Terry Rockefeller and Peace

“She was the last person in the world who should have been there.” This is what Terry Rockefeller says of her younger sister, Laura, who was managing a conference about information technology on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Laura usually worked in theater but had not made it big and had to bring in money to pay her rent. That’s how she happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time on that day of terror. It fell to Terry to tell their parents about Laura’s death, a task that still makes her voice choke and brings tears to her eyes.

In time, Terry came to understand that war is like that. It always traps  some innocent people and brings terrible harm to them. This realization helps motivate her work for peace as a memorial to Laura. She feels confident that her sister is happy knowing of Terry’s dedication to this cause.

Terry also feels supported by the extraordinary compassion she experienced in response to her sister’s death. She will never forget the wall near the World Trade Center, with pictures of the victims, and the hundreds of teddy bears from Oklahoma City lined up on the sidewalk. She also recalls taxi drivers taking her there and not charging anything for the ride.

This resident of Arlington, Massachusetts, the wife of an historian and mother of two children, does not stand alone in her peaceful response to the terrible violence of that day. She has joined with others in forming an organization called “September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.” The name comes from a statement of Martin Luther King, who said: “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

This advocacy organization hopes to “spare additional families the suffering we have experienced – – as well as to break the cycle of violence and retaliation engendered by war.” Members feel that war is an inappropriate and ultimately ineffective response to the attacks that killed their family members.

It was this spirit that moved Terry Rockefeller to visit Iraq shortly before the recent war. Together with three other women, she stopped at schools, hospitals, and universities in both Baghdad and Basra. The women also talked to people in their homes.

Explaining her motivation further, Terry says: “We went there really to just make a very public gesture of citizens meeting with other civilians and trying to express our commonality and our concern for their well being.” Almost everywhere, they were greeted with food and they sang songs written one of the American women.

Some of the encounters they had were grim, however. The hardest place was a bomb shelter that had been hit by two missiles in 1991. The first made a large hole through the four-foot thick concrete roof. The second entered through the same hole and killed the women and children huddled there. Their skeletal remains are still embedded in the walls.

The surviving husbands were still furious. One of them said to Terry Rockefeller: “You lost a sister; I lost my wife, my mother, and all my children.”

The women were also taken to a family in Basra where the father had just been killed by a bomb. This man, Jamal, was a truck driver for an oil refinery. Admitted to the room where his widow was grieving, the American women shared condolences: “She wept for us; we wept for her,” recalls Terry.

After showing slides of her Iraqi visit, Terry Rockefeller shares what she calls her “big idea.” She and a divinity school alumnus named Andrew dream of meeting with family members of the airplane hijackers. They would like to ask the “hard questions” about the motivation of those men and explore with their relatives why those attacks took place.

Terry is a filmmaker with an impressive list of credits that include the public television science series NOVA and the civil rights history “Eyes on the Prize.” She aims to have the opportunity some day to record the meetings that she and Andrew imagine having with those related to the hijackers.

Whether or not that ever happens, Terry is determined to carry forward her quest for peace in alliance with others who suffered great losses. She wants not merely to oppose war, she says, but to build peace.

Richard Griffin

Disability Report from AARP

Most Americans over 50, in need of help because of their disabilities, would prefer to receive money and manage their home care workers rather than to receive services from an agency that keeps control over them.  This is one of the findings from a new study commissioned by AARP on people in the second half of life.

Entitled “Beyond 50.03: A Report to the Nation on Independent Living and Disability,” this new research provides detailed information about those with disabilities and the help they receive.

Not surprisingly, their biggest fear is the loss of independence and mobility. Another non-surprise is the desire of most to continue living in their own homes. One of their largest problems, this research reveals, is the extent of their unmet needs.

Among these latter is the need for help with such routine activities as bathing, cooking, and shopping. The chief obstacle to getting more help is cost. Similarly, many feel the need for  physical changes in their house to make it easier to cope with their disabilities, but they cannot afford to install such improvements as grab bars, ramps, and wider doors.

Those with disabilities give rather low marks to the publoic accommodations in their home communities. More than half assign poor ratings to the accessibility and reliability of public transportation. Only 10 percent of people with severe disabilities use special transportation services.

Again, it comes as no surprise that most care is given by family members. What does upset expectation is the extent of this care: 88 percent of help regularly received at home is given by these family members.

An indication of the overall emphasis in this report comes in the authors’ adoption of a new expression: they do not speak of “long-term care” but rather “long-term support.” Though the difference may appear subtle, Robert Hudson, professor at Boston University and a widely respected gerontologist, calls it a “giant change.”

Its effect is to get away from language that suggests dependence and move toward words that support the ideal of consumer control over services. People over 50 who have disabilities want more say over the way they get help and the word “support” rather than “care’ is supposed to convey a new emphasis on autonomy.

At the risk of appearing a Luddite or other person opposed to innovation, let me here register some misgivings about abandoning the word “care.” Yes, it can be patronizing at times, but I feel attached to a word and concept that often brings out the best in people.  Is there not something fastidious about substituting “support” for “care?” Has political correctness made yet another incursion into the land of service?

In this instance, as before, AARP shows itself a master of euphemism. This is the organization that has eliminated the word “retired” from its name. If anyone were to apply the word “old” to any of its members, the organization might suffer a collective heart attack.

I also remain suspicious of the effort to downplay ideas suggested by the word “dependence.” Of course, I am in favor of retaining a measure of independence for as long as possible for both myself and others. But almost everyone eventually has to rely on others for help with the ordinary activities of daily living.

As to controlling the services, this also can be a false ideal. Many of us older people, by reason of our disabilities, lack of know-how, or other reasons could never manage employees on our own. In practice, it would more often be our adult sons and daughters who would have to take charge of paying our caregivers and responding to the inevitable problems employees have. That would mean becoming dependent on our adult children, not something bad but something natural and unavoidable in the long run.

However, despite these reservations, I do welcome the AARP report, the third in a series offering new information about Americans over 50. And I support the development of more technology to assist those of us who have disabilities. I am cheered to discover that two-thirds of people in mid-life and beyond who have  disabilities are accustomed to using computers. This is an encouraging sign for the future.

As AARP points out, serious problems cry out for action. The majority surveyed here are convinced that better health insurance would improve their quality of life. This holds true of those over age 65 who have Medicare protection: the fact that Medicare does not cover the cost of prescription drugs would by itself suggest as much.

It is also increasingly difficult to find skilled and reliable people to provide services for people at home. Nursing assistants and home health aides are in short supply and turnover is a constant problem.

Finally, many older Americans with disabilities cannot afford the services they need. Even those with annual incomes between $35, 000 and $50,000 worry about paying for long-term supportive services. And those who must beggar themselves to qualify for Medicaid have a truly unenviable lot.

Richard Griffin

EDS Conference

I felt it an honor to sit at lunch last week between two bishops from distant parts of the world. They had come from India and Zimbabwe to take part in a four-day conference at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. These bishops and some 30 other Anglican theologians had gathered to exchange views about leadership and education in the family of churches they represent.

In addition to Dhirender Sahu of Darjeeling and Sebastian Bakare of Manicaland, three other delegates joined us at the lunch table. Herman Browne, a native of Liberia now based in London, represented the Archbishop of Canterbury; Christopher Lind spoke for the Anglican Church of Canada; and Robert Paterson, for the Church in Wales. All of them responded to my questions about the spiritual issues most important to them.

Bishop Bakare challenged me with a question of his own: “How do you in the press help your readers to understand that there are other countries in the world?” His words caught me unawares and I found myself unable to answer immediately.

Obviously the question carried the hidden message that Americans do not pay enough attention to nations in need of our understanding and support. I could have cited the 15 billion dollars our federal government has earmarked for AIDS treatment in Africa as a shining example of what we need to do more extensively.

Bishop Sahu spoke about the importance of sharing. Among the gifts that he mentioned are the strong family bonds among his people. This is a gift they can give the West, he said. He also identified “the kind of hospitality the poor can offer to others.” No matter their poverty, these people often prove generous to others.

The theologian from Wales, Robert Paterson, placed emphasis on the variety of circumstances that must be taken into account before judging a question of morality. The issue of homosexuality, for instance, has to be approached with sensitivity to the way it is seen in different parts of the world. You cannot explain texts from the Bible without paying attention to the situation in which they are read.

The educator Christopher Lind lives in Saskatchewan, the province that produces 55 percent of Canada’s wheat. Because of low prices, farmers have been going bankrupt, so they have pooled their products. The American government considers this an unfair trade subsidy and has slapped a 10 percent duty on wheat imported into the United States.

This is an example of the problems raised by economic globalization, says Christopher Lind. Another example is the so-called Harvard mouse. The name comes from the research animal developed by Harvard University in 1985 that gets cancer four times faster than the ordinary mouse and is therefore more prized for medical research.

Recently the Canadian Supreme Court ruled against the patenting of this mouse, a ruling hailed by the Canadian Council of Churches. Though it may seem merely a biotech question, Professor Lind sees the matter as having spiritual significance as well.

Herman Browne spoke of his main priority as a leader in his church. “None of us is satisfied,” he said, “for the Gospel to be merely heard; it must also be felt.” The message must penetrate to the heart and be welcomed as a precious gift.

Another concern of Rev. Browne is the situation of Christians who are suffering under repressive regimes. How do the practice their faith when the government is persecuting them for their beliefs or when conditions in their country are chaotic? Unfortunately, the latter situation currently mars his native Liberia.

It would have been welcome to have heard the discussions at the general meeting of all the delegates from some 20 countries. However, I felt grateful for the opportunity to listen to the views of a cross section.

What jumped out at me from the luncheon was the view of the United States as insular, not well enough informed about other countries. The religious figures I talked with worry about Americans using so much of the world’s resources and not caring enough about the effects of their habits on the people of other nations.

One of them shared his view that “churches are a kind of media.” As he sees it, the churches often give Americans more access to people of other countries and their real concerns than do the news media. Our lunch discussion serves as one small instance of this reality.

Richard Griffin

Driving with Dementia

“My sons and daughters had a meeting without me and decided they wanted me to stop driving, but they’re making a big deal out of nothing. I’m very comfortable on the road. I’ve driven longer than they’ve been alive.”

This quotation from a person recently diagnosed with dementia appears in “At the Crossroads,” an excellent  guide developed by The Hartford Financial Services Group, the MIT Age Lab, and Connecticut Community Care. Already, 150,000 copies have been distributed free of charge; I recommend it to elders and their families who may face difficult decisions about driving.

At a daylong conference last week hosted by MIT, researchers reported their findings on the complicated and often agonizing driving decisions confronting older Americans and their families.

Joseph Coughlin, director of the Age Lab, summarized some of what has been discovered thus far about the habits of drivers over age 50. In his words, “the data sheds new light on how older people define the driving decision; choose to self-regulate their driving behavior; weigh personal risk and safety as a function of health and age; and, what role families, physicians and other unwilling participants have on the driving decision.”

The quotation at the top of this column shows there are wrong ways of dealing with the situation. For the adult children of the gentleman in question to have made a unilateral decision to stop him from driving was clearly wrongheaded and a surefire method for getting their father’s back up.

No self-respecting parent could be expected to accept a prefabricated plan like that one without feeling threatened and even outraged. There may be an excellent case for their father to give up driving, but his adult children clearly do not know how to make it.

Taking away the keys from the elder driver, selling the car, taking away his or her license, or disabling the car are also ineffective. More than that, of course, these actions violate the rights of the person and ignore his need for sympathetic understanding and treatment.

We may also infer from the father’s words quoted above that he may be fooling himself. Yes, he may possibly feel comfortable on the road (though one can doubt it) but this feeling does not mean that he remains a competent driver.

The clear fact of his having driven for more years than his children have been alive is, of course, irrelevant. It helps the man to rationalize his determination to stay on the road but will not reassure anyone else that he should continue driving.

Two presenters at the MIT conference recommended advance planning before a decision is made to stop driving. Early discussion that includes the person with dementia might reduce hard feelings. However, they admitted that such an approach has its limitations and may not work.

Another help can be to involve an authority outside the family. A physician can be such a person, but that role can be tricky. Dr. Michael Cantor, a Veterans Administration geriatrician, finds it a difficult balance to respect the rights of patients to make their own decisions and protect their confidentiality while, at the same time, feeling responsible to the public for the patient’s inability to drive safely.

One of the central findings of the researchers was to discover how the driving decision is more complicated than simply continuing to drive or giving up driving altogether. Rather, something between the two, namely self-regulation, is the choice of many people over 50. And the factor that influences people most to self-regulate is their health status. Those in poor health are much more likely to modify their driving habits, for example, by not venturing forth at night or by giving up driving in bad weather.

Conference keynoters emphasized the psychological as well as the practical meaning of operating an automobile. Maureen Mohyde of The Hartford went so far as to call driving “the key to life” and to assert “driving is everything.”

Her terminology strikes me as bordering on the absurd, even though I recognize the driving mystique that maintains its hold on so many Americans. Yes, driving enhances life by putting us in touch with other people and the great outdoors, for instance. But, in itself, it is only a means to an end and not always indispensable.

I also recognize that for many elders a car makes the difference between access to favorite activities and isolation from them. Those who live in places where public transportation does not reach may be cut off from what has been important to them. Happily, however, there are numerous elders – – including many of my friends and neighbors – – who lead active lives without depending on an automobile of their own.

Back to the brochure I recommended. It can be ordered free of charge in either English or Spanish at http:www.thehartford.com/alzheimers or by writing The Hartford, Dementia and Driving Booklet, 200 Executive Blvd., Southington, CT 06489.

Richard Griffin

Letter to a 100 Year-Old Friend

Dear Elliot:

I am writing in celebration of your 100th birthday.  To me this anniversary of yours comes as a truly marvelous event. Only one American in 10,000 lives as long as you have. I thank God for having given you this gift of such rare longevity.

That you are now living in Florida, so far from here, frustrates me because I cannot be with you for the occasion. It would be a joy to talk with you face to face about your life at this milestone. Looking back on our conversations when you lived nearby, I relish your recollections of family members and friends we both knew.

You were my father’s best friend, a relationship that still means much to me even though he died almost 50 years ago. At his death in New York City, you were with him, something that served as a consolation to us, his family. He admired you not only as a friend but as a fellow journalist with high professional and personal standards.

One of the benefits that comes with your long life span is that your work as drama critic continues to be recognized and honored. People realize that your reviewing of more than 6,000 plays, along with your teaching and television broadcasting, make a unique record of achievement.

I hope that the annual awards given in your name make you feel rewarded for your many years of hard work. Much to my own satisfaction, a recent book entitled “Eminent Bostonians” includes a chapter about you.

However, knowing you as a person for whom spirituality has always been vitally important, I suspect you do not place ultimate value on the world’s honors. Rather, I have reason to judge that your relationship with God and the interior life are more significant to you than any recognition from others.

I also suspect that your prayer life looms as even more important now than before. Perhaps your later years have brought you spiritual consolations like those of some people in the Bible.

In the Gospel of Luke, Simeon and Anna, two old people, appear when the child Jesus is presented in the temple. Simeon took the child in his arms and thanked God saying  “now you dismiss your servant in peace.” For him, it was the fulfillment of a promise and a moment of spiritual joy.

And the prophet Anna, 84 years old, also praised God for her encounter with the child. For her, too, it was the fulfillment of a lifetime, seeing the child  who was to redeem his people.

Here the Bible presents old age as a time of fulfillment, a stage of life when spirituality can reach its full flowering. Anna and Simeon serve as a model for late life and the rewards it can bring.

However, I know it is a mistake to think of old age as simply a time when good things happen to good people. Realistically, it cannot be easy to be 100 years old. Almost everyone who has reached this milestone has experienced serious physical problems along the way.

I remember you telling me about finding it hard to have lost most of your eyesight. For a man to whom reading was a favorite activity, it is surely a trial not to be able to pick up a book now or to read the newspapers that formed your daily diet at work.

Even more difficult, living with loss of people dear to you is another trial of old age. You have shared with me how you feel about the loss of your dear wife and the deprivation of living without her. No one can take her place, a situation that you have had to live with for several years.

Despite the hardships that come with 100 years of living, however, your birthday is a day of celebration. Members of your family and your legion of friends feel joy at this rare anniversary of yours. Some of the friends are looking forward to an event in your honor tomorrow evening when awards will be given in your name.

I thank God for the gifts that have brought you this far and I pray that you may receive abundant blessings on this occasion.

Richard Griffin

Elliot and Henry

On May 17th, Elliot Norton will be 100 years old. Retired in 1982 after 48 years of writing about theater for Boston newspapers and 24 years broadcasting on his WGBH television program and some 20 years teaching at Boston University, he now will celebrate his birthday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Last fall he moved to Florida after living for several years at an assisted living residence in Newton Corner. His move was intended to bring him to his son David’s area where they could see one another often.

Selfishly, perhaps, I regret this old friend’s moving away to a place where I cannot visit him. I would have much enjoyed being with him, celebrating his birthday, and talking about the old days. This I did when he was still in the Boston area.

Elliot Norton was my father’s best friend, the one who was with him on a visit to New York City when a sudden illness brought death to my father. My thinking about Elliot will always be connected with this fateful event of January 1954.

However, I also relish memories of Elliot’s triply distinguished career as journalist, television host, and teacher. I will always cherish the image of him as a tall, graying, somewhat formal gentleman who brought so much class to the often unmannerly newspaper business. In particular, I recall encountering him on the Watertown trolley one day in 1949 and having an extended conversation with him about my career plans.

How did it happen that Elliot has lived longer than almost every other of his contemporaries?  Rare genes, it would seem, and a balanced life style. Studies of centenarians suggest that having many friends and a clear purpose in life counts for much. If so, then Elliot would certainly qualify.  

About his friends, he loves to talk: I remember him telling me five years ago about Rodgers and Hammerstein and how he enjoyed being with them. But he knew just about everybody who figured largely in this country’s theater scene and many in Britain’s. Of all the great actors he saw, he considers Laurence Olivier the greatest.

His faith has remained important to him as well. Perhaps that is what has always enabled him to carry off his high level of success with such grace and a kind of humility.

As he celebrates his completion of 100 years, I join with his other friends and admirers in wishing him blessings and joy.

His old television home, WGBH, plans this month to show and repeat several times a ten-minute segment within its Greater Boston Arts in celebration of Elliot’s longevity. I have previewed the program and found fascinating the brief clips of him with the young Al Pacino, Ethel Merman, Jerry Lewis, and Neil Simon, among others.

I also want to take note here of another long-lived old friend, Henry Horn. This beloved Lutheran pastor is celebrating his 90th birthday this month and many people have joined in the observance.

Pastor Horn has had a distinguished career serving his church, not only locally, but across the nation as well. He is widely known as a writer, preacher, and seminary teacher.

Among American Lutherans he bears the unofficial title of “the dean of  campus ministry.” For 25 years he served at University Lutheran (“Uni Lu,” as people call it familiarly) in Cambridge, where he ministered to students, faculty, and staff at Harvard and also involved himself deeply in the larger urban community.

He and his wife Catherine are the parents of ten children, all of them graduates of public schools, and each of them the holder of at least one university degree. The Horns also have 21 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Like many others among us, Henry Horn is now feeling some of the burdens of age. Caring for his spouse now looms large in each day’s agenda but he manages to exercise and to maintain his contacts in the community. His spirit of devotion to God and to other people make manifest a strength of character that wears well.

On the first weekend of this month, family members, members of his church, colleagues past and present, and other friends came together at Uni Lu in Pastor Horn’s honor. In prayer and festivity they gave thanks for the abundant years showered upon him. This birthday was a big event on many levels – family, church, and civic society – and resonated in the community.

Henry and I worked together for several years as fellow campus ministers. His spirit of ecumenism was such as to make me feel a strong bond with him and his church. Together, we tried to achieve a balance between change and continuity for the communities we served.

I feel myself blessed to have enjoyed the friendship of Henry Horn and Elliot Norton for so many years. Like others, I hope for them the blessings of long life and I thank them for the rich legacies they have already left to their family and friends.

Richard Griffin

Two Sayings of Rabbi Heschel

“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

These words come from Abraham Joshua Heschel, a man who inspired many during his long and distinguished lifetime. After escaping from his native Germany, Rabbi Heschel taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York from 1945 to his death in 1972.

Beyond that, he allied himself with Martin Luther King in the struggle for civil rights, he led protest against the Vietnam War, and he provided spiritual dynamic for the age liberation movement of the1960s and 1970s.

“Just to be is a blessing.” A friend with whom I have frequently exchanged views of the world recently received the gift of a deeper understanding of what these words mean. My friend, a physician by training, underwent surgery for a routine health condition. The surgery was expected to take only an hour and recovery would be rapid, everyone thought.

Something went terribly wrong, however, and the operation took much of a day, most of it turning into an effort to save my friend’s life. Two days later, he woke up in the intensive care unit, not knowing what had happened. He had narrowly escaped death and, by now, has recovered completely.

My friend tells me that as a result of this near-death experience his outlook has changed in two ways. First, life has become more precious to him, a gift that he appreciates more than he did before. And, secondly, he has lost his fear of death. No longer is he afraid of what is going to happen to him when his turn comes to die. He is surprised by how free he now feels about the threats to his life that may loom up before him.

My friend now feels more deeply than ever before the truth that being is a blessing. A person of faith, he realizes that his very existence is a gift of God. Being comes from God who creates human beings and everything else out of nothing. Created things share in the mystery of God, the supreme being.

“Just to live is holy.” By right, holiness belongs to God alone. But  the creator has made creatures to share in his holiness. We are flawed, and thus never perfectly holy, but just by living we can partake in what belongs to God.

The heart of holiness is love. So, to the extent that we live by love, we live in holiness. Walking in love, we can embody the holiness of God and bring out the potential of life to be holy.

The classical response in the presence of the holy is awe. When we become more deeply aware of our lives as holy we can feel this amazement at having life. Being alive is a mystery, it goes beyond any explanation we can give, no matter how far our knowledge of genetics advances.

Recently I visited an old friend who is in sharp physical decline. He suffers from the terrible disease abbreviated as ALS. But while his energy and physical abilities diminish each day, his spirit amazed me. He manages to regard his life as precious despite the assaults on it the disease inflicts. Undoubtedly, he must have private moments of doubt, but he seems to cherish his life and care about others around him.

Rabbi Heschel’s two sayings discussed here do not come from a merely optimistic view of human life and the world. This spiritual leader was too sensitive to the presence of evil to have indulged in facile Pollyannish upbeat philosophy of life. Instead, his outlook took root in the hope he had in God.

Hope places confidence in God’s power to accomplish what human beings cannot. This quality of heart also leads toward that reverence for life expressed by the rabbi. “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” These two statements reflect a soul that has made deep soundings in spirituality and has come up with pure gold.

I propose these two sayings as suitable for carrying around in one’s heart during the day and night. They can serve as mantras, fixed guides that can make our activities spiritually meaningful. Repeated over and over they can ground a person in reality and enable us to lay hold of more of reality than we otherwise could.

Richard Griffin