Following my usual practice, I have reviewed the events of the past week for spiritual meaning. As I survey my calendar, the last few days of February turn out to have been rich in happenings relevant to the life of the spirit.
The full meaning of these events would probably have escaped my notice, however, unless I had taken pains to sift them for what they say to my soul. Like elusive fish, their meanings would have escaped my soul’s net if I had not cast it more widely and deeply.
The first of these events was the funeral of a man whom I did not know well. However, I felt personally connected with him because he was the father of an old friend. When she recounted for me the circumstances of her father’s dying, I felt all the more tied to him.
Bill shared many of my values, including a love of opera. And he did not die that Saturday afternoon until the radio broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Don Giovanni, to which he had been listening, had concluded. For a rabid opera fan of many years, what a way to go!
More seriously, he also did not die until the arrival of his other daughter, who had come home from France and reached the hospital only a few minutes before her father’s departure from this world. That was a dramatic arrival, perhaps made possible by Bill’s managing to delay his own death. In any case, it served as a consolation to all the members of his family gathered around.
Seeing the box of his ashes before us gathered at his funeral, I felt touched, as always, by the mystery of it all. Never having lost a childlike wonder at the way people pass from this life, I continue to feel stirred to ask questions. How can the rich complexity of a person’s physical and psychic life be reduced to this small material scope? Despite what lies before us, I believe that ultimately it cannot, but that life will be restored in a new way, difficult to imagine.
The second event that I continue to ponder is an informed account of President Bush’s religious faith. Evan Thomas, a distinguished editor and writer at Newsweek, told how the president reads the Bible every day. And he prays to God with steady fervor. In fact, Mr. Bush “has a pretty close relationship with his maker,” the editor reported.
The religious component looms large in the president’s hard line against Saddam Hussein. President Bush apparently believes himself called by God to the mission of toppling the Iraqi dictator. He takes it as a duty sanctioned by the Supreme Being to bring down the enemy.
I find this approach of our country’s leader to be deeply problematic and personally troubling. Leaders in my spiritual tradition, from the pope to many other bishops in this country and around the world, constantly brand the proposed war as unjustified. They believe it does not satisfy the basic requirements for a war to be morally valid and warn of its consequences to the people of the world.
A third event of his past week for me was seeing the film “The Pianist.” Marvelously well made by Roman Polanski, this movie presents an agonizing account of the German army’s murderous assault against Polish Jews in World War II. I often found it difficult to watch the brutality of soldiers against the civilian population, one of the many mass atrocities of the 20th century.
This imaginative experience raised for me again the mystery of evil. How can it be that we human beings treat other members of the human family outrageously, simply because of racial, religious, or ethnic differences? And for Christians to mistreat people who share the Jewish heritage of Jesus makes no sense whatsoever.
These three events, all of them raising difficult issues, brought me up close to mystery. The death of one person, the religion-supported decision to wage war, and the horrific portrayal of human degradation and slaughter, has confronted me with the reality of our human situation.
These issues provide much to reflect upon and to pray over. They challenge hopeful attitudes toward the world but can also be seen to underline the value of a deeper spirituality.
Richard Griffin