Century marks

Christian Century, August 9, 2003

CALVIN V. FREUD: Alzheimer's is a tragedy for any human being, but the disease must be an especially cruel fate for a historian, one who has made his livelihood and identity out of memory and of knowledge of the past. Such was James Nichols, a church historian who taught at the University of Chicago and Princeton Theological Seminary, where he also served as dean. His daughter, novelist Sue Miller, writes that her father seemed to accept the onset of Alzheimer's. A key to his perspective, Miller argues, is a passage from Calvin's Institutes that hung in Nichols's office at Princeton and which was included in a colleague's eulogy to him: "We are not our own: let not reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: insofar as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God's: let us therefore live for him and die for him." Miller says her father did not have "the kind of self-conscious self most of us haul with us through life" in this post-Freudian era, a "self tortured by self-analysis ..., the kind of well-developed, well scrutinized set of feelings and sensibilities that, I confess, I take pride in myself" (The Story of My Father, Knopf).

A BROKEN HEART: Irish journalist Nuala O'Faolain has her own family story to tell. She was born into a home of nine children (there were actually 13 births; not all survived). Her father was a popular but philandering media figure who was seldom home. Her mother was a book-loving woman who didn't want children and had a husband she couldn't trust. She spent hours alone in a pub and died an alcoholic. Rejecting the Catholic faith in which she was reared, O'Faolain reaches this conclusion: "I don't believe that life offers us many consolations of the same size and weight as it offers us hurts. But we can patch things over with what life does offer ...: friendship, travel, art, animals, the natural world. That's all there is" (Almost There, Riverhead Books).

DON'T BRING YOUR GUNS TO CHURCH: The sign outside the Edina Community Lutheran Church in Minnesota reads: "Blessed are the peacemakers. Firearms are prohibited in this place of sanctuary," with credit going to both Jesus and the Minnesota State Legislature. Minnesota recently enacted legislation that allows law-abiding and mentally competent adults to get permits to carry concealed weapons so long as they pass background checks and undergo firearms training. Oddly, the law allows private property owners, but not public facilities like churches and libraries, the right to ban weapons. Churches challenged the law, charging that it is an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom. They've won a partial victory: now they can ban guns in the church buildings, but not in church parking lots (Chicago Tribune, July 21).

A FAIR TOWN: The town of Garstang in Lancashire, England, claims to be the world's first "fair trade town." Of the town's 100 businesses, 90 sell or actively promote food that pays a fair price to small farmers in developing countries. Garstang's schools, local council, chamber of commerce and churches have also jumped on the fair trade bandwagon. The idea took root three years ago when the local Oxfam group invited town bigwigs to a meal fashioned with fairly traded items and local produce. The town has also entered into a relationship with a similar-sized town in Ghana that grows cocoa for the lair trade market. A youth group from Garstang visited the sister city in Ghana to see how hard it is for small farmers to compete in the global marketplace (Guardian, May 24).

PRACTICAL THEOLOGY: A number of European theologians once visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta to see her at work. She said to them, "You try to do what I am doing, then you will be able to enjoy what I am doing." She took them to one of her childcare centers and picked up a child who was playing in the mud and gave the child a kiss. She waited for her guests to do the same. None of them did (Expository Times, July).

DEFENDING THE DEAD: A New Mexico family has sued a priest and the Saute Fe archdiocese over a funeral mass in which the priest allegedly said their relative was a "lukewarm" Catholic who was headed to hell. The family of Ben Martinez, a former town councilman, charges that the presiding priest said the deceased was "lukewarm in his faith," "living in sin," and that "the Lord vomited people like Ben out of his mouth to hell." Family members maintain Martinez was a practicing Catholic throughout his life but was too ill to attend church during the year before he died. "If you are Catholic and a representative of your church says your father is going to hell, that's perhaps the most devastating thing someone can say to you," said a lawyer representing the family. The archdiocese has denied the charges (RNS).

BEACH ALTERNATIVES: There is still time to get in the activities listed by beliefnet.com as the top summertime ways to rejuvenate your spirit: 1) unplug the TV; 2) swim in real water (not a pool); 3) stargaze; 4) plant a butterfly garden and set up a hummingbird feeder; 5) take a meaningful workshop; 6) walk barefoot; 7) make or buy presents for people you love; 8) sit under a tree; 9) examine where you are burning out and need to regroup; and 10) read inspirational literature.