ONE WORLD AT A TIME

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, former Chaplain of Yale University, Civil Rights activist and former employee of the C.I.A., is our last interview from our Life of Meaning book.
Having become dissatisfied with the global actions of the intelligence community of our country, Coffin turned his efforts toward ministry.
Still a respecter of the U.S, he believes that one should speak out when injustice abounds, or else one is likely to lead a "life of boredom."
So his life became one of direct participation in the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's. Expressing a Life of Meaning before the world, some of his comments are below for consideration.

"The early church father Irenaeus said: 'the glory of God is a human being fully alive.'"

"You can be more alive in pain than in complacency."

Whenever we ask God how could you let this (tragedy) happen? God is also asking us how could you let this happen?

"We're always undefeated because we keep on trying."

"I think the great trouble now is self-righteousness...it destroys our capacity for self-criticism."

"Faith is important for the ultimate dilemmas of life, humor can take care of the immediate ones rather nicely."

"We are loved by God. He loves us as we are, but too much to leave us that way."

"We don't have to prove ourselves. All that is taken care of. What  we have to do is express ourselves. return God's love with our own."

"God is not confined to Christ, but to Christians, God is most essentially defined by Christ."

"Gratitude is the most important religious emotion. Duty calls only when gratitude fails to prompt."

"It's not enough to pray for it, you have to think...to suffer...and have to endure a lot for it."

"Hope needs to be understood as a reflection of the state of your soul, not a reflection of the circumstances that surround you."

"We have only ourselves to chastise when we feel disillusioned."

On counseling: People who are deeply personal and willing to air their conflicts - that's very satisfying...it's always in the depths of hell that heaven is found and affirmed and praised."

"It's a very good thing we die...It's death that brings us to life."

"Demanding that I know more about the afterlife somehow demeans my faith. One world at a time I think."

LISTEN TO YOUR LIFE

Image by Vanessa Pike-Russell

"What's important is to carry in your heart some sense of what the word God means." So states a mediocre attendee of church and a less than religious observer of prayer. Frederick Buechner, (pronounced Beekner) as an ordained Presbyterian minister has expressed his ministry more through writings and guest sermons. Never having held a pastorate, he seems to communicate best through the expressed word. Having written 32 novels and memoirs, it is through the written page that Buechner builds faith community. 

The opening statement above regarding what is important to carry in your heart is a response to what is not important in religion, according to Buechner, "formal adherence to traditional beliefs is not what matters most."

Interviewed in 2006 by Religion and Ethics Weekly, and the next to last interview from our Life of Meaning text, some of Buechner's other responses are expressed below.

"I've had glimpses of things that made me suspect the presence of something extraordinary and beyond the realm of the immediate"

"Listen to your life. Pay attention. Observe. That wonderful phrase 'religious observance' means observe religiously. Observe deeply."

"Doubt is not the opposite of faith. It is an element of faith." (from Paul Tillich)

"What's lost is nothing to what's found."

"The religion that is for me the closer to being 'true' is one (that speaks)...most meaningfully about what I take to be the heart of reality. And that is ultimately, love."

On sporadic church attendance: "Very often when I go I'm bored out of my wits...They're not moving my heart. They're not touching me. And I think, what am I doing here?"

"I think writing is a kind of praying, in both what I'm really doing is listening...for what meaning may be there."

"What makes you in the deepest sense happy? That's what you should be doing. And the vocation for you is the one in which your deep gladness, and the world's deep need meet."

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita

BUILDING CATHEDRALS

The Duomo Cathedral of Milan (started 1386, completed 1965)

Billy Shore, a former congressional aide in Washington D.C. speaks of the Duomo, the Cathedral in Milan. The cathedral first began construction in 1386. Over the centuries, thousands worked on its construction. The last area inaugurated was accomplished in January of 1965. Shore relates this as analogy of working to eradicate hunger in the world. It won't all be done in our lifetime but we can contribute to the effort until the job is finally accomplished by later generations.
Shore established "Sharing Our Strength." a non-profit fund to assist in eradicating hunger in both the U.S. and abroad. He says he believes hunger could be solved in the U.S. during his lifetime, but it will take longer abroad because of the difference in why people are usually hungry in the world from the U.S. He states that overall, the resolution of hunger is "a matter of the political will."
Below are some of his comments from the interview in The Life of Meaning.

"When I try to think about my commitment, a lot has to do with my parents and how they raised me."

From observing his father as a political aide to a congressman helping the constituents:
"it gave me the sense that the reason we are here is to help and serve others."

From his mother:
"we are going to teach you to be a good neighbor and to serve others, and if you understand both of those things, you'll understand the major principles of every religion in the world."

"Money alone is not enough...it takes mentoring, working with people, coaching and personal exchange to really turn someone's life around."

Reasons for hunger:
The rest of the world - "famine, war, drought." 
The U.S. - "an economy that has not brought everybody into it fully."

"The idea of Sharing Our Strength...is a spiritual idea...is that everybody has a strength to share."

"Some state of grace exists when you know who you are in this world is who you are inside."

"We're building a foundation on which others can work...seeing our work finished or not, we're making a difference everyday. We're adding to that cathedral.

THE CROSS AND THE CADUCEUS

CROSS - CADUCEUS TOTEMS

Caduceus: The caduceus is an ancient mythological symbol of Greek origin associated with the god Hermes (Mercury.) It has a staff with two serpents intertwined. Originally it was considered a symbol of commerce relating to Hermes action as a messenger. Its association with medicine has only been in the last two centuries (particularly in the US.) because of confusion with the Rod of Asclepius, (a single rod with a single serpent wrapping around the rod ) which in ancient times was a symbol of medicine and healing. (Wikipedia)

Cross: As of April 10, 2013, pictures of a possible contender for the first use of the cross symbol has been found at the Tell Khaiber excavation site in Ur, Iraq. The shape of one of the buildings, believed to be about 4,000 years old, is in the shape of a cross of the type used in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. (Wikipedia).

In our lesson for today we have a person, Rev. Scott Morris, M.D. , who has cross-trained as a physician and minister utilizing both aspects of the totem in living a life of meaning. 

Establishing the Church Health Center, Morris has built a system that sees 45,000 patients a year from low income and homeless populations aided by healthcare volunteers. But as a minister he still sees all problems as basically spiritual ones. 

As one of the patients states about the center, "they just know human beings."

Morris' comments below:

Mission: "to reclaim the the church's biblical and historical commitment to care for the poor who are sick."

"The most effective argument for recruiting volunteers is that this is the right thing to do."

"50% of all people who come to a primary care doctor have no medical problem."

Regarding a woman with a pain in her rectum that had two previous surgeries to no avail,  Morris asked. "Have you ever been sexually abused." Once she acknowledged so, she was referred to the hospital pastoral counselor, "now we are dealing with the real issues, those of the spirit and heart."

On changing his view as a medical professional: "I try to adopt a viewpoint that we're in this life and world together."

"I really do feel that poverty is a spiritual disease."

"The Church Health Center is more in the hope business today than in the healing business."

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita     

I WANT THIS FOR EVERYONE

SEED School story on 60 minutes 

 "I want this for everyone." as Rajiv Vinnakota, an American born of immigrant Indian parents who were both professional educators, states regarding educational opportunities for kids of poor economic, social, and academic backgrounds. I wanted to leave a more relevant "social footprint" in the world during my life than my molecular biology career, states Rajiv. To start fulfilling this desire, Vinnakota, with a partner, established the SEED School, a charter boarding school in Washington D.C. Its emphasis is on prep academics to reach kids who've fallen through the cracks in the public education system and ready them for college. Environment, personal discipline, and social skills are the key ingredients to success for each student as they live and study in the 24 hour setting of the boarding school. Not everyone stays once they enter, but those who stay the course reflect a 97% entrance rate into college.

From chapter 7. "Lives Well Lived." are some of Vinnakota's responses about living a Life of Meaning.

"I can think of no higher calling than being in the education field."

"I wanted to change the system, but one of the things I learned is that you can only do it one child at a time."

Of the 80% of students who come from below the poverty line, one-parent, or no parent homes, 93% of those don't know anyone who has gone to college."

It doesn't involve just academics. It means understanding risky behaviors and making sure to curtail them. (Regarding social training) "We have an etiquette class with everything from how to sit at a table and eat, welcome and thank adults, how to look them in the eye, and how to shake their hands."

"We have 4 mental health counselors whose portfolios are completely overwhelmed with the time they need to spend with our students...For many of them we're the first time society has acknowledged the fact that they have special needs."

"To give our students (confidence) around people of wealth...we have talked about integrating interactions among low, middle, and high income people.

On male student retention:

"At times our students can't say why they're leaving the school."

On the high drop-out of African-American boys versus girls and the contributing concept of an anti-intellectualism toward education in boys...(being behind several grades) they get frustrated in class and they act out...and must be disciplined...when they leave it appears as a discipline issue when they are just so far behind to adequately catch up academically, more so than our girls."

"A twenty-four hour environment, adult role models, rigorous academic structure, people who care and because we're willing to spend money so our students get support...willing to do all those things, this model works. I want this for everyone."

A TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY

Cambodian Dump Children

"I don't want this to be my world." So realized Scott Neeson after reviewing his life of 5 bedroom homes, weekend yachting, sports cars, and first class travel amenities as a Hollywood movie mogul. It was a privileged life but not a happy one for Neeson. He found his true happiness, true reality, on the other side of the world working with the street children of Cambodia who beg in the streets and scavenge the refuse dumps for anything they might sell for something to eat. Neeson found from the depths of his human spirit a desire for his world not to be a place where children have to scavenge the refuse trash to find a way to live.
Neeson now lives in Phnom Penh where he established "Cambodian Children's Fund" which provides a better place for the children to live and to be schooled so they might escape the life of a refuse. Below are some of his insights as he made the transition from movie mogul to global mentor as chronicled in The Life of Meaning.

On Neeson's response regarding his wealthy charmed life: Man you're so lucky, you've got the best life." "I sort of enjoyed it, but I wasn't particularly happy...it didn't seem like it was me."

When people say that the Cambodian Children's Fund work is "just a drop in the bucket," Neeson responds, "Every drop is a child's life and its these drops that make up society."

"If these kids had TVs..there would definitely be a breakdown in the closeness with the parents, which without a doubt to me is what gets them through the day."

"They have some issues but they're happy and appreciative."

From Buddhism's view of suffering: "When you understand and let go trying to change things, let go feeling that you deserve better, that this is unfair, then I think it helps you get through."

"This feels so much more like reality than what I was doing before...there's no going back...I get up early in the morning and I can't wait to get into work. How many people in the world can say that?"

DREADLOCKS, MARY AND DALAI

"I don't think of myself as a spiritual writer, I think of myself as someone who writes a lot about faith and spiritual issues." So states Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies and Plan B, two spiritual journey books absent from Christian bookstores, supposedly, because of their dark humor. Lamott finds laughter an innate part of spirituality. She refers to it as "carbonated holiness" in her interview for the Life of Meaning this week.
The child of atheist parents, and an addiction to drugs and alcohol, Lamott began her prodigal return about the age of 30 when she encountered what she refers to as the form of Jesus coming into her life. Now an evangelical, single mother and community activist for women's rights and AIDS, her writings seem to speak to those who "ran screaming for their cute little lives the first chance they could" from their religious and fundamentalist upbringings. Armed with dreadlocks, a Mary Medallion, and a bracelet blessed by the Dalai Lama, Lamott expresses her life to contemporary folk about contemporary issues of living in the spiritual. From the "Lives Well Lived" chapter, here are some of Anne's comments.

"You can tell that you've created God in your own image when he hates all the people that you do." (quoted from a Jesuit priest)

"People grow up and find they are left with an act, then a tragedy or piercingly beautiful piece of music happens and something inside them comes fully to life."

"I can't start to censor myself to make anybody more comfortable...all I can do is share what I think are the important stories of my life."

"The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty...I am definitely a work in progress."

"Jesus said, 'I will keep you company, and I will be here if you need me.' That's what I try to be in the world."