Personal – Page 11 – About Things That Matter

Biblical Studies Awaken Me to Political & Economic Realities (Personal Reflections XI)

Barth

Last week I was reflecting on the importance of Bible courses that were central to the training I received at St. Columban’s Major Seminary in Milton, MA. I was praising my most influential teacher there, Father Eamonn O’Doherty, who introduced us to modern scripture scholarship.

Now I see that what I learned from Eamonn went far beyond the Bible. It was more about process — about thinking for myself even In the face of the strongest authority imaginable — that of God himself. It was about making connections in economic and political terms between the world of the Bible and the world of today.

The kind of historical and analytic thinking to which Eamonn exposed me eventually spilled over into other areas of my life — to personal moral decisions, and to politics. Gradually, I reasoned that if I could question what I had understood to be the authority of God about the Bible, then why not raise questions about the Ten Commandments or what I had been taught concerning the goodness of my country. Perhaps my reading of American History was as erroneous as what I had understood about the Bible.

What I mean is that from my earliest schooling, the Sisters of St. Joseph had taught me that the Bible was the very Word of God. As such it was unquestionable. To even entertain doubts about its truth was sinful.

And though the good sisters taught me how to read, it never crossed their minds (in the 1940s and early ’50s) that the Bible could be read in any other way but literally.

.After all, Pope Pius XII (1939-’58) had then only recently granted permission to Catholic scholars to follow the example of their Protestant counterparts in applying the tools of critical analysis to sacred scripture. This meant approaching the Bible as an historical document — as ancient literature. It meant recognizing the host of literary forms it contained, It meant acknowledging that none of its contents is history in the modern sense of the term, and that it all found analogue in the sacred texts of other religions.

The pope did all of that in his encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943).

By the time my formal biblical studies began (1963) Catholic scholars had used the pope’s injunction to catch up. More than that, by ’63, the Second Vatican Council (’62-’65) had already been in session for more than a year. Its reflections and changes all stemmed from re-readings of biblical texts in the light of the scholarship I’m referencing. And the resulting changes were profound touching understandings of church, priesthood, and the relationships of Catholics to the contemporary world.

In the 1960s that world was In turmoil; it was experiencing the birth pangs of a dawning new consciousness. It was the era of the Civil Rights Movement. The missile crisis in Cuba (1962) nearly brought nuclear holocaust. President Kennedy was assassinated (1963) The Gulf of Tonkin (1964) plunged the U.S. more deeply into the Vietnam War.

.My first reaction to those “worldly” events was to dig in my heels. I was critical of war protestors.

I thought Dr. King had overstepped his competence when he criticized the War and U.S. colonialism (1967).I was more sympathetic to the government and police than to those calling for fundamental social change on behalf of African Americans, the colonized, the peace movement, feminists, Native Americans, prisoners, and the LGBTQ communities.

But after initial resistance, I couldn’t deny what I was learning about the Bible. And (as I was saying) that proved to be the thin end of the wedge for changes in other spheres. The evidence driving me to change my mind about the Bible was overwhelming. It had too much explanatory value.

So did the political and economic analysis behind what the biblical scholars I encountered over the years had to say about the connections between the ancient texts they explained and the underdeveloped world in which the majority of humankind lives. They are the ones responsible for awakening me to undeniable political and economic realities. I met them in Rome, and my travels throughout Europe, and in Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, India, the Holy Land, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

I’m referring most prominently to Frei Gorgulho, Ana Flora Anderson, Franz Hinkelammert, Helio Gallardo, Elsa Tamez, Pablo Richard, Maria Lopez Vigil and her brother Ignacio, Ched Myers, Norman Gottwald, Resa Aslan, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Elaine Pagels, and a host of liberation theologians.

All of them helped shape (and continue to do so) my historical, political and economic understanding of the world. It was a long process. I summarize it in the two dozen points (which I’ll list here over the next two weeks). Readers will note how the points gradually become more political and related to empire, structural violence, resistance, and the struggle for justice. That gradualness reflects my own growth in consciousness over the last 50 years.

My point here (as I struggle to explain the origin of my crazy Ideas to my children) is that it’s all grounded In faith.

[Next week: My Understanding of the Bible (and of the world) in 12 of 24 points]

Waking Up To the Real Nature of the Bible (Personal Reflections Pt. X)

Merk

I don’t exactly remember what I thought about the Bible before beginning its formal study the year after receiving my B.A. in Philosophy (1961),

Ironically, although I had been in the seminary all those years (since 1954) the formal study of “religion” hadn’t at all been central in. the curriculum.

Yes, we attended Mass every day (and twice on Sundays). And there were all those daily chapel activities and devotions: morning and evening prayer, afternoon rosary, “visits” to the Blessed Sacrament before and after meals, nightly Benediction, conferences by the seminary spiritual director, etc. There were also those inspirational readings I mentioned accompanying breakfast and lunch in the “refectory.”

But formal study pretty much concentrated on languages (Latin, Greek, and French) and normal secular studies associated with high school, on the one hand, and on the other, college courses associated with a Philosophy Major.

So by the time I began the formal four year (and post-grad) theological curriculum (1962) my understanding of such matters, including the Bible was fairly uninformed. I’m sure I thought the Bible was the very word of God valid for all time.

That began to change with exposure to the teachings of Fathers Eamonn O’Doherty and Jack Moriarity, both of whom introduced us to modern scripture scholarship which emphasized the history behind the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. They introduced us to form criticism and redaction criticism as well.

Form criticism made us aware that the Bible is filled with various kinds of literature. Literary forms found there include myth, legend, debate, fiction, poetry, miracle stories, birth accounts, letters, apocalypse, annals of kings, law, riddles, jokes, parables, allegories, etc. None of that, really, is history as we understand it. And if we read poetry, for instance, as if it were history we’ll commit huge interpretational errors.

Just realizing that can change one’s entire approach to the Bible. It did mine.

I remember sitting each day for classes in “Old” and “New” Testament in our aula maxima on the second floor or our Major Seminary on 1200 Brush Hill Road in Milton, MA. The entire student body – those about to be ordained, and the three classes behind them – took those classes together. There were probably sixty of us. So I found myself edified (and intimidated) by the good students among my elders whose questions and observations always seemed so sage, perceptive, and sometimes daring.

For a long time, I pretty much kept quiet. But the wheels were whirring at top speed inside my head. For a biblical literalist like me, it was all hard to swallow

For instance, I recall the day during our study of the Gospel of Luke that the penny dropped for me that the Three Wise Men never existed. It was all a “midrash,” we were told, on the part of the gospel’s author (whose real identity remains unknown). Midrashim, it turns out, are usually fictional stories meant to elucidate particular biblical texts or beliefs.

“Say what?” I thought. “The next thing you’ll be telling me is that the resurrection never happened.”

Well, that day never came – from the actual teachings of my Scripture Profs. But it sure did for me. So I remember one day screwing up the courage to ask Father Eamonn about it in class. I asked, “Is it possible, Father, that gospel stories about what’s called the ‘resurrection’ of Jesus were also simply creations of the early Christian community to reflect their gradually dawning consciousness that Jesus’ words were true: ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me’ and ‘Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst?’ In other words, might the resurrection, like the tale of the Three Wise Men also be a midrash?”

I awaited Father O’Doherty’s answer with bated breath. Perhaps my question wasn’t clear enough, I feared.

Well, the question was clear enough. Father O’Doherty paused a few moments. Then he responded: “No,” he said. And that was the end of it! He moved on.

Now that might give you the impression that Father Eamonn wasn’t a good teacher. Quite the contrary. I’m confident in saying that nearly all of my peers recall him as their most influential Prof during our four years of theological training. I agree with them. Eamonn imparted to us not only essential facts about the Bible, but an entire approach that stuck with us all.

In my case, his classes provided me better than any other a firm basis for what I would learn in Rome during my doctoral studies there (1967-’72). – and for what I internalized subsequently as I continued my studies with liberation theologians in Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and elsewhere in the developing world. Of course, I’ll have more to say about that later.

But for now, I must tell you about Father O’Doherty’s teaching method. Again, it proved extremely effective. However, it’s not the sort of thing you’ll find in the best treatises on pedagogy.

The other day, I was looking at the basic primary source text we used in his New Testament classes. It’s Augustinus Merk’s Novum Testamentum Graece Et Latine (pictured above). It’s the entire New Testament in its original language, Greek on one side of the page and Latin on the other. Originally published in 1948, its footnotes are filled with scholarly critical apparati. – mostly pointing up and evaluating variant readings of the Greek texts. I[n itself, that’s interesting. We were actually dealing with texts very close to the originals (none of which, it turns out, have survived. Instead all we have are copies of copies of bad copies. But that’s another story.)]

Besides the text itself, what was even more interesting to me were my notes in the margins of each page. Each was jam-packed with cursive scribblings in my smallest possible handwriting – so small, in fact, that I needed a magnifying glass to review some of them last week.

And that was evidence of Father O’Doherty’s teaching method. It involved (1) his lecturing to us each day reading mostly from his notes, (2) our transcribing notes as fast as we could, pausing occasionally for someone to ask questions, (3) Our transferring those notes into the margins of the relevant texts during out study periods, and (4) Recopying those detailed marginal notes onto exam papers in response to our teacher’s exam questions.

To me, in retrospect, that sounds pretty much like what the great Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, excoriated as “Banking Education” – where teachers make deposits into the “accounts” of students who subsequently make withdrawals at exam time to purchase good grades.

But here’s the funny part: it worked! Father Eamonn wasn’t a particularly dynamic teacher. But what he taught us was so interesting and well-organized that we learned important lessons from a process that seems like pure regurgitation. Put that in your pedagogical pipe and smoke it!

Ask any of my peers. All of us love Eamonn. And we remain grateful to him to this day.

(Next Week: a full account of what I learned about the Bible over the years – in two dozen points)

Vatican II: My Alarm Clock Rings (Personal Reflections IX)

Vatican II

These weeks I’ve been trying to trace the origins of my own awakening to the necessity and power of critical thought. I’m doing so even though the reaction of many kind enough to read my blog might be “Who cares?” From them, I beg indulgence.

However when the “who cares” thought occurs to me, I think, “I’m writing especially for my children (Maggie, Brendan, and Patrick) who might some day care – even if not now. I’m writing for some students at Berea College (where I taught for 40 years) and whose tuning into this blog suggests they might still be interested. Same goes for the hundreds of Evangelical college and university students whom I ended up teaching in the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) in Costa Rica where I worked off and on (as “Don Mike”) for more than 20 years.

So allow me to continue.

I was saying that insofar as any “awakening” has occurred in my life, it has happened in a world that I’ve gradually discovered to be mostly the opposite of what I’ve been taught by well-meaning parents, teachers and public figures in the United States. I don’t hesitate to say that in very important ways, most of what they taught me as “right” turns out to be wrong. Most of their “truths” I’ve come to see as falsehoods. And I’m referring to some of the most important aspects of life – women (yes, I list them first on purpose!), God, religion, history, and politics.

In that context, as I attempted to show last week in the case of my English professor, Father James Griffin, I experienced many caring people (especially Sisters of St. Joseph and professors within the Society of St. Columban) who while not necessarily exemplifying critical thought in the political sphere, encouraged me to think critically about poetry, literature, and the Bible at a time when the term “critical thinking” had not yet come into vogue.

Certainly, all of them were critical in a small but important aspect of the wider sphere because they were operating within the context of the Catholic Church. In the United states of the ‘40s,‘50s and ‘60s the Church still found itself on the defensive before a population still prejudiced against it. So while the Church was trying desperately to fit in as Super American, it did so while defending its religious beliefs against hostility directed towards “Papists.” It was important for us to root for Notre Dame on fall Saturday afternoons. It was an act of cultural resistance.

My journey towards genuine critical thinking took giant strides when after finishing my undergraduate degree in philosophy, I entered the major seminary. “The Major’s” six-year curriculum comprised the final two years of undergraduate work in philosophy and was completed by four years of post-grad theological studies culminating with my ordination to the priesthood at the age of 26 in Milton, Massachusetts. (Thereafter, as you’ll see, I was sent to Rome for five more years of work towards my doctoral degree in theology.)

Actually, I don’t remember benefiting much from my philosophy major. However (paradoxically as I show here) one of my most memorable and in some ways influential professors was Fr. Norbert Feld. He taught us metaphysics and cosmology. Turns out that way back then in the early ‘60s Norbie was a precursor of today’s right wing Republicans. He was a fan of William Buckley and The National Review. He’d endlessly ridiculed “liberals” and even (as I recall) Pope John XXIII’s social encyclical, Mater and Magister (“Mother and Teacher,” 1961). The encyclical’s title referred to the roles of the “Holy Mother Church” in the pursuit of social justice. In that connection, I remember Fr. Feld’s reading an excerpt from Buckley’s critical National Review article called, “Mater Si, Magister No!”

In fact, Norbie’s only “philosophical” utterance that sticks with me was his observation about Rene Descartes (1596-1650) – one of the great heroes of the Scientific Revolution. Norbie said Descartes “didn’t know his head from his elbow.” That shows you what Catholics even in the ‘60s thought about the “modern world.”

Despite all of that and in some strange way, Father Feld played a role in awakening me to the importance of politics. His right wing harangues did something to convince me that Barry Goldwater deserved my first vote for president. Still even at this late stage (21 or 22) I found myself content to slumber. I didn’t really see what all the fuss was about.

Even my theological studies those last four years in the major seminary didn’t make much impact at first. They were dry as dust and for me represented just one more hurdle blocking my way to the goal I wanted more than anything else – to become a priest.

Then Pope John called the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and everything changed.

Suddenly, the Eucharist was celebrated entirely in English. The seminary chapel was remodeled with the altar facing the congregation. The tabernacle (no longer located on the “Eucharistic Table”) now found its place off to the side quite distant from the altar. Instead of a small golden cask, it became a huge wooden treasure chest meant to resemble the Ark of the Covenant. It was designed by a Jewish artist. (I remember engaging in heated debate about its appropriateness. “How could someone who did not even share the Catholic tradition,” I argued, “make a meaningful artistic statement about the Eucharist?”

Guitars now replaced organ music. We were singing songs that sounded like the Kingston Trio or Peter Paul and Mary.

Even more importantly, we left aside those dusty theological manuals that had been the basis of our boring studies. We were now reading protestant theologians. And all of a sudden theology was interesting – even exciting. We were also reading the works of Edward Schilebeeckx’s (Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God )as well as works by Hans Kung, Ives Congar, Teilhard de Chardin and other contemporary (mostly European) theologians.

We who had been cooped up in the seminary for so long were now allowed to travel at night together to the Paulist Fathers Lecture Series in Boylston Square. There we listened to scholars like Andrew Greely and Barnabas Ahern.

Ahern’s lecture about “The Human Jesus” impressed me tremendously. It changed the way I thought about Jesus. The talk’s central image was a “what if” analogy between Jesus and Pope John XXIII. “What if by night Pope John stole out of the Vatican precincts and in disguise travelled across the Tiber into Trastevere to consort with and teach the poor there as one of them?” Jesus did something like that, Ahern argued – using his powerful grasp of modern scripture scholarship to make the point.

I was so impressed that the next day I sat down at my Olympus typewriter and wrote out the whole talk virtually verbatim from memory. Subsequently, I used it again and again to share Ahern’s insights with congregations I served. It was the best lecture I had ever heard.

However it’s not that I was yet completely comfortable with all the new things I was hearing. Ahern’s words were one thing, but I was uncomfortable with questioning issues I had thought long since resolved — papal infallibility and even mandatory priestly celibacy. We were now having constant though informal debates about those things. I remember once writing a “learned” essay in defense of Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. My classmates and others thought it too medieval and out-of-date. I loved the book and defended as if it were the Bible itself

But then, even the Bible, I found out, needed thoughtful critique. My most influential professor in the Major Seminary taught me that. And the evidence shook me to my foundations. (More one that topic next week)

Go Ahead: Blame My Crazy Thinking on Poetry! (Personal Reflections, Pt. VIII)

Golden Treasury

I skipped this “personal reflections” blog entry last week, because of a delightful visit by our four grandchildren over their spring break from Montessori School. So I was out scootering on Berea’s campus, eating ice cream, making breakfast pancakes, playing “Candyland,” and generally horsing around for a week with Eva (age 7), Oscar (5), Orlando (3), and Markandeya (1 ½). It was all great fun – unforgettable moments to treasure now and anticipate in the future.

It was all much more rewarding even than fashioning a blog entry, which I also love to do – though not nearly as much as being “Baba” for those four.

In the meantime, I heard from friends who could relate personally to what I had written about my best college professor, Fr. James Griffin. More than one former classmate had similar reminiscences of “Tiffer” (as we used to call him). Others with different backgrounds recalled professors like him who were demanding, uncompromising , and (above all) eye-opening about literature, images, metaphors, similes, that (in the Tiff’s words) “capture, contain, and communicate” the reality they symbolize.

Many of us were also blessed with teachers of rhetoric who demanded short sentences confined as much as possible to subject-verb-object constraints (SVO! SVO!).

Such exchanges with friends made me realize that I could blame Fr. Griffin for the “Hamilton” fiasco I recounted at the beginning of this series.

Remember that Fr. Griffin had us wearing out our paperback Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of Poetry. We had to read and reread those metaphysical poets, keeping track of the images they used and finding new meaning in those word-pictures each time. Similarly we combed through Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen and others. We learned to interact with their characters and talk about their thoughts, actions and motives as though those fictional women, children, and men were agents of flesh and blood. (I remember falling in love with Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice and Nancy in Oliver Twist.)

Such readings had us constantly looking below the surface for hidden meanings and feeling triumphant and increasingly confident when we discovered them.

And there’s the “Hamilton” connection. My response to the play wasn’t the first time my children objected to my diving below the surface to reach some “outlandish” conclusion. For instance, I remember us arguing about my take on Tom Hanks’ “Captain Philips.” I saw it as a typical self-congratulatory “cavalry to the rescue” story that demeans indigenous people while exalting the U.S. military. (You can read my review here.)

Such “readings” of literature – and life – are guided by questions like these:

What’s really being said here?
What’s not being said?
What’s apparent?
What’s not?
Whose class interests are being served here – the oppressors’ or that of the oppressed?
What’s the ideology behind this presentation?
Does it support the status quo or subvert it?
How does this relate to history as told by Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, or by Eduardo Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America, or by Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, or of Monica Sjoo’s The Great Cosmic Mother?
What can I learn from this about my own life?

That’s the sort of thing I began to learn from Fr. Griffin during my freshman and sophomore years at our seminary in Milton, Massachusetts. Later on, people called it “critical thinking.” And (to be truthful), the approach sunk in only gradually over the years. I mean it’s not like I suddenly became a critical thinker as a college freshman or sophomore. On the contrary, I was mostly reluctant to challenge received wisdom. Remember I was trying to be an obedient model seminarian who followed all the rules.

(Next week: Learning to Read Even the Bible with Critical Perspective)

Fr. James Griffin: My Best College Professor (Personal Reflections Pt. VII)

Einstein

Last week I got a bit side tracked in my efforts to explain my growth in consciousness writing perhaps with excessive detail about the minutia of life in the minor (high school) seminary. “TMI,” my wife counselled. So I dropped plans to share further episodes from the minor seminary.

Instead, let me get back on track this week by referring to an experience that directly helped me wake up from my culturally narrow stupor. (That, after all, is the purpose of these stories to my children.)

His name was Fr. James Griffin and he was indeed an experience.

Father Griffin was my English Professor each semester during my freshman and sophomore years in St. Columban’s College Seminary in Milton Massachusetts. He came from Ireland and was perhaps 50 years old at the time.

Father Griffin was a tough and merciless critic. He would review our papers in class, demanding that we stand up individually beside our desks while he ridiculed our errors, naiveties, and superficialities before our peers.

On one occasion, he got me on my feet for such purpose. He looked me in the eye, looked down at my paper, returned his gaze to mine, and then crumpled my essay into a ball and threw it in the wastebasket. “Sit down, Mr. Seul, he growled without comment. That was it.

Those first months as a freshman, I was terrified and dreaded English classes. I actually prayed that our professor would be sick and not show up. His health was delicate; so my petitions were often answered.

However, Father Griffin taught me how to write. “Keep your sentences short,” he demanded: subject/verb/ object – SVO. Keep that in mind. I don’t want to read anything longer than that!”

He also gave me an appreciation of poetry, art, and classical music. He was our choir director. He called all of us “Philistines” because he found us so uncouth and without a shred of culture. “You’re only interested in ‘shooting hoops’ (Isn’t that what you call it?)” he sneered.

Nonetheless, Father Griffin would bring his Wollensack tape recorder to choir practice and play German lieders for us. He once sat with us through a televised concert by Pablo Casals. His main text was Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of Poetry. By the end of my sophomore year, all of our copies were in tatters.

That’s because Father Griffin required us to read and re-read the Renaissance and Metaphysical poets keeping a journal of successive “encounters with the text” – always required to find something new. We assessed again and again the love poems of John Donne and Robert Herrick. Fr. Griffin enjoyed repeating Herrick’s lines.

WHENAS in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;	5
Oh how that glittering taketh me!

With the conclusion of that last line, he would invariably break out in a broad smile that revealed the pronounced gap between his two front teeth. He was great.

Yes, I came to treasure Father Griffin. He once astounded my puritanical sensibilities by talking of the love affairs of poets and artists. He remarked with a smile that they’re guided by exceptional moral standards beyond our ken. “Don’t blame them,” he advised.

Principally, Father Griffin helped me become a critical reader sensitive to images, symbols, metaphors and similes. He defined images as literary devices that “capture, contain, and communicate what they symbolize.”

I’ve since thought a great deal about that in the context of Catholic faith and what Protestants traditionally see as Catholics’ infamous devotion to “images” and our belief in the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the “Blessed Sacrament.”

Critics insist that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are “just symbols.” And to a large extent they have a point.

I however would add that such images are SYMBOLS. That is, in Father Griffin’s words, they “capture, contain, and communicate what they symbolize” – viz. the Real Presence of the saints and especially of Jesus. In fact, all language about God (and life) is symbolic. Our theologies can’t get us much closer to divine reality than that.

More generally, Father Griffin taught me that words are powerful. They transform; they shift shapes, perceptions and therefore reality itself. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Once a new understanding has been internalized, the world can never be the same. Absolutes become relativized; certainties crumble.

With such instruction, Father Griffin prepared me for my subsequent scripture studies in the major seminary. It helped me approach biblical texts with the confidence that I could read them without excessive dependence on what the “experts” had to say. It also eventually helped me approach the text of my own life with similar self-confidence. I can unpack and understand it without undue regard for what others say.

Father Griffin was also a golfer. Once in Ireland after ordination while I attending a “Chapter” (i.e. a leadership conference) of the Society of St. Columban I played a round with him. We had a great time. And I had the chance to tell him how important he was in my own development.

He seemed surprised, but clearly appreciated that.

Later I heard that Jim was also surprised about my leaving the priesthood. He thought I’d be the least likely of all to leave the Society of St. Columban. He didn’t know, of course, that what he taught me about critical thinking played such a role in moving me out.

Thank you, Jim. I remember you every day in my prayers.

Life in the High School Seminary and What I Learned: Personal Reflections (Pt. VI)

Vocation

A good friend of mine responded to last week’s “Personal Reflections” by observing that my studies in the minor seminary from 1954-’58 hardly sounded like what I described as “a standard high school curriculum.” To begin with, there was all that emphasis on classical languages. And then there was the rigor and regularly of the study regime in the absence of television, newspapers, and the distractions of girls and the accompanying social life.

So on second thought, I think my friend might be right. You be the judge.

However, the point here is not to convey information about my youth. It is rather to explain the foundation for my growth in consciousness towards those “crazy ideas” my kids complain about. I’m trying to get at how I grew from American nationalism and Catholic exclusivism to what I’d call a Cosmo-centric Mysticism that centralizes a “preferential option for the poor.” Surprisingly, all of that got its start in the high school seminary I wrote about last week.

Let me say a few more things about that experience and what it taught me. A lot had to do with discipline, survival, and introduction to the spiritual life.

As far as I can recall, our days at the minor seminary in Silver Creek, New York (and throughout my seminary years with suitable variations as we got older) were structured like this: We got up each morning at 6:30 (7:00 on Sundays). We were in chapel at 7:00 for Morning Prayer followed by Mass and time for prayers of thanksgiving afterwards. Except on special occasions, meals were taken in silence, while we all listened to one of us read from Sacred Scripture, the lives of the saints, or some inspirational book. After breakfast (8:00-8:30) we had “free time” to make our beds and get ready for class at 9:00. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays we had three classes in the morning and one in the afternoon. Wednesdays and Saturdays there was no afternoon class; it was replaced by extended recreation periods during which we engaged in organized sports or outdoor work projects.

Except on Wednesdays and Saturdays, afternoon recreation ran from 12:30 till 2:00. Afternoon class would occupy us till just before 3:00. Then we’d have supervised study hall till 4:30 followed by a half-hour of spiritual reading. (The study hall priest-supervisor would patrol the long lines of desks making sure we weren’t reading novels on the sly.) After that, there was Rosary and Vespers at 5:00, then supper at 5:30. This was followed by a period for chores and recreation till 7:00. Study hall would resume then and run till 8:30, when we’d be allowed a half hour for recreational reading of approved novels. Night prayer began at 9:00. Lights-out came at 10:00. The Great Silence reigned from night prayer till after breakfast the following morning.

Sundays we’d have a second Mass. And then there’d be intra-mural sports in the morning and extended free time in the afternoon. That’s when we could go on hikes to a nearby Howard Johnsons or somewhere for milkshakes or sundaes. Late Sunday afternoons we had a letter-writing period from 4:00-5:00 to keep us in touch with our families (no phone calls were allowed). Sunday evenings we’d have meetings of the Literary, Scientific, and Debating Society one week and of the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade the next. We all took turns delivering papers at those meetings and serving as club officers. On special occasions, there’d be a movie. And on really special feasts (like St. Columban’s Day) we’d perform dramatic or comic plays (which, of course, required lots of rehearsals). Most of us got used to being on stage. Much later, in the major seminary (at the age of 24 and 25), I actually had the lead roles in Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” and in “Brother Orchid.”

Of course, not everyone responded to seminary discipline in the same way. Early on I saw that there were three seminarian types. There were those who “jacked around” (That’s what we called it) as much as they could. They took everything with a grain of salt and were always in trouble with the authorities. They fooled around in study hall. They habitually broke the Great Silence. Eventually all those Jackers got bounced.

Then there were those who were mildly serious about the whole seminary routine; most of the survivors fell into that category. Psychologically they were probably the healthiest of any of us.

Finally there were the “saints.” They never jacked around, or broke the Great Silence. They practiced “custody of the eyes,” and always kept the rules. Almost invariably they were good athletes and smart students. I quickly decided to become like them.

I was “rewarded” (although it didn’t feel like that) by being made senior of my class mid-way through the first term of my freshman year at the Creek. That meant I was the liaison between my 31 classmates and the dean and rector of the seminary. That put me in line to be the Senior of the House (student body president) during my fourth year. That sort of thing happened to me throughout my 13 years of seminary training — mostly because I was a pious, obedient rule-keeper. My guides were a behavior manual called The Young Seminarian along with Thomas a Kempis’ classic The Imitation of Christ.

It also helped that I was trying hard to be a straight-A student. However I never quite made it into that category in the high school seminary. That would come later. Intellectually, I was a late bloomer and in high school had to settle for “Second Honors,” as they called it. My status in the eyes of seminary authorities was also helped by the fact that I liked sports and was good at them. That was important as well in the seminary pecking order among my peers.

While at the Creek, I used to hear our dean, John Healey, repeat, “You can take a boy out of Silver Creek, but you can’t take Silver Creek out of a boy.” I believe he was right. So much of Silver Creek remains part of who I am.

But what exactly has remained from the unusual training I received there. How did it contribute to my crazy ideas? After all, I’ve forgotten the rules for Latin ablative absolutes and how to form the conditional tense of irregular verbs ending in ere. I can no longer even pronounce Greek texts, much less translate them. When I look at pictures from those days gone by, I can’t, of course, remember everyone’s name.

Yet many lessons remain valid for me. They come largely from the spiritual seeds that were planted so long ago by our unquestionably caring professors. They also come from living in community with boys like me who were the first in their families to aspire to post-secondary education. My peers were the sons of policemen, firemen, delivery truck drivers, and construction workers. (I don’t remember a single one referring to parents who attended college.) I remember all of my companions as clever, high-spirited, and often comically gifted. Many of them remain good friends – among the best I’ve ever had, even though these days we rarely connect directly.

Here are a few of the lasting lessons we learned together from living together, from our professors and from The Rule. Despite appearances, none of them are intended as clichés. I treasure these learnings:

There is a fundamental opposition between “the world” and its values and what Jesus called “the Kingdom of God.”
The values of “the world” are deceptive, illusory and not worth the effort. They promise happiness as the result of pursuing power, pleasure, profit and prestige. None of those things are what life and happiness are really about.
Instead, life is about what I identify as “working-class values:” family, hard work, cooperation, shared common property, and hospitality as opposed getting ahead and accumulating differentiating wealth. (Later on, I’ll share the theory about this – i.e. how the poor actually know much more about life than the rich.)
I don’t need much to be content – and I don’t believe anyone does. Shared community, nourishing food, a roof over one’s head, decent clothes (in the major seminary we wore the same outer garments every day) and stimulating ideas (education) are enough. Simple is better than complex.
One’s interior life is far more important than exterior comfort. In the end, life and “salvation” are about waking up to the illusions foisted upon us by “the world” and replacing them with the simplicity of the working class values just mentioned.

Personally, it would be many years before I would realize that I learned those things in Silver Creek and later in the major seminary and novitiate. In so many ways, when I left Silver Creek I was still asleep and would remain so for many years. To a great extent I’m still shaking the drowsiness from my head.

“The World” is seductive.

(More about seminary life and its painful lessons next week)

My First Steps towards Internationalism (Personal Reflections Pt. V)

Silver Creek

In this series, I’ve been trying to explain (mainly to my children) the origin of their father’s “crazy ideas.” And, looking back, I can see that they’ve been shaped by at first unconsciously and later consciously looking at the world through the eyes of non-Americans. In retrospect I see that I’ve been an internationalist most of my life.

It all started at the age of 5 or 6, when I thought I wanted to be a priest. I guess I admired Fr. Burke and wanted to be like him. (When my Aunt Marge heard or my aspirations, she remarked something like, “Yeah, right. Wait till he discovers girls!”)

A little later I started a subscription to Fields Afar magazine published by the Maryknoll Mission Society. I was thinking of becoming a Maryknoll missionary. But then in my 7^th or 8^th grade, Fr. Stan Walzac of the Society of St. Columban visited our classroom at St. Viator’s. He told us of the Columbans – a group of about 1000 missionary priests – mostly Irish. The organization had been founded in Ireland in 1918 as the Maynooth Mission to China. “Maynooth” was the name of the Irish national seminary. After 1949, when the Chinese communists expelled foreign missionaries, the Columbans moved their focus to the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Burma and eventually to Latin America, and Pakistan.

I filled out a card-of-interest. Fr. Walzac was soon in our living room giving us his pitch. Next thing I knew, I was preparing to enter the high school seminary in Silver Creek, New York. That was 1954; I had just turned 14.

“The Creek” was a big medieval-looking building (pictured above) on a 50 acre campus on the shores of Lake Erie. It had everything you’d expect: dormitories, classrooms, library, chapel, gym, a beautiful cloister with a pond at its center with big gold carp swimming in it. We had a football field, baseball diamond, tennis courts, and outdoor Stations of the Cross placed on a bluff overlooking the lake. Everyone was required to play intra-mural sports in season – baseball, football, and basketball. I loved all of that, so I was happy. I felt sorry for the friends who had no interest, but were still required to play.

My four years at Silver Creek seemed never-ending. We were in the Buffalo snow-belt and the winters were hard. The food wasn’t great. We spent so much time shoveling snow that accumulated by the ton. My freshman class had 32 members; four of us from Chicago. Three of those Chicagoans persevered till ordination in 1966. We (and a classmate from Iowa) were the only ones from the original group who made it that far. Of course, others joined us along the 13 year journey to our goal. My ordination class had 10 members.

Studies at Silver Creek were demanding. It was the usual high school curriculum. But there was a lot of emphasis on languages – Latin, Greek, and French. Failure to “get” Latin caused so many students to fail out. Others were “bounced” (that’s what we called it) for disciplinary reasons, still others because in their cases, my Aunt Marge’s prediction came true.

And speaking of “bouncing,” I remember once when three of my classmates hot-wired one of faculty’s cars and drove to Buffalo for a night on the town. All three were gone within a couple of days.

The language emphasis at the Creek and being taught by those Irishmen played strong (though completely unconscious) roles in making me the internationalist I referenced earlier. As everyone says, language study does something to one’s mind – causes thinking from other perspectives – especially if the languages are studied on site.

So while French, Latin, Greek (and later, Hebrew) were studied on U.S. soil, my other languages – Italian, German, Portuguese, and Spanish were studied abroad. I picked up Italian in Rome, and then studied German for two summers at the University of Vienna, Portuguese came in Brazil, and Spanish in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to speak more than one of those tongues at a time. Right now, for instance, all my efforts are directed towards Spanish. So if I try to speak Italian, I become tongue-tied. I hate that.

The reading ability however remains. That’s enabled me to think outside the dominant culture here. For many years I found myself reading almost nothing but Portuguese and Spanish – the languages of liberation theology which over the last 40 years has influenced me so profoundly. Besides theology, I concentrated on history and economics. Those perspectives, I found, were far different from what we take for granted in the U.S.

None of this is to say that in my early years I didn’t think of myself as “American.” As a matter of fact, growing up with the Irish like that made me feel like an outsider and all the more American. It seemed that all of my classmates had parents from the Old Sod. Many were more Irish than the Irish. Some of them could step-dance, knew all the Irish songs, and wore genuine shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day. Meanwhile (as far as I knew) I had not a drop of Irish blood in my veins. As I said, I felt a bit of an outsider in those respects – and all the more “American.”

That Americanism was deeply offended when I was perhaps a freshman or sophomore at Silver Creek. For some reason our whole student body (about 100 of us) traveled to another seminary in nearby Dunkirk for a day of recollection or something. I remember an elderly priest (he might have been 60!) gave us a talk after lunch. And in its course he spoke about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (Remember this was just 10 years or so after the event.) The priest referred to bombing as “the worst international crime in the history of the world.” The remark took my breath away. I wondered, how could a priest say such a thing?

I took me many years to answer that question. But I mark the event as the beginning of my critical political consciousness – which was very slow in developing. . .

Next Week: More on this story . . .

How Rush Limbaugh Hijacked the Pope’s Climate Encyclical — & Our Parish Lenten Study Group

pope francis limbaugh 3

It’s Lent. Traditionally it’s a time for adult education in our parish. This year we decided to study the pope’s landmark encyclical, Laudato Si’.

The first meeting drew a group of 16 parishioners – almost all over the age of 60.

Perhaps understandably, the opening discussion never got much beyond statements familiar to most of us. More specifically, during our conversation we heard opinions voiced that:

The 125 year old Catholic social justice tradition is indeed admirable.
While capitalism has its problems, communism is just as bad or even worse.
Little can be done about global warming or about any social justice issues for that matter; it’s all due to irreformably corrupt human nature.
None of us is personally willing to change our lives much in response to the pope’s summons.
However, we might stop using Styrofoam cups during the parish fellowship hour after Mass.
We’re all on the same page and are preaching to the choir.
Some within the group have already moved off the grid and are generating electricity from solar panels.

Of course, most of those statements are questionable and worth discussing.

In any case, participants weren’t entirely to blame for the conversation’s lack of urgency. After all, the dialog exactly mirrored the source the group decided to use to focus its discussion – Discovering Laudato Si’: A Small Group Study Guide published by the Lexington diocese. It disappointingly succeeds in defusing the pope’s radical document in a way that Rush Limbaugh or any climate-change-denier might endorse. In its selection of papal texts, but especially in its introduction and conclusion, the guide actually adopts an overall tone and specific argument that:

The climate change debate is unresolved (p.10).
In the meantime, there is no urgency. In fact the church’s slowness of response is wisely traditional and purposeful (p. 27).
So Catholics shouldn’t “rush into the fray” (27).
In fact, it is not yet time for “larger responses” (27).
Instead the pope’s immediate summons is to personal change which itself necessarily takes time (27).
This means concentrating on “many little tasks” that address our own “ecological bad habits” (26).
Proper response, then, to the pope’s encyclical is to reduce, reuse, and recycle (27).
Our tiny tasks also include “helping the poor,” even though they often ask more than we can give, and even though helping them can be “dirty and dangerous,” and the poor themselves can be “angry, violent, or erratic” (24).
“Fortunately” we are not called to become climate change crusaders (26).
Doing so would be as bad as doing nothing (27).
And by the way, Marxism insists that “all capital and property should be controlled by the government” (5-6).

In view of such gradualism, complacency, misinformation, and discouragement of concerted activity, who couldn’t understand the group’s bemused lack of urgency in dealing with climate change and related issues?

And yet, the diocesan study guide flies exactly in the face of Laudato Si’ which adopts a strong position on the side of climate science. Its sense of urgency is unmistakable as is its overwhelming and specific focus on “the large issues.” According to Pope Francis, these call for abandonment of capitalism-as-we-know-it, for drastic structural change, joining world-wide movements, and restructuring economies according to a “preferential option for the poor.” Consider each of those elements.

First of all, the Pope unambiguously sides with climate science. Throughout the encyclical he endorses its findings:

“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climate system” (23).
The pope classifies climate change denial among what he calls obstructionist attitudes which range from a “denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions” (14).
In any case, the pope adopts what the 1992 Rio Declaration called “the Precautionary Principle.” It states that “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a pretext for postponing cost-effective measures which prevent environmental degradation” (186).
Laudato Si’ adds that “If objective information suggests that serious and irreversible damage may result, a project should be halted or modified, even in the absence of indisputable proof. Here the burden of proof is effectively reversed, since in such cases objective and conclusive demonstrations will have to be brought forward to demonstrate that the proposed activity will not cause serious harm to the environment or to those who inhabit it” (186).

Secondly, there is a sense of undeniable urgency in the pope’s words:

“Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain” (161)
Humankind today finds itself in a state of global “crisis.” (The word appears nearly 30 times in the encyclical. According to Merriam Webster, “crisis” means an unstable situation of extreme difficulty or danger.”)
“Our contemporary lifestyle can only precipitate catastrophes” (161).
Consequences of inaction will be “dire” (161)
“Decisive action” is called for “here and now” (161)
“We urgently (emphasis added) need a humanism . . . in the service of a more integral and integrating vision” (141)

Thirdly, see how Pope Francis approves of “environmental crusades” and their actions. He says:

“Public pressure must be exerted in order to bring about decisive political action” (179).
“A change in lifestyle could bring healthy pressure to bear on those who wield political, economic and social power. This is what consumer movements accomplish by boycotting certain products . . . This shows us the great need for a sense of social responsibility on the part of consumers.” (206)
“The Earth Charter asked us to leave behind a period of self-destruction and make a new start” (206). (TheEarth Charter – part of a worldwide environmental movement – is an international ethical framework for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century.)
“The worldwide ecological movement has already made considerable progress and led to the establishment of numerous organizations committed to raising awareness of these challenges” (14)

Fourthly, the Pope centralizes the “larger issues” including re-evaluation of capitalism-as-we-know-it. His critique of the reigning economic system is found prominently in Laudato Si’ (LS), The Joy of the Gospel (JG), and elsewhere in his speeches and homilies. He has said:

Unfettered markets and their “trickle-down” ideologies are homicidal (JG 53), ineffective (54), and unjust at their roots (59).
The right to private property should not be exercised primarily for personal gain (LS 93)
In fact, the unfettered pursuit of money is “the dung of the devil” (Speech Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 2015).
Instead “ownership” of private property is primarily an administrative responsibility to be exercised for the common good (LS 95, 129, 156, 159).
The earth’s wealth more rightly belongs to the poor than to the rich: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs” (JG 57).
The poor have been robbed of their resources and reparations need be made (LS 30, 51).
“If you were to read one of the sermons of the first fathers of the Church, from the second or third centuries, about how you should treat the poor, you’d say it was Maoist or Trotskyist.” (Pope Francis 2010 address)
“We don’t want this globalized economic system which does us so much harm. (Speech in Cagliari, Sardinia 9/22/13).
“Enforceable international agreements are urgently needed” (LS 172)

Fifthly, according to Pope Francis all of these concerns belong to ordinary people who as moral agents, must presumably educate themselves about their details:

The pope’s summons to address these issues is not directed towards the experts, but to “every person living on this planet . . . all people . . .” (LS 3).
In fact, the struggle for social justice and participation in political life is a “moral obligation” that is “inescapable” (JG 220, 258).

Sixthly, the pope offers an alternative to capitalism-as-we-know-it. The alternative is an economy structured according to a “preferential option for the poor.” This dictates:

Understanding Christian faith as essentially a call to prioritize the needs of the poor.” (In 2010 the future Pope Francis explained, “The option for the poor . . . is the Gospel itself.”)
An economy erected from the bottom-up. Its sponsoring question is how can we insure that farmers have land, that workers have jobs, and that everyone is decently housed?
Concern for all forms of life in the face of global warming, water and air pollution, massive extinctions, disappearance of rainforests, wasted food, waste in general, uncontrolled urbanization, rampant crime and loss of human meaning.
Drastic modification of market dynamics entailing at least the following: governments (1) intervening in the marketplace to insure the rights of all to jobs with living wages, housing, education, and health care, along with land for small farmers, (2) similarly regulating market forces to protect the global environment and all life forms from the most primitive to the highest, and (3) thereafter turning economies over to carefully monitored and controlled market forces under binding international agreements.

Finally, all of this – The Joy of the Gospel, Laudato Si’, the pope’s various speeches, and especially his address to the U.S. Congress raises specific questions about political activism and informed voting. For instance, does it mean voting:

Against climate-change deniers and for those who share the pope’s climate concerns?
Against champions of dirty fossil fuels and in favor of those supporting alternative, renewable energy sources?
Against those who would exclude refugees from finding shelter in the United States and in favor of those advocating sanctuary?
Against those who favor arms sales abroad and in favor of proponents of divestment from the arms industry?
Against champions of capital punishment and in favor of those calling for its abolition?
Against those proposing tax cuts for the richest 1% and in favor of increased redistributive taxes on their incomes?
Against those whose answer to global terrorism is war, bombing, and drone assassinations, and in favor of those who offer legal and diplomatic solutions to the problem of national security?
Against those who are selective in their “pro-life” advocacy, and for those who connect respect for life not just with abortion, but with providing care for unwanted children brought to term, with clean energy, environmental protection, universal health care, investment in public education, and opposition to capital punishment and war.
Conclusion

Pope Francis eco-encyclical is much more radical than the Lexington diocese pamphlet suggests. The study guide’s domestication of the pope’s urgent summons is not trivial. It fundamentally changes its message which is absolutely revolutionary (LS 114).

The earlier-mentioned Rush Limbaugh grasped that fact immediately. He said

“Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as ‘a new tyranny’ and beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality . . . Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the ‘idolatry of money’. . . This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope. . .”

He added

“Essentially what this papal encyclical is saying is that every Catholic should vote for the Democrat Party. Well, no, that’s what it is! How else do you interpret it when the pope comes out and sounds like Al Gore on global warming and climate change? Or when the pope sounds like Clinton or when the pope sounds like any Democrat?”

Limbaugh, of course, is wrong. Plenty of Democrats (including the current president) shy away from the pope’s call for international control of pollution, for debt-forgiveness, colonial reparations, universal health care, abolition of capital punishment, cut-backs in military spending, and limiting “pro-life” concerns to the abortion issue.

Nonetheless, the diocesan study guide’s insistence on gradualism, avoiding big issues and rejecting international climate “crusades” renders it unlikely that diocesan discussion groups will ever move beyond timidity, caution, boredom and resistance to discussing the issues it raises both small and (especially) large.

After all, Cultural Revolution entails serious conversations about relevant cultural elements that Americans find difficult: economic systems, historic relations between the U.S. and the “Third World,” theological convictions, models of church, what group participants actually believe about God, Jesus and the Bible – as well as about significant practical responses to what is arguably the most important public document of the present century.

Becoming revolutionary means opening participants’ hearts and minds so all of us might move beyond pseudo-certainties, drop defenses, learn something new, and possibly endure personal transformation. Most of us are not much used to any of that.

Nonetheless those are the tasks before us in our Lenten study group – along with the questions appended below:

FOR DISCUSSION

Is personal transformation desirable for you – personally, politically, and theologically? How might our discussion group stimulate such personal change?
Are you willing to engage in serious reconsideration of the relationships between climate issues and economic systems, U.S. history, Global South realities, and reinterpretations of Christian faith?
Is it really true that members of St. Clare parish are reluctant to respond positively and energetically to Laudato Si’?
Would parishioners be willing to fund a solar energy project that would move the parish off the grid?
What about petitioning Bishop Stowe to sponsor a similar project to move the entire diocese off the grid?
What do you think is the most important issue raised by Laudato Si’?
Is the pope correct in identifying climate change as a moral concern? Does it have the same importance, for instance, as abortion?
What within you is the biggest obstacle to accepting Pope Francis’ message? Is it possible for you to provisionally remove or somehow suspend that blockage for purposes of discussing Laudato Si’? How would you do that?
How would our Sunday liturgies change if our community recognized the truth and urgency of Laudato Si’?
Do you agree that within our church there are many different ideas about matters of faith such as the identity of God, the status of Jesus, the authority of the Bible, the nature of salvation, and the connection between faith and issues such as climate change
If so, how do we reconcile such fundamental differences with Catholic identity?
Do you think it important to clarify what group participants actually believe about such matters?
What should be done about theological and political differences – pastorally, liturgically, and in terms of community action?
What practical steps might be taken to make the parish of St. Clare more vital, relevant, prophetic (like the pope) and effective in the world?

Showdown in Buffalo Holler (Personal Reflections Pt. IV)

Holiness

As I said last week, while Peggy, our growing family and I were “homesteading” in Appalachia, I learned a lot from our neighbors who lived in a small trailer on a lot next to ours that used to be a garbage dump. Neither Jimmy Lee nor Letty got beyond sophomore status in high school. But they were in many ways far ahead of us. They could build a house as they did together from recycled lumber. Jimmy Lee could do plumbing, electrical work, roofing and auto repair including bodywork and painting. (He was roughly my age.) Family income came from all that, but also from disability checks, food stamps, and welfare payments.

Those neighbors and what I was learning from teaching “Issues and Values” at Berea College influenced us in more ways than I can tell. Our neighbors were very kind and tolerant of us stupid college professors who didn’t know nothin’.

At the time, “Issues and Values” had us reading Silent Spring, Limits to Growth, Small is Beautiful, The No-Growth Economy, Food First, World Hunger: Twelve Myths, Blaming the Victim, and Diet for a Small Planet. Peggy and I also read Mother Earth News every month, and the National Catholic Reporter every week. All of that radically changed our way of thinking and made us want to simplify our lives.

So we dug our own well, because there was no “city water” where we lived. We heated our house entirely from a “Baby Bear” wood stove. That had me spending a lot of time cutting wood, stacking it and splitting it to keep the house warm. It also meant that our water pipes would freeze periodically. So winter had me crawling in the dirt under the house with torch and solder, repairing our pipes. (It took me a while to learn how to do that without leaving drips.) Inevitably, when we had guests from either side of our family, our water would run out and we’d end up hauling water from a nearby pond to flush toilets. (Our families thought we were completely nuts.)

We also built a solar addition to our house. It was South-facing; with its entire wall in that direction made from recycled sliding glass doors. The floors in the two new rooms were brick (to absorb and store heat). The brick came from the torn-down Sears Building on Berea’s campus. We had gathered it and hauled it home in our old red Ford truck. In front of the windows we stationed eight 50 gallon barrels filled with water – again to store and radiate solar heat. (The barrels by the way came from a nearby ice cream factory. They had been filled with chocolate. So at the bottom of each was a large circle of covering for Eskimo Pies. Of course we broke all of that out and stored it in our refrigerator. That kept us in chocolate for years it seemed.) Our addition also featured a solar chimney to keep the room cool in the summer.

One Saturday a study group from nearby Appalachia Science in the Public Interest came by to examine our “model home.” That was about 1980 – just before the Reagan administration came into office and worked so hard to combat, reverse and defeat the environmental movement.

Besides the solar addition, I also dug a basement for our entire house. It started out as a root cellar (like the one our neighbors had). But then (using a mattock, wheel barrow, and shovel) I just kept expanding the excavation till we had an entire basement. From time to time friends would come by and help me dig. Then we had a carpenter-friend from our church pour a floor, and finish the thing. So we ended up nearly doubling the size of our house. We now had an additional large bedroom, another bathroom and a family room. And besides, all of that kept me from getting fat on Peggy’s gourmet cooking.

We had the only phone in Buffalo Holler. So our neighbors were often in our kitchen making calls. At Thanksgiving and Christmas we celebrated in each other’s home. Jimmy Lee and Letty were the Appalachians Berea College was teaching me about. That meant they had inherited a rich culture. It included music, food, language (with expressions directly from Shakespeare’s England) and Holiness religion. Jimmy Lee played the guitar.

Several times Letty invited Peggy and me to Holiness Church Saturday evening worship. It took place in a shack not 15 feet from a railroad track located about two miles from where we lived. When trains went by, the entire place shivered as if the Holy Spirit were descending upon us all. There was hymn singing, spiritual gyrating, speaking in tongues, and preaching that went on and on — no snake handling though. At one meeting Peggy and I were prayed over and anointed.

None of this is to idealize our neighbors or neighborhood. The road in front of our house was unpaved. So there were waves of dust in the summer time and mud that wouldn’t end in the winter. On those cold days we had to back up a hundred yards to “get a run” at the hill just to get out of the holler and drive to the college. Inevitably before the hill’s peak, the car would balk, struggle and swerve back and forth in the mud or snow and sometimes not make it. So it was back to the bottom of the hill; get another run going and try again. You should have seen the deep ruts in the mud near that hilltop.

One day we woke up to find our car up on blocks in front of our house with all of the wheels gone. On another occasion, during a snow storm (and to avoid the morning struggles up that hill), we parked our little Subaru at the bottom of the hill about a half-mile from our home. When we returned the next morning, the car was on its head. Evidently, some of “the boys” had come by and decided to play us a trick. They picked the car up and flipped it over. We never again left the car like that out of our sight.

There was lots of alcoholism in the holler. Cars would race up and down the unpaved road in front of our house raising waves of dust in the process. One day, when Patrick was still a baby, Peggy had enough of it. She went down to Letty and Jimmy Lee’s to complain. They agreed to do something about it.

Next morning, about 6:00 their son, Billy Jim did. He was in his early twenties at the time and had already been in and out of jail for burglaries and drugs. On this particular occasion, Billy Jim had been “a-drinkin’” as his father always put it.

Billy Jim wanted to fight me. “Mock,” he called from the road. “Mock, get your ass out here!”

I went out on the road still in my pajamas and slippers. “Mock,” Billy Jim slurred, “Yesterday, your woman come down to our trailer – on our property, mind you! And her a-complainin’ about me makin’ noise and raisin’ dust. I don’t like that! Who does she think she is? Now you and me can have it out here with guns or knives or bare fists. What’ll it be?”

Now at this point I realized the conversation was going to end badly. I hadn’t thrown a punch at anyone since grade school. But thankfully, about then our six-month old Patrick started crying from inside our house. I said, “Billy Jim, listen. Peggy was worried about our kids, and especially about the baby crying there. Do you hear him? You understand I’m sure: she’s a mother; she’s worried about her baby.”

At that, Billy Jim got more thoughtful. “Well, yeah . . .” he muttered after a moment or two; “I guess you’re right.”

“And anyway,” I continued, “I wouldn’t like to see you lose your driver’s license.”

That was exactly the wrong thing to say.

“What?!” Billy Jim shouted. “You gonna call the Law on me? You gonna call the Law on me!! You do that and I swear I’ll take my car and run right over the top of your’n – and you in it! Y’ear me?!”

I don’t remember what I said to that. But eventually things quieted down. We talked some more and parted “friends” – I guess.

In the midst of all that, Peggy finished her graduate studies. She received her doctorate in Education at UK and wrote an award-winning dissertation on Paulo Freire – the great Brazilian educator whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed had influenced literacy programs throughout the Third World. The American Education Research Association identified Peggy’s work as the “Outstanding Dissertation Award for Conceptual Research.” I was so proud of her! That was in 1986.

Freire’s method of teaching and learning was central to the methodology of liberation theology, which had increasingly seized my attention since I first encountered it in 1969. It also had connections with Letty and Jimmy Lee who had in some ways — I’m sure you can see — had become our teachers. (More about that next week . . .)

My Move to Appalachia (Personal Reflections, Part III)

bereacover

There were, of course, many reasons (intellectual, spiritual, and personal) for my exit from the priesthood. I’ve already explained them here, and here, here, here, and here.

While I was deciding all of that, my request for a year of discernment brought me to Kentucky and the Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) where I mentored young volunteers from all over the States. The job entailed living with the legendary activist priest Monsignor Ralph Beiting. It exposed me not only to his direct influence, but to Appalachia, one of the poorest areas in the U.S. There my education about my own country continued.

After a year with CAP, my exit-decision was made. I resigned from the priesthood and took a job as a cutter in a Dayton, Ohio factory that made protective clothing for fire fighters. Meanwhile I sent out resumes in search of a job in post-secondary teaching, which I felt was my real vocation.

Several months later I landed a job teaching at Berea College in Kentucky. And there (to tell the truth) my own education took a quantum leap. Berea College, it turned out, was a school with a radical history. It had been founded by abolitionists before the Civil War. It was Christian but non-denominational. Berea was committed to racial equality and social justice. I became one of its first Catholic professors.

My first year at Berea found me teaching a required freshman course called “Issues and Values.” I scrambled to learn our curriculum: black history, women’s liberation, Appalachian culture (so resistant to the mainstream), world religions, and the dawning environmental crisis. There in the 1970s we were reading and teaching the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, and books like E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, Huston Smith’s The Religions of Man, and Frances Moore Lappe’s Food First. Those books were extremely prescient. They accurately predicted the climate chaos and resulting social unrest we are experiencing today. I find those books even more relevant to the contemporary world than they were then.

More importantly for my development, I took on at Berea another required course. This one was for sophomores – “Religious and Historical Perspectives,” a two-semester offering in the history of ideas. It was a Great Books course dealing almost exclusively in primary sources. It took students from biblical times through the Greeks and Romans, the medieval period, renaissance, reformation, scientific revolution, enlightenment, industrial revolution, and ended up with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, and Harvey Cox’s The Secular City. Students (and I!) were reading directly authors like Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Luther, Galileo, Newton, Marx, Darwin, and Freud. Faculty development had our interdisciplinary team of professors doing summer seminars over several years. Together we took month-long courses from specialists in the scientific revolution, Dante, Darwin, Marx and apocalyptic literature. At that point in my life it all seemed like a capstone course in my own process. Much more however was to come.

More importantly still, at Berea I met my beautiful bride. Ten years younger than me, Peggy also arrived at Berea in 1974. Two years later we were married. I was 36 then.

The two of us were strongly influenced by the environmental movement. We imagined ourselves as real “back to nature” couple. For $8000, we bought an unfinished house in an Appalachian holler, finished it with our own hands and started raising a family. Eventually we had three children, Maggie (’79), Brendan (’82), and Patrick (‘86). As citified outsiders, we lived in that holler learning lots from our Appalachian neighbors (all of them kin to one another). Our neighbor next-door taught me about things that had to that point escaped my education: roofing, car repair, plumbing, and about soldering pipes periodically ruptured by freezing winter temperatures. I watched him and his wife build a home next to ours. They made it completely from lumber salvaged from another house they had helped tear down in Berea. For all their problems, Jimmy Lee and Letty were smarter than many of us over-educated college professors.