Tsunami and Faith

An Indonesian man who survived the tsunami was pictured last week on the front page the morning newspaper, a look of horror on his face as he was told by an Australian doctor that it would be necessary to amputate his leg. The wound he suffered had become deeply infected, and only by this drastic action could his life be saved. Even then, it was by no means sure he would come through alive.

If he did manage to survive the surgery, he would find it extremely difficult to live in a society where no prostheses are available and not even crutches could be obtained for him.

He is but one of tens of thousands of the wounded who survived, at least for a time, shattered by catastrophe. As Secretary of State Colin Powell was reported to say of the devastation, human and material: “I have never seen anything like this.”

What are people who believe in God to make of such dire human suffering? Should we say with a character in Shakespeare’s King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport?”

Or might we echo certain religious leaders who proclaim that havoc is God’s just punishment for the sins of His people?

Either approach strikes me as monstrous. The first, in various forms, is basically pagan. The second is a distortion of theology whereby God is made into one who hates humankind.

There is no doubt, however, that a catastrophe that kills more than 150 thousand people and inflicts almost unimaginable suffering on so many others does put faith in God to the test. It is hard enough for believers when our fellow human beings maliciously cause us harm. When it happens because the very earth and its waters rise up against us, such evil is even harder to understand.

The mystery of evil must be as old as the origins of the human family. And we have no more answered the question in modern times than the ancients were able to do. However, the faith traditions of the world do provide some approaches to the unsolvable questions about why we suffer, both at the hands of evil people and from the good earth that is our home.

My spiritual tradition suggests that, far from endorsing human suffering, God is distressed by it. In this view, God does not take any pleasure in our pain but rather feels compassion at what we must endure.

In Christian teaching, the focal point of suffering is the passion and death of Jesus. God the Father does not punish His Son but does accept the suffering of Jesus for the world’s redemption.

So God has tasted human grief personally, so to speak. If Jesus submits to the crucifixion, then horrible suffering has touched God Himself. In this faith, God is no mere onlooker but takes on the worst fate of humankind.

This approach, of course, leaves unexplained the nature of evil, its origins and its power in a world supposedly controlled by God. But it does present a God filled with compassion and love, for whom the evil that hurts human beings is thoroughly distressing.

So in looking at the ongoing effects of the oceans rising up against so many people, we do best to weep, mourn, and regret what has happened to so many of our brothers and sisters. It is only right to feel deeply distressed by their fate.

In making this response, we can emulate the compassion of God and turn it toward those who have lost their loved ones and have sustained bodily and psychic ruin. We can do so by our prayers and by contributions of money and other forms of material assistance.

If our faith in God’s goodness is shaken, that is a tribute to the gift of sensitivity that is ours. When even the stones weep, as the narrator in a new novel I have been reading says, it is not irreligious to be upset; rather it may be deeply religious.

Science can explain what causes the tectonic plates under the ocean to move so as to create earthquakes and tidal waves. Only spirituality can begin to fathom some of the meaning of why it all happens in such a way as to destroy the lives of so many precious children and adults.

Richard Griffin

Discounts

One day, when I worked at our local Council on Aging, a veteran Harvard professor of my acquaintance came into the office and registered for one of our discount programs. His doing so surprised me at the time and, frankly, shocked me as well.

Of course, I did not let these moralistic emotions show on my face, but I did wonder how a well-paid professional could justify receiving reductions in taxi fares and in certain store purchases simply because he was past 60 years old. The incident drove me to question whether it was right to make such benefits available to everybody of a certain age, even Ross Perot, George Soros, or other billionaires.

Long ago, however, I gave up such scruples and recognized that wealthy older people belong to a relatively small minority, most of whom do not care about discounts. For the rest of us, discounts are important to our financial well-being and we have no problem claiming them.

Many elders have precious few savings and little available cash;  discounts are a vital help to their finances. If those who are dependant on public transportation, for instance, had to pay the full fare on MBTA buses and trains, the expense would be a genuine hardship.

My friend Hugh, an 80-plus veteran of World War II, may be regarded as typical. When asked how he feels about discounts, he fires off this response: “I love them.”  

Also, young and middle-aged Americans seem readily to accept these benefits for their elders. Whenever I go to the movies, I am impressed by how cheerfully I am accorded my cut-rate tickets.  (I do confess cringing, however, when the ticket seller asks if I am an adult or not.)

This leads me to think that our society at large believes that our breaks are appropriate. And this kind of social solidarity between age groups, I am persuaded, is good for our national community

I have also consulted a professional economist, asking him how he and his colleagues look at this subject. He uses the technical term “price discrimination” to explain a factor that, ideally at least, works to increase revenues.

Economists are not often associated with warm and fuzzy feelings. In this instance, however, they help make me feel reassured about claiming discounts. I am aiding businesses to do both good and well. We discount hunters help make the world go round.

Many of us elders would presumably not go to the movies at all, or as often, unless we could count on discounted tickets. Nor might we buy a new sweater or a new dress at a certain store without the incentive of a lower price given because of our age.

Colleges and universities commonly offer elders access to courses for much reduced tuition. Here, too, it may be in the educational institution’s interest to do so for a double reason. They find it good to help in the education of older people. And, besides, the classroom seats might otherwise go vacant.   

Beyond this discussion of meaning, I want to make two practical points: first, discounts are much more widely available than most of us realize; and second, to receive many of the discounts, you have to ask. Many companies and agencies do not broadcast their availability.

One Internet site I have consulted (www.seniordiscount.com) announces breathlessly: “Now over 150,000 discounts for folks over 50!” This serves not only to indicate the huge numbers of discounts available; it also reminds us that some of these benefits begin at an earlier age than we think.

The same site lists 22 different categories of goods and services for which discounts are available. It is hard to think of a type of business that does not provide these perks.

If you are like me, you will be surprised at the range of rake-offs and other special breaks. For example, one hotel in my urban community will not only give you a discount in your own room rate, but will extend it to other people who are traveling with you, even if they are not of your mature age.

Besides hotels, others give discounts that might not occur to you. Some public libraries, for example, will waive fines on overdue books. Car dealers will often give discounts on non-routine work. Newspaper subscriptions are frequently lower for elders, and cable companies may have lower rates for those over a certain age.

To my surprise, certain food stores give discounts, often larger on a given day of the week. Large chain stores selling all sorts of merchandise provide bargains for older customers. Barbers and hairdressers are wont to do the same.

If you have access to the Internet, you will find that the fabulous site mentioned earlier (www.seniordiscounts.com) features abundant listings by cities and towns all across the U.S. Also, some Councils on Aging have lists with names of local businesses and other agencies that have agreed to offer discounts.

But the best rule of thumb remains: ask.

Richard Griffin

Celebrating Bob Bullock

What a consolation it was for me last week to take part in a community celebration of a dear friend’s life! Gathered in Temple Israel in Sharon, almost 500 people watched, listened, and sang as Jewish leaders in that town and others paid tribute to my friend, Father Robert Bullock, who died five months ago.

As a friend of more than 60 years’ standing, I was privileged to recall, on a videotape shown to the audience, my classmate Bob’s personal characteristics as an adolescent. We first met when he was 14, the beginning of a friendship that flourished until his death. To be among people who esteemed him highly and loved him dearly offers me some solace for his departure.

The event in Sharon was the second such celebration in which I took part that week. Earlier, Facing History and Ourselves, the Brookline-based agency that educates students and others about the Holocaust and prejudicial attitudes toward Jews and other groups of people, had celebrated the memory of Father Bullock. From the beginning, he had taken a leading role in that organization and provided a vital link with the Catholic Church.

For 26 years, Father Bullock served as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Sharon. He brought to that position wide experience in ministry, as well as a consuming interest in the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. In Sharon, I saw an outpouring of respect and love for him from people of the Jewish faith, attesting to the grace with which he brought these two communities together.

In his taped reminiscence, another high school classmate, Bob O’Shea, said of Bob Bullock: “He always spoke the truth.” Summing up our friend’s many personal qualities, O’Shea added: “That, to me, is a good priest.”

A young woman rose to say of her pastor: “He was visionary and wise.” She felt grateful to him for having served her as “a moral compass.” Television reporter David Boeri called him “a light in the darkness.”

A quality in Bob that could be seen only by friends like O’Shea and me was the way he developed over the decades. This development was best expressed in a letter written by his brother, Father Myron Bullock, who was in the class ahead of us. Myron was possibly the best student in the school, consistently receiving higher marks than his brother Bob.

In the letter Myron compares himself with Bob and says: “He was something far greater, far more extensive, and far, far more enduring. He was wise with a wisdom that cannot be taught and that only a few develop to its full capacity. His was true wisdom. He was understanding and could penetrate to the heart, the substance, whether of a book, or situation, or person. He could see farther and deeper than most because of a finely tuned 20/20 moral vision.”

To me, one of the many advantages of longevity is that I had the privilege of seeing my friend grow and develop into his full stature. Far from troubling me, I take pleasure in acknowledging that he far outdid me in his moral character and in his impact on the community at large. Of course, we were never competitors but friends and colleagues who welcomed one another’s achievements and did not judge one another by our accomplishments.

It is a mark of our time that many of us in late life discover ways of developing further our still latent personal gifts. Such discoveries can crown a life-long process of growth that allows us to complete our life with some sense of fulfillment. Of course, this does not usually mean a straight march toward completion but rather a journey that involves many detours and false starts.

How did my friend Bob grow so spectacularly?  Some things we know: He read, hungry for knowledge; he became an attentive listener; he cultivated a vivid sense of humor; he learned from the many young people with whom he dealt; he dared to speak to power, becoming a prophet when his Church went askew.

Bob must have had interior trials that were difficult to accept. A rabbi friend said of him: “He could also be a very lonely man.” When Father Bullock called for the resignation of his bishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, he inevitably had to face criticism, some of it from fellow priests. And he knew that Law had probably done more than any other American bishop to further warm relationships between the Church and the Jewish community.

When it came time for him to die, he did so peacefully. Of his death he wrote to his parishioners: “It is not for me a great misfortune but a necessary part of my life to which I feel called. I have always felt fortunate, blessed by the Lord, and I do now.”

I count it a blessing to have had a long friendship with this unforgettable man.

Richard Griffin

Smirk in Senior Year

“Wipe that smirk off your face!”  This shocking command came from my new English teacher in senior year of high school. It was a rude introduction to Father Francis Desmond who had joined the faculty that year to teach English to me and the twenty other boys in my class.

This rebuke hit with special force because it came from a man who was not only a teacher but also a priest. Almost 60 years later, I still remember the sting of that authority’s angry rebuke, a charge that felt like a slap in my face. If I had been smirking, I was unaware of it.

My recollection has taken inspiration from a short essay in which Robert Coles, the now-retired Harvard psychiatrist, recalls an experience that he had in the fifth grade of a Boston grammar school. The essay, “Here and Now We Are Walking Together,” appears in the newly published Best American Spiritual Writing 2004, and portrays his teacher as a formidable authority.

He still finds value in Miss Avery’s lesson: “We should pay attention to others, as well as ourselves.” This moral trumped the fear he felt in the presence of his teacher, who wielded her ruler like a rod of iron, sometimes slamming it on the desks of her students.

Fortunately, I soon discovered the softer side of my teacher. Even as an adolescent not brimming with self-confidence, I had the good sense to approach Father Desmond after class to plead innocence. In the face of my protest, he backed down and seemed to recognize his mistake.

Only a few weeks later, he and I had become friends and, in company with two or three fellow students, spent much time together. Our friendship, however, was not built only on compatibility; we soon discovered another bond – conspiracy. In league with Father Desmond, we became conspirators against the school’s administrators.

He would feed us inside information about the deviousness of the headmaster and his chief faculty assistant, people whose policies we disapproved. Our chief complaint was the way they overemphasized sports to the detriment of academic standards.

If this makes me and my co-conspirators seem, not mere rebels but also adolescent snots, that impression is not altogether incorrect. But, because of having a faculty ally, our small band of students had power that transcended our tender years.

The closest the headmaster, a monsignor, ever came to recognizing our rebellion happened one day when I was on the field in my baseball uniform. He sidled over to me and said: “Griffin, you are getting too big for your britches,” exact words that still reside in my head, some six decades later. The headmaster did not dare specify what he meant but he did not have to.

I feel thankful for these memories from adolescence and often ponder their meaning. This activity of memory and meaning seems to me beautifully appropriate for later life. In this connection I value the words of Sven Birkerts written in the Boston University publication Bostonia in 2002.

“Those of us lucky to live long enough, I now believe, discover that we have two lives: the original life, in which we first encounter the world, register the powerful shaping forces of family and our various relationships−loves, friendships, and antagonisms−and have the experiences that pattern us for later events; then the second life, the main work of which is to distill and absorb the meanings of the first.”

So here I am again, trying to distill and absorb the meanings of my first and original life. This activity always proves valuable as part of the ongoing drama of self- discovery. Though often played out on a small stage, this drama reveals large implications for the great search.

About the incidents portrayed here, I can draw from them personal characteristics that remain in late life. Skepticism about authority runs through my years, except for a period in which I became excessively pious.

I now regret that time of lapsing from my native doubting about those who hold power. It was a kind of abdication of my native reluctance to accept what others say or do when they have authority over me. An attitude of critical appraisal belongs to my inner being and I am glad that I reclaimed it again.

The last four years of the Bush administration have done me the service of raising to a new height my distrust of the powerful. As I write these words, the awe-full results of the election are still not known but I hope not to have four more years of such instruction.

As for Father Desmond, he was more than a co-conspirator. He was also a man of considerable intellectual ability and he stirred in me a love of English language and literature that has been a resource for all of my life since. I feel thankful that our friendship managed to survive that first classroom encounter.

Richard Griffin

Talking with Mumbai

One snowy day last week, I spent half an hour talking on the telephone with a stranger located in the south of India. Our conversation did not focus on the horrendous tragedy of the tsunami that hit not far away from where this person lives. Rather, he and I were conferring to install a virus protection program on my computer.

If you share my ineptitude with computer technology, you may well find yourself talking with someone in Mumbai or another Indian city ten thousand miles away. Increasingly, American companies have found it economical to call upon workers in distant countries to provide technical assistance to their customers.

The people you talk with, I have discovered, are remarkably patient and polite. They relieve the anxiety that I suffer when I deal with the often ornery behavior of my computer. Though the conversation centers on matters technical, I often manage to slip in some more personal questions.

Never in my growing-up years, of course, could I have imagined the kind of exchange described here. Nor would I ever have dreamed of becoming addicted to a computer as an indispensable tool in my professional life. Maybe Buck Rogers did so dream, but the fantasies of that comic strip did not make enough of an impression on youthful me.

This subject flows from a conversation around the dinner table of my extended family on Christmas Day. At a certain point, my siblings and I remembered our beloved maternal grandmother, Hannah Barry, talking about what she had seen in her lifetime.

Looking back in her 80s, she mentioned the automobile and airplane as the two inventions that had most changed the society that she had known. Born in 1864, she knew as an adult a world in which neither of these great technological breakthroughs had as yet appeared.

Two generations later, my siblings agreed about having witnessed inventions just as world-changing. One of my brothers identified the transistor as perhaps the most important of the products that have further transformed our world. The chip that resulted from this breakthrough has given us great benefits in many different fields, medicine being among the most important.

More broadly, we judged the shrinking of both distance and time as the great phenomenon of our era. That we can casually send an email to almost any part of the world and have it reach a person there almost instantly, in itself reduces both time and distance dramatically.

Seeing television pictures of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969 as they were transmitted to people all over the world, while the event was happening, meant the extension of this reach outward into space. I watched this epic event in a small Mexican town that, in its poverty, made the achievement of the moon walk all the more stunning.

The list of wonders can be expanded indefinitely, of course. So much has occurred in the lifetime of every person born before World War II that choosing which ones to mention feels arbitrary. Unfortunately, however, many people around the world hardly share in these benefits. More than one billion children, the United Nations reports, suffer extreme deprivation and have little or no access to modern technology.

If your psyche is like mine, you sometimes feel lost in this brave new world. It operates by a knowledge that is closed off to most of us. There was a time when parents always understood their adult children's jobs; now they assume that they will not.

Much of the world of work remains mysterious to me; my education did not prepare me to understand it. Who can reasonably regret having studied Shakespeare?  But a source of high tech know-how he isn’t.

This ignorance can be unsettling because almost everything has become so complicated. We receive Christmas gifts grounded in high tech that come with incomprehensible instructions. Our houses are now filled with technology whose workings escape many of us. When our machines stop dead, we find ourselves befuddled.

Though, like so many others, I often feel at sea, my main emotions continue to be wonder and awe. To the extent that such a feeling can be directed toward mere objects, I love technology. Much of it is maddening, but I feel thankful for the collective and individual genius of people who have brought us the wonders of the contemporary world.

If only we had wisdom to go with these smarts, this new world would be just marvelous instead of only partly so. But 59 armed conflicts took place in this world between 1990 and 2003, most of them within countries rather than among nations.

This new year of 2005 promises more of the same. Let us, however, hope for unforeseen breakthroughs leading to peace as we enjoy the benefits of the great inventions that have marked the time of our lives.

Richard Griffin

Krister Stendahl’s 60th

On the Sunday before Christmas, I went to the Lutheran church in my town for a special occasion. The faith community there was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the ordination of an outstanding leader.

His name is Krister Stendahl, and he has a wide reputation as a scholar and pastor. Formerly professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School, he also served as dean there for 11 years.

In the middle 1980s he became bishop of Stockholm in his native Sweden and from that position exercised a strong influence on the church world-wide. His preaching, lecturing, and writing showed his firm commitment to understanding between Jewish and Christian communities, as well as among various Christian churches.

Bishop Stendahl was born in 1921 and is now supposedly retired. However, he continues to draw on his expert knowledge of the New Testament and his wide pastoral experience as he teaches the meaning of the Christian tradition. He is widely esteemed for his insights into sacred scripture; his sympathetic appreciation of traditions not his own have also won for him a considerable following.

At his anniversary celebration, the bishop stepped to the pulpit, looming tall though somewhat slowed by physical disability. Until he smiles, he has an austere look that reminds me of pastors shown in the films of his fellow Swede, Ingmar Bergman. I think especially of “Winter Light” where one such pastor is portrayed as struggling with faith. (Incidentally, Krister Stendahl once told me that Bergman’s grandfather was his Sunday school teacher when he was growing up.)

For his text on the Sunday of his anniversary, Bishop Stendahl drew his material from the Gospel of Matthew. The Christmas story there focuses, not directly on the birth of Jesus, but rather on  Joseph. Though not a single word of Joseph is quoted in the Scriptures, he is presented as what the preacher called “the golden link to David’s royal line.” To the Gospel writer, Joseph has unique importance because of keeping hope alive through the generations since the time of King David.

Christmas, to Stendahl, means “that God becomes most divine.” It also is the time “when God becomes most human.” Thus divinity and humanity touch and we receive back the divinity we lost through the sin of Adam and Eve. This is the root meaning of the Christmas event as understood by the Christian tradition.

Bishop Stendahl remembers seeing, in the south of France, a statue of Joseph carrying Jesus. This serves as a reminder that Joseph is essential to the story of the mending of creation and the hope of the kingdom of heaven.

But, though Joseph is essential, he is not indispensable. God could have done it a different way. In fact, in all things God does not need man, the bishop insists, but nonetheless chooses us for His purposes.

The preacher then broadened the message from Joseph to all people. This is the human condition, he suggested, being essential but not indispensable. That brings great dignity to us human beings as we offer service to God and one another.

Being essential means, in Stendahl’s words, “no one can be me but me.” Each of us has a uniqueness that confers importance on us, an importance particular to my person.

The bishop sees himself in this way “after 60 years in the priesthood, for which I humbly thank God.” He is filled with gratitude for his own gifts: being called to serve during a long life, and being essential though never indispensable.

He regards John the Baptist as the same kind of model as St. Joseph. John was the one who said of Christ: “He must increase and I must decrease.”

I felt joy in seeing a person of my acquaintance revered by the people of his faith community and celebrated for who he is. It was easy to join in the worship of a church not my own for this special occasion and to pray in thanksgiving for God’s blessing on this special man.

Joy was also my emotion as I walked away from church, that morning, reflecting on the status that I share with every other person. I also, like you, am essential to God, despite not ever being indispensable.

Richard Griffin

Reflecting on 2004

The garden in front of my neighbors’ house has been festooned for the past two weeks with rows of white lights. The short winter days have thus become a little less somber thanks to the brilliance of their decorations. When beheld at night, these lights raise my spirits in this season of Christmas 2004.

As usual, the glow of this celebration and coming of the year’s end prompt in me reflections about what we have experienced during the past twelve months. Casting my memory high and far, like a fishing line thrown into the water, I rediscover events of some consequence.

This past year has brought several surprises, some of them welcome. Among the latter I cannot omit the Red Sox becoming world champions of baseball.

Despite my pessimism about what has happened to the game on the major-league level and my Scrooge-like feelings of regretting that the Sox have lost their pretender status, I feel obliged to include their comeback against the Yankees and their sweep of the Cardinals as tops among the sports events of the year.

At the risk of seeming distressingly parochial, I also include the replacement of Bernard Law with Sean O’Malley as archbishop of Boston among the surprising and desirable events on the local scene.

It may not have loomed large in everybody’s life but, to me, this change came as highly desirable for my Church. Another welcome change came when the archbishop divested himself of the palatial residence at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Lake Street in Brighton.

Acknowledging the difficulty of being an optimist in later life, I must also reckon with events that I could weep over. On the large stage, the election of George W. Bush strikes me as tragic for our nation and, indeed, for the world.

Yes, 59 million Americans do not agree with this appraisal of November’s vote, but they are wrong. What a nerve I have to disdain the judgment of so many of my fellow citizens! But, hey, there are some privileges that come with age.

Be that as it may, I now have to accept living what may turn out to be my last years under the shadow of a presidency that, on many fronts, I consider bad for us all, especially for those who are not rich.

Even more sobering was news coming from the United Nations this month. Across the world, more than one billion children are being denied a healthy and protected upbringing, with many of them slated to die from lack of food and water. That this situation is caused in large part by war should provoke tears.

Massachusetts made history this past year by authorizing same-gender marriages. I had the pleasure of taking part in the weddings of two sets of friends, one couple male, the other female. Though I still feel some discomfort at using the same word “marriage” for heterosexual and homosexual partners, I find spiritual value in such pairings. This I do contrary to the official attitudes of my Church.

The end of a 60-year friendship through the unexpected death of my friend Bob brought sadness to family and mutual friends this summer. However, the continued outpourings of esteem and affection for him have modified my feelings of loss.

Similarly, the death of my friend Daria at age 45 left me mourning, as it did many others in her wide circle of friends and acquaintances. I miss conversations with her about literature and spirituality, among other topics.

But I continue to value the blessings of  many other friends. Our weekly dinner group has now been gathering for almost 30 years and members show no signs of ceasing to enjoy frequent sharing of meals, conversation, concerns, and laughter.

Similarly, the book group to which I have belonged for some decades has continued to make choices that  members usually enjoy reading and discussing. This month, in order not to let Graham Greene’s centenary pass without notice, we read The Power and the Glory. Our lively and intense discussion proved to me that this novel has lost none of its force after more than 60 years.

As the year ends, I continue to feel grateful to my readers. Many of you have contacted me during this past year, as in other years, sharing your appreciation of my columns. Knowing that I have sometimes touched a chord in you is thoroughly gratifying and makes the effort of writing even more rewarding. I also appreciate the critical remarks of readers, even when they are not music to my ears.

As I join with family and friends in various celebrations of Christmas 2004 and New Year 2005, season brings a renewal of hope, offsetting some of the negative events of the year past and suggesting that some welcome events will set the tone for the year to come.

Richard Griffin