Escaping into the pages of a book can be a welcome respite anytime, but especially during an autumn in which we are deluged with elections and campaigns --- to say nothing of the "hectic-ness" of daily life. This week, The Tidings presents a sampling of newer releases that are likely to appeal to a variety of interests.
Wine at the End of the Feast: Embracing Spiritual Change as You Age
By Kristen Johnson Ingram. Loyola Press (Chicago, 2003). 292 pp., $13.95.
Creating a Spiritual Retirement: A Guide to the Unseen Possibilities in Our Lives
By Molly Srode. Skylight Paths Publishing (Woodstock, Vt., 2003). 171 pp., $19.95.
Both "Wine at the End of the Feast" by Kristen Johnson Ingram and "Creating a Spiritual Retirement" by Molly Srode offer seniors excellent insights and practical tips for living with spiritual depth and peace.
In her 70s and still a full-time writer and writing teacher, Ingram writes from personal experience and offers realistic views of the emotional and physical aspects of aging. She says that by living life out with passion and taking pleasure in ordinary things we spread happiness to others. She advises that, in the retirement years, balance is needed to avoid the illusion that God blesses only endless work.
In this her 18th book, the author counsels seniors to beware of plots to keep them busy with "meaningless little tasks that masquerade as craft." She challenges the aging to be "celebration persons" who see their bodies as "promises of resurrection" and whose dancing spirits will enliven others.
Ingram says that creativity energizes us and can be a form of prayer. She says that just looking or listening responsively enables us to maintain a youthful heart. Her title alludes to the Gospel story about the best wine served at the end of the feast, which she sees as our ability to find joy and spread it to others in whatever time is left for us.
Ingram suggests that spiritual growth and change begin as we are able to acknowledge our mortality without fearing death. This realization determines the "liturgies of old age." We turn from external forms of prayer toward silence and contemplation. In contrast to the American ideals of competition, righteousness, and profit, we begin to see the sacred in everything.
As the older generation, Ingram says we have no wiser guide than Christ himself. At this stage of life we are not trying to copy Jesus, but to be Jesus in the world through following our individual destinies. She speaks of living out our days consuming "the sacrament of time in the spirit of holiness."
In "Creating a Spiritual Retirement," Srode addresses the opportunities offered to those in retirement. She sees this as a time to listen to the inner spirit, to discover the sacred, and to develop creative practices that will enrich and support our later life. Each chapter ends with an insightful reflective poem and a list of practical suggestions.
Attending to unfinished business, such as mending relationships, clearing out things, fulfilling dreams, accepting our feelings and relating to God are important in retirement years, Srode writes. It is also important to be still and hear the beat that is different from the pulse of familiar work patterns. Srode says that just to be, to live, is holy -- whether we are productive or not.
Srode encourages older people to focus more on the realization that we, "circled round by space and time, float gently in the present moment." Our future is the here and now for fulfilling dreams or expectations, as Srode herself found in writing this book shortly after her retirement.
Catholic readers may have difficulty with the author's analogy that we are all divers whose spirits decided to plunge to earth to accomplish a definite "soul purpose" and who may decide to take another dive down to earth after death. Overall, however, this book provides helpful guidelines for planning healthy, hopeful retirement years.
---Sister Mona Castelazo, CSJ
The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam
By Jennifer Heath. Hidden Spring Books (Mahwah, N.J., 2004). 465 pp., $28.
Journalist Jennifer Heath begins "The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam" with these words: "I came of age in Afghanistan with Muslim girls of similar thoughts and ambitions in the 1960s. We were all tethered one way and another to the strictures of our societies. There were rules and protocol to which I was expected to adhere as the child of a diplomat, and these seemed as restrictive as the social conventions to which my chums were bound."
If biography is one of the quickest ways to grasp history, and a quickening empathy is one of the surest ways to embrace "the other," then Heath has created a cornerstone masterpiece in this book.
Heath's passion for her subject is personal. She recalls, "My friends and I laughed, played, dreamed, learned the latest songs, practiced the latest dance steps, shared our innocent secrets, gossiped and talked through long, happy nights about our grand plans for the future." Her memories of her Afghan girlhood give the book immediate, exotic cachet.
Her timely, topical work is a labor of love, spawned by the variety, vitality and unbridled uniqueness she found among those friends. Surviving tragedies such as the wars in Afghanistan, those relationships have lasted a lifetime and inspired "a vision, long held, to make a meaningful study of the remarkable histories of women of the Islamic world."
"We must learn to know the peoples we erroneously proclaim our enemies and whom we too quickly label as utterly oppressive of women," Heath writes. To make her case she looked to women of Arabia, Persia, Turkey, Central Asia, India and North Africa from the seventh century, which saw the birth of Islam, through the 19th century.
Heath describes the volume as two books in one. Each chapter has a historical overview essay on such topics as "Ascetics, Saints and Mystics"; "Warriors and Amazons"; "Rebels and Concubines"; "Musicians and Dancers"; "Rulers, Regents, Queen Mothers and Philanthropists"; "Tradeswomen and Learned Ladies"; and "Poets." After the easy-to-read scholarship comes the narrative poetry. For each grand female Heath has written a creative, present-tense passage that uses factual episodes and imagined dialogue, situations and settings to create a life excerpt.
For example, Heath profiles Khadija, one of the Prophet Mohammed's four wives, who consoled him after his first revelations when he thought he was going mad. Heath writes the scene: "'Something is happening to me, Khadija. Am I majnun, possessed by djinn? Am I mad?' She lifts his chin firmly and looks straight into his eyes. 'God does not act cruelly. You know that God is not capricious. Allah will never disgrace you, my dear.'"
Completely imagined, and completely believable, such intimate passages cannot be literally true, but they can imbue truth, and at this Heath excels.
Her greater agenda, beyond biography and history, is to shine a light on the fact that Islam has had, and continues to have, a legacy shaped and carried by extraordinary women: "Taken all together they seem to represent Everywoman, each whole, yet each a part of a whole, each with characteristics possessed in various measure at various times by all women: mother, nurturer, lover, wife, sister, creator, dependent, self-sufficient, intellectual, intuitive, mystic, militant and more."
Anyone who wants to be surprised and educated by the reach and impact of women on Islam must read this handsome work, physically bound with a sumptuous richness and attention to detail that the women of Islam would pronounce overdue and well done.
---F. Lynne Bachleda
All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks
By John L. Allen Jr. Doubleday (New York, 2004). 392 pp., $24.95.
"All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks" is the newest book by John L. Allen Jr., Vatican-beat reporter for the U.S. weekly National Catholic Reporter newspaper. In the introduction Allen somewhat grandly states the central purpose of his new book: "My agenda qua Catholic is to bring the local church from which I come, and, more broadly, the English-speaking world, into more fruitful conversation with the center of the universal church in Rome."
He begins by leading us through his "Vatican 101," a basic course exploding myths and exploring psychology, sociology and theology. While all of this information is valuable to the general reader, the tone of authorial superiority and pomposity throughout the book is not.
Allen dispels what he calls the top five myths about the Vatican:
-- First, there is no monolithic "Vatican" with a single mind; instead, it is a diverse bureaucracy.
-- Second, the question "Who's in charge?" assumes there is one person in charge of everything, which there isn't.
-- Third, the place is not really ultrasecretive, though it is not really transparent either.
-- Fourth, it is not really that rich. The Vatican, Allen says, "has an annual operating budget of $260 million." By contrast, "Harvard University has an annual operating budget of a little over $1.3 billion, which means it could run the equivalent of five Vaticans every year." And, in comparison to the corporate world, Allen writes that Microsoft Corporation, with annual sales of $293 billion, in 2002 budgeted $4.7 billion for research and development -- that one department had a budget 18 times the size of the Vatican's total budget.
-- Fifth, he says, "It is not true that ambition and careerism are the dominant psychological traits of the men and women in the Holy See."
"All the Pope's Men" has one long and important chapter on the Vatican and the American sexual abuse crisis. It contains some of the best insights in print into this incendiary problem. Allen says that Rome considered the revulsion to the revelations of sexual abuse another reflection of the Puritan strain in the American character that can't accept that priests are fallible humans like themselves. But, as Allen notes, our deeper outrage was with the bishops.
Allen argues that the source of misunderstanding was the Vatican's love of tradition (of not changing what seems to work) and the belief that bishops should stay in their positions in order to resolve the problems in their dioceses. In sharp contrast, Americans believe offending CEOs should relinquish their positions when corporate scandal breaks. Thus, Boston Catholics thought Cardinal Law should step down (and many thought he should be prosecuted as well).
Another problem was the Vatican's pace in dealing with the crisis. Americans may not like the rapid, ever-changing nature of our society, but we are accustomed to it. The Vatican views regional problems from a more global perspective and deliberately moves at a slower pace. Americans interpret that as indifference and stonewalling. To those who suffered at the hands of church predators, Allen's explanations will be cold comfort. Nonetheless, his contribution to the dialogue is important.
The final chapter on the Vatican and the war in Iraq is less compelling, largely because the pope and the diplomatic corps of the Vatican have maintained a firm and consistent opposition to our invasion and occupation of Iraq. They reject the idea of pre-emptive warfare as inconsistent with the "just-war" theory.
Allen's Vatican resembles a small and surprisingly well-managed company with the Holy Father as CEO. But most Catholics, I believe, see Rome as the heart of Christ's kingdom on earth. We are proud that our Holy Father can influence world events, that he writes exquisite prose, and that he has made more than 100 trips encompassing the globe. But, more importantly, we see him as the supreme example of how to live a life in Christ. One photograph of John Paul II praying with his would-be assassin shows the character of this pope better than a dozen books giving us the insider's scoop.
---Graham G. Yearley
Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver
By Scott Stossel. Smithsonian Institution Books (Washington, 2004). 761 pp., $32.50.
In his introduction to the biography of Robert Sargent Shriver, Scott Stossel writes that his subject, now 89, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in early 2003. The biographer expressed his hope that he has served "Sarge" well in this definitive life story. Most readers should agree that he has.
Stossel covers the career and activities of Shriver in great detail. The author, an editor at Atlantic Monthly, has interviewed his subject, members of his extended family, political and business associates and rivals. Memoirs and histories of Camelot, the New Frontier and the Great Society have been reviewed to capture the atmosphere of the times. Stossel contends that Shriver, although considered by many as the quiet man or Mr. Nice Guy in the competitive and combative Kennedy family circle, was his own man and contributed much in the way of leadership and ideas to various governmental and private programs.
The Shrivers are descended from an old German Protestant family that arrived in the New World as Schreibers in the early 1700s. Eventually they settled in Maryland, where some of the family became Catholics. Sarge Shriver was born in Maryland in 1915. The family eventually settled in New York City, where their fortunes declined as a result of the Great Depression.
The biographer notes that the reduced circumstances of the Shrivers made young Sarge aware of the trials and tribulations often faced by people through no fault of their own. With hard work and scholarships Shriver succeeded in graduating from Yale and its law school. During World War II he served overseas as a U.S. Navy officer.
After the war Shriver practiced law in New York, then worked for Newsweek. During this period he became associated with the Kennedys. Stossel speculates that Joe Kennedy was impressed by Shriver and hired him to manage the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Stossel also hints that the old man may have considered Shriver as a likely husband for his daughter Eunice. The couple were married in New York by Cardinal Francis Spellman at St. Patrick's Cathedral in May 1953. Stossel describes the wedding as an extravaganza. The couple had five children.
The biography then follows the political fortunes of Shriver and his in-laws. There are intriguing insights into the rise of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, their political allies in the "Irish Mafia," and their efforts to enact their economic programs and governmental agenda. Shriver headed VISTA, the Peace Corps, Head Start, and the Job Corps, and served the White House loyally and effectively.
Shriver's relations with the family changed after the president's assassination in 1963. Shriver accepted President Lyndon Johnson's offer to administer the Office of Economic Opportunity. This move infuriated Bobby Kennedy and his supporters who despised Johnson. Stossel is of the opinion that this rivalry within the family may have cost Shriver the backing of Kennedy supporters for his own political ambitions. Eventually Shriver accepted the post of ambassador to France from Johnson.
The Democratic Party was tearing itself apart on moral and social issues in the 1970s when Shriver ran for vice president on the 1972 ticket with George McGovern, who lost to the re-elected Richard Nixon. Stossel says Shriver may have been a sacrificial lamb, who out of partisan loyalty decided to join the ticket of a disorganized party.
In 1976 Shriver threw his hat into the presidential ring. This time, however, the electorate, disgusted with Watergate and politics as usual, supported a new face --Jimmy Carter of Georgia. Shriver's political ambitions were finished. Stossel notes that from then on Shriver devoted himself to private life and public service, especially the Special Olympics -- a family affair.
Stossel defends his subject's lifelong contributions to public service and the church. However, he admits that Shriver, for all his remarkable achievements, was plagued by the Kennedy shadow. Oddly enough, the man once known as the president's brother-in-law is now known to many as the California movie-star governor's father-in-law.
---John H. Carroll
Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
By Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister. Sheed & Ward (Lanham, Md., 2004). 232 pp., $21.95.
A Faith for Grown-Ups: A Midlife Conversation About What Really Matters
By Robert P. Lockwood. Loyola Press (Chicago, 2004). 304 pp., $17.95.
It is hard to imagine how two personal reflections on Catholicism could be more different than "Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir" by Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister of Erie, Pa., and "A Faith for Grown-Ups: A Midlife Conversation About What Really Matters" by Pittsburgh's diocesan communications director, Robert P. Lockwood. One thing they have in common is insight about being a mature Catholic in 21st-century America.
Their differences are profound and worth noting. There is almost nothing similar about their backgrounds, their focus, their concerns or their intended audiences.
Both reflect on their Catholic upbringings and do it vividly. But Lockwood's was a warm and happy time loaded with friendships. Sister Joan describes a tormented, solitary childhood that she struggled to outgrow and transcend. Sister Joan's book is an inner journey of the soul. Lockwood reaches out to others.
Sister Joan's fans -- and they are legion since she is a widely published author and well-known speaker -- will enjoy sharing her personal faith journey. In 25 chapters, she considers many facets of her life from her earliest days to her recent years as one of America's most prominent women religious. The chapters are organized into seven sections ranging from the "inward life" to issues of resistance and ecology.
Occasionally one finds insight, as when she describes why thinkers chafe at commands: "Orders bind us to an immediate response, but listening sets us free to think things through." But she paints the nuanced world she inhabits with a broad brush, not always concerned about staying within the lines. "Every era manufactures a heresy proper to the times. Quietism is ours," she writes. Really?
On page 223 I scribbled: "I think Joan and I are on the same page spiritually, but she carries some baggage that does not burden me -- and much anger." On page 224 she acknowledges the burden of "old baggage." She says one needs to "grow beyond the wounds and memories," but in the end it is not clear that she does.
Lockwood's book is different because it is not his purpose to recall his past to come to grips with it. He goes back in time to establish common ground with his intended reader -- the baby boomer who drifted away from the faith because of a slight, a grudge or just the momentum of growing up in a post-Christian culture.
Lockwood himself drifted away with the flow of college life, but his drift was short-lived. After college he found a place in the Catholic press and worked his way to the posts of president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing. While he was there, we met and became friends.
Lockwood is familiar with all the baggage, misinformation and misunderstanding that have kept many of his cradle-Catholic contemporaries from the practice of their faith. He seeks to have a respectful "conversation" with them.
His message is one of liberation: Forget the trappings of childhood that bother, befuddle and burden you; focus instead on the core of Catholicism and enjoy a richer, more satisfying life. He knows the core and writes about it with clarity. His book does something I would like to do -- and sometimes try to do -- with old friends and other contemporaries who have lost their way or feel adrift, looking for an anchor as life recedes with their hairline.
Lockwood writes that he likes the often-quoted description of the Catholic Church as "Here comes everybody." That description is still good news for Catholics, even if some don't like to hear it and others don't believe it. And it helps explain how such different authors --- and their books --- are Catholic.
---Owen Phelps The Reviewers:
F. Lynne Bachleda, a comparative religion writer, lives in Fairview, Tenn. Her latest book, "Canticles of the Earth: Celebrating the Presence of God in Nature," was published by Loyola Press in October.
John H. Carroll is a retired federal government official.
St. Joseph of Carondelet Sister Mona Castelazo has taught English and literature for many years in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, most recently at Mount St. Mary's College.
Owen Phelps is director of communications and publications for the Diocese of Rockford, Ill.; associate publisher of The Observer, Rockford diocesan newspaper; and on the faculty at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee.
Graham G. Yearley writes on theater, literature and spirituality from Baltimore, where he studied theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University. |