to an aging America. Ken Dychtwald may not be right about his views of the issues mentioned here, but he deserves credit for taking them on in such a bold and provocative way. Perhaps the rest of us can pitch in and be heard on these issues ourselves.

Richard Griffin

The Conversion of Cat Stevens

In the 1970s I enjoyed listening to the songs of the British singer known as Cat Stevens. His version of the hymn “Morning Has Broken” made a particularly strong impression on me; I can still hear it now. But a large gap separates that singer and the bearded middle-aged man with a receding hairline who now speaks to American audiences about his conversion.

Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, talks eloquently about  his search for “the center of the universe.” This search led him in 1977 to cast off his former identity as a pop musician  and become a pious Muslim. In his own graphic language, he asks, “Why did this rock star who seemed to have everything come down from the stars, put his head on the ground, and hang up his guitar?”

Almost by a process of elimination did he find the center of the universe. First, it was not the church. As a boy in London, he had grown familiar with the church through the religious education he received from Catholic nuns.

Later he discovered the world of popular music and Merseyside (made famous by the Beatles) became the center of the universe. At age eighteen he scored a big success with his hit song “I Love My Dog.” Featuring three gigs a night, this career brought him into a milieu of worldly activities such as drinking and smoking.

This early phase ended abruptly when he came down with tuberculosis, a life-threatening disease that forced him into a hospital for months. This fearful experience made the young man think about the direction of his life and the prospect of death. At that time, he now says, the center of the universe was his own belly-button.

However, he soon happened  to read a book that said, “You will never be satisfied until you reach the truth,” a wake-up call for him. This led him to try Buddhism, Zen, and other spiritual traditions until, through a gift from his brother, he began to read the Qur’an.

The very beginning of this holy book – “In the name of God, the Lord of the universe,” opened his mind and heart to reality as never before. This book, he felt, “was just for me.” It brought him a knowledge of God not available  to him previously, and also the gift of peace.

In his new identity as a Muslim, he first took the name Joseph after reading in the Qur’an about the patriarch who, as a boy, was hidden in the well and sold in the marketplace. Later, at the suggestion of a fellow worshipper, he changed his first name to Yusuf, the Muslim form of Joseph. Finally, he had found his place in the world and his true identity.

Since then, Yusuf Islam has used his talents to advance the knowledge of the Muslim faith. Though for a long time he gave up singing, he returned to the recording studio in 1995 and now performs without any accompanying instrument. He does so for the benefit of others such as the embattled Bosnian Muslims.

In concluding his talk, Yusuf Islam says modestly, “I hope this will give you some insight into my journey.”

In fact, he did succeed in sharing that insight and seemed to captivate members of the audience, in the  majority college students. His is yet another classic story of conversion away from the pleasures and successes of the world toward the satisfactions of the spiritual life. His storytelling features deep conviction, an animated style, and many dashes of humor.

One disturbing element in his worldview, however, surfaced immediately with  the question period. The first questioner wanted to know whether he had changed his opinion about the death sentence leveled against the celebrated writer Salman Rushdie. Yusuf Islam had been reported as favoring the threat authorized by the government of Iran.

Yusuf Islam blamed “misbehavior on the part of the press” for this report. “I was

a new Muslim,” he explained, “and some smart journalist decided to pose the question.”

But, instead of backing off this time, he suggested that “when all things are Islamic, then all things can be implemented.” Since Great Britain is not an Islamic state, then the sentence against Rushdie could not be implemented there.

This one sentiment seemed harshly and disquietingly out of keeping with Yusuf Islam’s message of peace.

Richard Griffin

Secrets of Aging

“Get up off your apathy.” This is the challenge given by Dr. Robert Butler to the baby boomers of America. He speaks authoritatively as the most prominent geriatrician in this country and a man who has raised national consciousness about the ongoing longevity revolution.

Baby boomers, Americans born between 1946 and 1964, now make up one-third of our population. Yet, according to Dr. Butler, they are woefully unprepared for later life. “They are not saving, they are not taking care of their health, and they are sedentary,” he claims. If the United States is the second fattest nation in the world (after Tonga), members of this generation can claim a fair amount of responsibility for this distinction.

The trouble is that so many of the boomers have not yet caught up with the good news about aging. As Bob Butler states it:  “A lot that we call aging is under our control,”.

Butler was in town last week for celebrations marking the opening of a new exhibit called “The Secrets of Aging.” Hosted by the Museum of Science in Boston, this innovative display began on April 5th and runs for six months. When it leaves Boston, the exhibit will travel to five other sites across the country.

David Ellis, president and director of the museum, calls the exhibit unique because it combines the latest science with the personal face of aging.  “We hope that people will see aging in a new light,” he explains, “as part of the normal life span.”

The main secret behind the “Secrets of Aging” is the targeted audience. Though the mu-seum hopes that older people will come to see the exhibit and take part in it, they are not the main target. Rather, as the vice-president of exhibitions, Larry Bell, told me: “The real reason for the exhibit is because the whole baby boom generation is approaching this stage of life.”

About members of that generation he says: “There is an aspect of denial.. They say ‘I’m just the same person I always was.’ If I myself had not been working on this program, I would have torn up the AARP invitation, and told them to contact me in fifteen years.”

More than forty distinct stations in the exhibit halls, most of them interactive, deliver in-formation about aging. These stops are grouped into four main theme areas that provide the exhibit’s structure.

The first section is called Body and poses the question – “What happens to our bodies as we age?” Among the exhibits that I visited, one comparing the aging of identical twins stands out in memory. Photos showed graphically the difference in appearance caused by life style practices such as smoking, sun exposure, and diet. One woman looked many years older and less healthy than her sister.

In the second section, called Mind, the question is similar to the first. “What happens to our minds as we age?” The old assumption that brain cells grow fewer in number with aging is shown to be wrong. Also Alzheimer’s is shown not to be a normal part of growing older but rather a disease. Differences between learning abilities of older and younger people are shown and games, puzzles, and tests enable visitors to exercise their brain power.

The third topic is Society. “How does society deal with aging?” This section features computerized images of celebrities such as Walter Cronkite and  Maya Angelou. Visitors can interview them and ask them about their experiences of growing older. A series of photo essays carries the message that maintaining social relationships helps people to age well. Another set of videos, these produced by children, shows them in conversation with their grandparents.

Finally, the fourth area focuses on longevity. “How long can we live?,” it asks. No one yet knows the answer to this question but many scientists are trying to find out. The exhibits here explore the two main factors that determine aging – genetic inheritance and lifestyle. Visitors will look in on research efforts such as caloric restriction with animals and see how scientists manipulate genetic material. Bar graphs show the varying longevity averages among various ethnic groups in this country.

As this century progresses, this latter question of longevity is bound to grow in interest. Dr. Butler, in a talk at the press conference before the official opening of the exhibit, recalled that the average age of Americans at the time of the Boston Tea Party was thirty-five. The conclusion he drew, as he compared then and now, is worth pondering. “What was once the privilege of the few,” he said, “has become the destiny of the many.”

The museum has planned many other services and events in connection with this exhibit. For example, in June and July there will be lunchtime lectures given by local and national experts on longevity and health.

Further information is available at (617) 723-2500 or at the museum’s web site: http://www.mos.org.

Richard Griffin