Home About us Daily Reflections Special Issues Publications Ecospirituality Through The Seasons Donate Environmental Resource Assessment Service   The Latch String Is Out by Al Fritsch, S.J.

27  (1959)    Jogging and Other Physical Exercises

   Surely you know that many runners take part in a race, but only one of
them wins the prize.  Run then in such a way as to win the
prize.  Every athlete in training submits to strict discipline ...
                               (I Corinthians 9:24-25a)

   Farm chores make formal physical exercise meaningless.  Pitching hay
bales (at least the 50 pound ones in our day), climbing lofts, and getting
the cows from the pasture were exercise enough.  To shoot hoops on our
makeshift basketball goal attached to the smoke house was often an extra
undertaking, because we were pretty tired from work.  Like other Kentuckians,
basketball was our first love and I followed Adolph Rupp's Kentucky Wildcats
during some of their memorable years with Alex Groza and Ralph Baird.  Then
there was our home teams, both St. Patrick's where I attended, and the nearby
Maysville High School, which won the state boys basketball tournament during
my school years.  Since then, women's sports as well as soccer, football,
golf and numerous other male and female sports have edged out the "king" in
our school years, namely, boys basketball.  While I listened to basketball
games on the radio, especially during the tournament month dubbed "March
Madness,"  I have never been a spectator sport enthusiast.  Excited
spectators make me nervous, while half-crazed University of Kentucky fans
have made me fearful, and University of Texas fans reminded me of Hitler
Youth rallies with their "Long Horn" salute.  I would attend the UT games
until the end of half time for the band music.  In recent years Mega-buck
NCAA sponsored events, overpriced tickets, and overpaid major league players
turn some of us off, as plummeting attendance records in some major sporting
events tend to indicate.  
 
  Participative Sports and Exercise.  Competitive sports were not my forte
though in dreams I did seek to excel in them.  In our Jesuit Novitiate we had
to play certain sports and were assigned teams.  Since basketball was too
tactile a sport, we American novices played soccer (for the first time) while
the Europeans were said to have to play basketball.  Actually, soccer was fun
if you enjoy running, but I enjoyed basketball more in later periods of
Jesuit studies provided the players were about my own age.  However, small-
scale jogging became my major sport and lasted for at least 43 years, having
started before jogging was a popular sport.  Two fellow Jesuits, Ernie
Seebaldt and Rolly Smith, and I began to run rather than walk the trip to and
from a break day farm in our poor grade "tennis shoes."  In the 1970's I ran
in a dozen races including one marathon, the Kentucky Relays.  But in time I
found  competitive racing too stressful and preferred jogging alone or
walking with others.  

    Alternative Exercises.  While I have participated in regular biking
since my youth, including some Washington DC commuting, decreased dexterity
along with congested roadways, has moved me to stationary biking in older
years -- though the fresh air benefits from the great outdoors are missing.
Many ex-joggers prefer to stay with the great outdoors but slacken the pace
through brisk walking.  While not yet convinced as of this writing, I lean to
more walking.  Exercise "addicts"  should not quibble about the type.
Rather, let's agree that the loss of a day or two of exercise due to travel
or other changes of schedule is sorely felt.  Some physically active fans
advocate changing the routine from day to day, or juggling the time or
frequency.  I like routine.  However, we can all agree that it is good to
keep muscles, heart, lungs and all parts of the body in shape so that we
function better.

   Gardening.  One of my twelve advantages of gardening is that of physical
exercise.  Gardening is hardly more than moderate physical exercise, but it
does allow a variety of standing, stooping, digging and hoeing exercises.  It
is a marvel how many different muscles are used even in moderate gardening.
If one resorts to spade work in late winter when the exercise may be most
needed to reduce stress, then moderate turns to heavy-duty exercise.  Again,
all depends on how large the garden is and whether one is willing to do much
of the work by hand, and without such labor-saving devices as a tiller or
tractor.  Besides the variety of muscles exercised, gardening enhances our
sense of beauty, and allows for fresh air and sunlight.  It is good for some
weight control as well as psychological and social well-being.
 
    Reflection.  We physical exercise enthusiasts are often different people
from those interested in competitive sports as youthful athletes or
spectators of all ages.  We are part of a class of people who are convinced
that physical exercise of a variety of types helps keep us physically healthy
and even assists in the generation of endorphins, which have a pain-relieving
effect and give us a "high" through exercising.  It has been amazing that
when I am down in spirits I find that a good workout enlivens my whole being
and furnishes the energy to go back and redouble efforts.  With time I have
learned the need for on-going exercise even in times when far removed from
regular farm or garden work.  Exercise keeps the body in top condition, just
as ongoing prayer refreshes the soul.  I prefer the company of health-
conscious people, who are convinced that exercise lengthens life and reduces
the number of bodily ailments which afflict some couch potatoes.  In fact, my
physical exercise hour is a sacred time.  

    Prayer to the God Who is All Act.  O loving God, creator of the
universe, You give us energy to flex our limbs and muscles.  Show us that
through exercise we participate in the spiritual journey of life with
physical effort and psychological energy.  Help us to be physically active
when necessary, to relieve the tensions that accumulate, and to realize that
exercise is prayer when done in your name.  Make us aware that many of the
people in affluent lands do not do proper exercise and are harmed as a
result.  Inspire them to leave their couches and do something to control
weight, get fresh air and full spectrum sunlight, and brighten their
dispositions.


28 (1960)    Focusing on Philosophy

   By virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing
here below is profane for those who know how to see."
   The Divine Milieu by Teilhard de Chardin, Harper & Row, Publishers, NY,
1957,  p. 66.

   The year before I entered the Jesuits I recall reading news accounts in
the Xavier University library about the passing of a French Jesuit Scientist-
writer, who was sort of exiled from his native land and had spent his final
days in New York City.  He died on Easter Sunday, 1955.  Teilhard de Chardin
had difficulty getting his writings published during his lifetime, but did
acquire a post-mortem popularity during my first years in the Society with
The Phenomenon of Man (1959 English Edition), The Divine Milieu, (1960)  and
Hymn of the Universe (1961).  These and other of his works proclaim a vision
of God in all creation and the evolutionary movement of all creation in the
direction of the Omega Point, a movement towards ever deeper personalism
energized and drawn by the Divine.

     Teilhard the Thinker.  While his writings made superiors nervous they
were never condemned, just not immediately published.  His evolutionary
stance never bothered me, for I don't ever recall not holding the theory of
evolution.  He used poetic language which was imperfectly translated into
English and made me aspire to read the original books -- which I've never
done.  Also his scientific philosophy was most intriguing, especially the
anti-entropy counter movement of an energy arising from the coming together
of human beings.  From my senior year in college on, the concept of entropy
and the Second Law of thermodynamics baffled me and invited further
reflection.  Teilhard seemed to confront similar problems arising from the
scientific world, and thus I felt a kinship with this fellow Jesuit scientist
of French origin, a closer relationship than with other learned Jesuit
philosophers and theologians such as Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner, two
who entered prominently in my philosophy and theology studies.  I read
Lonergan's Insight twice and attended seminars and discussions with Joe
Wulftange and Jay Zeman on the subject.  I would have enjoyed Lonergan more
had discussions not been held in a cloud of cigarette smoke.  

    Teilhard's Seeming Strengths.  I find in Teilhard's writing something
refreshing, not overly puzzling, but something never fully grasped, yet
always beckoning me to look beyond.  I reread on occasion portions of his
writing, but not in a systematic manner.  I pick it up as a reader of poetry
who, being tired, needs the cool water of human feeling coming through the
written word.  Teilhard supplies the poetry, the philosophical incentive, the
challenge, and the opportunity -- and these are his strengths.  Throughout
his uniquely creative approach he manifests a burning love of God, and this
is really a devotion to the Sacred Heart.  He does not write in sectarian or
traditional Christian language, but with a rather new scientific and poetic
terminology.  Teilhard's thought beckoned those in pre-Vatican II days to a
more radical theology -- but only beckoned.

    Teilhard's Seeming Weakness.  I regard suffering as the dynamo of
redemptive action and as the antithesis of the great movement of creation.
From the creative and redemptive acts springs forth the Easter Mystery that
Teilhard seemed to come to as well (dying on that feast while in exile in
America).  But he may have downplayed the suffering component of life,
because he had been in China at the War's start and then had to endure the
conditions in that war-torn country.  Fr. Hank Kenney, an authority on
Teilhard's writings, says he suspects Teilhard's attitudes on suffering comes
from his natural optimism, which maximizes the good and hopeful aspects, and
downplays the bad and disturbing aspects of life.  Teilhard was sure
scientifically and through faith that the evolutionary experiment would
utterly succeed.  During his years of enforced hibernation he needed the
spiritual light of his optimism to carry him through.  His mysticism is
deeply colored by an endurance through isolation that tries weaker men's (and
women's) souls.  His spiritual hope shines through his writings and colors
his total philosophy of life even after the Chinese experience.  Teilhard was
a psychologically balanced and energetic philosopher who was the shining
diamond of our philosophical lives.

     Reflection:  Inspired by Teilhard's struggles with entropy and the
Second Law of Thermodynamics, I have tried to structure scientific experience
through a philosophical construct in framing my own worldview -- though it
does not really use Teilhard's radial and tangential energy.  In Renew the
Face of the Earth are projected two movements:  one is the growth of social
consciousness on a horizonal (spatial) level resulting from our
interrelationships with fellow human beings;  the other is the anticipation
of the end in time or a vertical temporal dimension.  The ultimate direction
of the universe is invariant, but the degree of awareness on both levels
(spatial and temporal) depends on the free will choices of those of us
struggling to come to our goal in life.  Holding back this growth is possible
through our human misdeeds, which disrupt social relationships through
conflicts between persons or between ourselves and our Creator) and these
retard the hastening of the day of the Coming of the Lord.  Giving totally of
ourselves to each other through peaceful and sustainable  development expands
that social consciousness and the coming together of people, and catalyzes us
to anticipate and hasten the Day of the Lord.  Granted, this may not be
similar to Teilhard's thoughts, but his struggles inspired me to do this
reflection.  He looked at things from a cosmic perspective even though his
own research was concerning a particular part of this Earth.  This cosmic
sense is part of our Jesuit way of seeing the world, and yet it is particular
to the gifts and insights of each person.  Thus I follow  in Teilhard's
footstep with a different style of shoe.

    Prayer To the Radiant Creator -- O, God of the universe, Who prompts
others to speak words of poetic beauty and scientific explanation about your
created order, give us the spiritual vision to see with the eyes of Faith,
for seeing is believing, and believing in You is seeing.  We cannot bear to
see your radiance in your Person, but we do see its reflections in the
creatures You choose to include in the Earthly community to which we belong.
You prod us on to deepen the journey by knowing, respecting and communicating
with others.    


29   (1961)    Deepening a Sense of Excitement

    Yahweh brought us here and gave us this land, a land where milk and
honey flow.  (Deuteronomy 26:9)

    In the last few centuries of exploration, conquering heights or depths
of the Earth seemed a noble thing to do.  This has become less appealing when
exploration and exploitation became synonymous, and when much of the ventures
of explorers were turned to exploits of commercial interests.  In recent
years, we have witnessed the advent of eco-tourism, a form of popular
exploration which has as part of its purpose adventure, excitement, one-
upmanship over the non-traveler, and a vague way to become aware of nature.
It is an affluent person's occupation, a chance to achieve notoriety in the
Guinness Book of World Records.  Some climb a high mountain or go to the
Antarctic in order to step on all continents -- a recent dying ecotourist was
reported to have been bundled up and taken to the forbidding cold continent
by cruise ship to say she touched all seven continents before expiring.
Other record-breakers involve those wanting to be the first to white water
raft a river at night, or to bunge-jump from a certain highway bridge.
Nature thrills come at high costs and occasional obituaries.  

   Personal Thrills.  Our purpose is to travel to all parts of the world
.... starts our Jesuit preamble.  That is the only portion that has been easy
to keep, and there has even been a thrill to it.  Since I could never be in
league with the record-breakers, why the impulse to go and see exotic places?
Some of us have our own internal record books that need adding to throughout
life.  Furthermore, the waning of youth has an invisible hold over energetic
people who strive to keep activity levels of previous decades.  It may be
that this is proof of staying young, a needed conversation piece, and a
listing of places and times that must be exceeded as part of our sense of
quantified improvement and development.  At times, I was caught in these
games of the mind and ego, and it is truly hard now to recapture what was in
embryo in the records of years past;  this is especially so in years within
the Society when most of my nature thrills occurred.  

    Caving (1960 - 1961).  I first thought that nature thrills dealt with
humility and humus, which means going into the bowels of the earth.  Thus
caving was more appealing than climbing mountains, though I then ventured up
after going down.  My philosophy studies were in caving country in southern
Indiana at the West Baden Seminary.  In fact, we were surrounded by some of
the most rugged caves in any karst (sinkhole and cave) country.  Lost River
goes underground near the college and then winds among the limestone caverns
and passageways for miles.  Dave Morrow, Rolly Smith and I would explore the
caves in our days off from seminary.  We would first decide on the weather by
sizing up the cloud cover for possible rain.  That weather sizing-up was most
important because our exploring took us in water up to our necks with a
ceiling a few feet above.  Our equipment consisted of old clothes and a few
good flashlights.  Contingency plans for flash floods consisted of finding a
higher rock ledge and sitting it out.  The summer after my West Baden
studies, some amateur spelunkers from the University of Indiana lost their
lives when they panicked during a rain storm and tried to exit from this very
cave system.

    Crossing the Burma Bridge (1976).  Should I admit being scared to the
point of paralysis?  It generally happens in fast moving cars, but in this
case, I was crossing a three cable (one for feet and two for hands) "Burma
Bridge" in British Columbia.  My adventuresome brother, Frank, sister-in-law,
Mary, and fellow traveler Dennis Darcey were ahead on the trail and crossed
while chatting.  I brought up the rear and midway across thought the rushing
river below was standing still and the foot cable was moving at a rapid
speed, requiring that I take the next step a few feet downstream.  My mind
turned tricks and I froze --something that happened once on a cliff face.  I
was tempted to turn back but that meant miles out of the way.  They laughed
while I finally succeeded in negotiating the crossing.  Cable thrills!

     Mountain Climbing (1977, 1983, 1986).  Colorado is my third favorite
state after Kentucky and Virginia.  I hate to rate things, but Colorado's
lofty peaks have always appealed to me.  In 1977, while hiking in western
Maryland, Jerry McMahon and I came upon some Colorado folks who confided
where the most perfect site in their state was for camping and hiking.  The
peak intended was Uncompahgre at a very majestic 14,309 feet in the western
central part of the state, twice as high as anything in the eastern U.S.  We
found the camp site but got lost for a night finding the mountain trail.  We
made it up to the "Blue Lakes" just below tree-line and spent a night. The
next day we attempted the height, but the unmelted snows of June got the best
of me on the final 1000 feet, though Jerry McMahon through raw grit scrambled
to the top.  Six Junes later, I tried a second run  with John Davis and
fellow Jesuit Drew Christianson, but we didn't make it to the tree line due
to very deep lower trail snow.  Finally, in June 1986 while out West, Mark
Spencer and I followed a logical suggestion of approaching the peak in June
from the sunny south face.  We attained Mt. Harrison in the Presidential
Range after a base camp overnight rest and captured the breath-taking peak --
and good meditation -- on the glory of mountain peaks with no one for miles.
Small white and yellow flowers greeted us near the peak and over the brow on
the north side the snow make it look like deepest winter.  We quickly
descended after Mark used his rump for a sled the first 500 feet.  My
mountain climbing thrills ceased at a 14,000 foot plus peak -- a Republican
one at that.

    Grand Canyon Bottoms (1983).  John Davis and I went down into the Grand
Canyon of the Gunnison (River), but the way down and out was by use of a
fastened cable a little above ground level.  Much gravel and small stones
were pushed down hill with each step.  Truly it was thrilling to rest at the
rushing river's edge at the bottom of this very narrow canyon, and to be
alone in nature.  However, that trip was not good ecological practice because
of the considerable surface disturbance caused by each person who performed
the exercise.  Maybe the stark realization of this fact helped cure me of
thrill-seeking in fragile environments.  Actually, I did take another trip in
1985 and went on a camping trip on the Kabob Trail in Grand Canyon country to
the Colorado River, but that was on a trail well-worn by many hikers and
lacked the thrill of back country camping and hiking.  All in all, the
enjoyment of thrills is so often at the expense of the fragile land, as we
observe with off-road vehicle riding cross-country on our more fragile
landscapes and causing immense destruction of ground cover and wildlife as
well.  These destructive practices have made me launch a crusade to control
the use of these vehicles in Appalachia.   Seeing others seeking thrills at
the expense of nature has made some of us aware of what we have done and the
impulse by many to explore -- and exploit -- nature.

    Eco-touring.  It has taken some time, but it is now my conclusion that
eco-touring may not be just that.  Big game hunting is not good nature
observation;  painting birds by first shooting them is not good conservation;
eco-touring that impacts the fragile environment is not good ecology.  It may
be good business to run a big game business or get exotic birds still enough
to paint them first hand, or to capture travelers and show them fragile sites
of natural beauty.  However, these types of business exploits, cater to
escapists who want to find the few remaining uncontaminated sites.  It might
even include tourists going to Nepal to see the fast-vanishing approaches to
the Himalayas, or to the Amazon, or to the Antarctic continent that will soon
enough melt away.  One may call it "education" to make trips that junk the
ways and the resting places -- and increase the exploitation.  

    Reflections:  Upon returning to southeastern Kentucky a new type of
thrill awaited us, namely, just making it through month after month.  Nature
thrills have not seemed nearly as exciting with time and the need to preserve
our fragile land, which is threatened by loggers, off-road vehicles, artifact
hunters, and others.  Thrill-seekers are not always fun to have around --
especially if one lives in or near a fragile natural area.  Thrills changed
to chills when our large overhang area was exploited for cave-dwellers'
souvenirs.  Leave thrills to Interstate joy-riders, to those flying the
airways, or to amusement park thrill-seekers.  For older folks, the adventure
of living and dying has its own thrills and the spiritual journey takes on
deeper meaning as we prepare for an indefinite future.  Thrills of youth
impatiently await the second youth of beyond death experiences, when one is
immersed in the light and the infinite sea of God's love.  Just leave fragile
nature alone.  

   Prayer to the Author of All Adventures:  O God, teach us to see that
nature is meant to be appreciated but not necessarily exploited or even
touched.  Allow us to see beyond the thrills in nature to those of the
future.  Help us to see that venture towards heaven is a thrill-seeking
episode, well worth the love that You provide.


30   (1962)    Acclimating to Urban Life

    She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other,
ordering all things for good.    (Wisdom 8:1)

    I went to New York in the summer of 1961 and remained there three years
to earn my Ph.D. at Fordham University in organic chemistry.  I graduated in
the spring of 1964, and remained in New York to teach chemistry at summer
school.  During my stay in the Big Apple, I resided at Spellman Hall -- one
of the Jesuit residences on the Fordham University's Bronx campus.  The
residence was set back from the main street surrounded by green space, with
a barrier between it and the  apartments on Fordham Road.  

    New York's Culture.  The campus adjoined the New York Botanical Garden,
but I did not spend much time on the grounds, even though it is world-
renowned -- but so are many things in New York.  For diversion on weekends,
we would go downtown to Manhattan to visit the art museums or some other
cultural place.  I acquired a short-lived affinity for modern art, though it
is baffling now what I saw in it, except that I enjoyed going with people who
liked it.  I attended more Broadway plays and the first and last opera in my
life.  Art museums were enjoyable, but the opera was beyond my country boy
cultural purview.  Ed Miller took me to this operatic event, and he knew when
to be the first to jump up and clap profusely.  I tried to get the hang of it
but jumped up in the middle of the performance and was told to sit down.
Red-faced, that ended my opera-going.

   Social Contacts.  My brother Charlie moved to New Jersey while I was in
New York.  He worked for Bell Laboratories as a mechanical engineer.  He
married Kathy and started his family and their house was only an hour commute
from the Bronx.  I also was blessed to be invited by other families who took
a liking to out-of-town students and thus filled my holidays and Sundays with
special events, for they were some of the most gracious people I ever met.
New Yorkers hide their hospitality with what appears to the outsider to be an
initial gruffness, but underneath is a deep and genuine affection for the
visitor.  

    Laboratory Work.  In New York, I concentrated on lab work, since I
started my thesis research almost immediately, because I completed  academic
work at Fordham during the summer of 1960 and the department accepted my
Xavier graduate credits.  With little course work still required, I joined
Emil Moriconi's research group and spent a major part of my three years
working on a heterocyclic chemistry project of trying to construct a small
ring compound.  I thought I had achieved my goal at one stage -- but although
a number of new compounds were made, this original target failed me in the
long run.  It was still a worthwhile project for learning about the field.
The laboratory work started on Monday and went through Saturday afternoon and
this was the expectation.  On one late winter Saturday three of us took off
to attend the St. Patrick's Day Parade.  When we returned to school, there
was a note on the board saying that the boss (being Italian-American) did not
take off for Columbus Day -- a notation half in fun.

       Vatican II.  During my time at Fordham the great Church Council of
the 20th century occurred and virtually every day brought new stories and
ruptures of old stereotypes and barriers as deliberations were detailed in
the New York Times, a paper read almost religiously at Spellman Hall.  The
ecumenical movement was strengthened and involved the presence of Orthodox
and Protestants who would remark favorably of the proceedings and became
champions of improving the Catholic cause and image.  Religious thinkers, who
were suspect in the past such as John Courtney Murray, attended as personal
theologians of prominent church leaders.  These were able to take part in
deliberations in sub-committees of the council drafting The Church in the
Modern World and other progressive documents.  A new breeze  was blowing in
the Church and was intoxicating for us far beyond Rome.

    World's Fair.  During 1964, New York was site of the World's Fair.  It
was a grand event out on Long Island with accessible and rapid public
transportation.  During the summer, my folks came and Mama (then 54 years
old) was so spry that she raced me back to the exit gate at day's end.  I got
to the Fair several other times, once with chemist friend Rudy Villarica and
his landlady, who had just lost her brain-damaged son at age fifteen, injured
in a fall a dozen years before.  She seemed liberated and said she had
worried how she was going to carry him up and down stairs as he got heavier.
That was her first time out and a memorable occasion for her -- appreciation
that made the Fair doubly enjoyable for us as well.  We were overwhelmed by
the wide variety of the exhibits and especially the Vatican display.  There
seemed to be so many ideas compressed in such a small area -- and yet the
grounds were extensive when trying to see everything present.  

   Getting Away.  Throughout my tenure in New York, as was the case later in
Washington, I looked forward to the times when I could escape the city.
During the first full summer in New York, I was able to get to Port Kent in
upper New York on Lake Champlain with the Jesuit scholastics of the area.  We
had good companionship, the weather cooperated, and we went boating even
though I have never been a water sports enthusiast.  The fresh air was
invigorating and strengthened my resolve to plunge back into the laboratory
work.  On other occasions I traveled to the Midwest, to the theologate at
Woodstock, Maryland, made a bus trip to Boston and a ski trip to Sunapee, New
Hampshire.
 
   Reflections:  Amid New York's many good qualities I still found that
urban life had difficulties which few were able to articulate, and natives
overlooked.  In the 1960's, air pollution was somewhat ignored, traffic
congestion and noise stressful, crowds forgotten, and lack of green spaces
dismissed.  Those among the half of America's population living close to
oceans and lakes turned their attention out to sea, enjoyed the fresh breezes
and walked the beaches.  They made due with less, thought it more, and what
was distasteful for them in that pre-environmental era was not tasted.  My
rural experience said something was lacking even though I found it hard to
articulate at that time.  However, the period taught me to reflect upon the
different environmental qualities associated with urban and rural life.

    Prayer for Versatility.  O God, make us malleable and pliable  through
your grace.  How else can we enjoy what we find refreshing, and endure what
is not, even when others around us are unaware.


31  (1963)    Remembering Where I Was When JFK Died

          There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation
under heaven:  A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for
planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.  A time for killing, a
time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.  A time for
tears, a time for laughter;  a time for mourning, a time for dancing.  A time
for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them up; a time for embracing,
a time to refrain from embracing.  A time for searching, a time for losing;
a time for keeping, a time for throwing away.  A time for tearing, a time for
sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.  A time for loving,
a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.                        
               Ecclesiastes  3: 1-8                      

    I was one of the late 1950s people who watched the 1956 Democratic
Convention on television.   We saw a young senator graciously concede the
Vice President's nomination.  This rising star was an Irish-American Catholic
from Massachusetts named Jack Kennedy.  Suddenly, for the first time the
possibility that Catholics could break into the exclusive Protestant club of
presidents -- and win -- surfaced itself.  We had heard about the defeat of
Al Smith in 1928 and always were comforted saying "what if a Catholic
President had been blamed for the Great Depression?"  The star-studded
Kennedys were entering the spotlight, a beautiful wife, up and coming
youthful brothers who were helping with the campaign, and an athletically
vivacious family.  At West Baden, Indiana we crowded into the recreation room
and many cheered Kennedy on during the debates with then Vice President Dick
Nixon, who was wearing his five o'clock shadow.  From the front row, I made
irreverent remarks about Nixon's inability to best Kennedy in debate -- or at
least that is what I thought.  The campaign gave way to a very close election
and then Kennedy's swearing in on the cold January day in 1961, which was
avidly watched on television.  Catholic America had arrived.

    Catholic and American.  It is really difficult for the "X" generation
who did not experience the era before and around the time of Kennedy's
election to know how much the achievement of being fully American meant to
many among the Catholic population.  Although most voting Catholics voted for
Kennedy (JFK), some conservative Catholics were still sore from the New Deal
and did not break with their Republican tradition and voted for Nixon.
However, some traditional Democrats, especially in the South, took the road
of voting Republican, making the race extremely close.  Lyndon B. Johnson's
(LBJ) addition to the Democratic ticket and his power in Congress helped the
Kennedy prospects.  A Catholic President would not burrow tunnels to the
Vatican or take orders from the Pope.  The separation of church and state
would work in a democracy, where we have had Catholic signers of the
Declaration of Independence, generals, governors, senators and Supreme Court
Justices since the founding of the republic.  Now it was a president.

   Democratic Loyalty.  Except for devotion to Franklin D. Roosevelt in my
grade school youth, this degree of secular commitment to JFK would never
return.  Kennedy cut a good figure on the international scene with a very
attractive wife who spoke French and a family with many connections in
Britain where his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was ambassador.  He was a
cosmopolitan president and moved easily in social and cultural circles.  He
aroused the Berlin population who were withstanding the pressures of the USSR
and the blockade, and with whom he identified.  Yes, there was the Bay of
Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis of which we got headlines, air raid
shelter signs and only partial stories.  The President and staff knew best
and we trusted that they would see us through this one, for America always
wins.

   A Spirit of Global Perspective.  JFK inspired folks like me at a deeper
level of sharing resources with others.  He established the policy of going
beyond the line of duty to the concept of extending volunteer service and
good will to needy folks, both at home and abroad.  In some ways public
interest science was conceived in this atmosphere of volunteerism and good
will.  We, Americans, were affluent with responsibilities, and one way to
show our gratitude to the Giver of all good gifts was through service to and
for others.  Kennedy and his extended family enlivened this sense of
gratitude into that of public service ministry.  JFK appointed his brother-
in-law, Sargent Shriver, the head of the Peace Corps initiative.  Maybe this
was not the first altruistic endeavors on the part of Americans, but none
other had such a public face, and a well-articulated mandate -- at least so
I thought.  The War on Poverty focused on Appalachia and the region's grand
reception for JFK and his brother Bobbie, but it would be brought to full
fruition during the succeeding LBJ years.

    That November Day.  The Kennedys had a charism that touched a wide
variety of Americans and all seemed to be going so well.  It came to an
abrupt end on a gray November day in 1963, when an announcement broke over
the Frank Creegan's radio in our organic chemistry laboratory in the old
Medical School building at Fordham University in New York City .  He came to
my door and said, "The President has been shot in Dallas."  Then the radio
after an initial state of confusion shifted to dirge music, and I commented
"it must be fatal and they haven't told us yet."  Within an hour and with
little lab work being done and the word spreading around the building and
campus,  it was clear that the worst had happened with an assassin's bullet.

    Funeral.  We glued ourselves to television for the next three days and
saw on the tube the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald while it was
happening.  He was the person accused of the JFK assassination.  Then we
followed the aftermath and speculation of others who may have been part of a
possible conspiracy.  We watched on Saturday when the JFK funeral occurred in
Washington DC and John-John, his son, gave his famous salute.  We heard the
gruff voice of Cardinal Cushing of Boston, who was a friend of the Kennedy
family, asking the angels to assist JFK into paradise.  Then the procession
of an entire bereaving nation followed the horse-drawn  carriage carrying the
body of our dead President over the Arlington Bridge to the National Cemetery
accompanied by a host of world leaders, including France's President, the
prominently tall Charles De Gaulle.  We had a death in the family, felt
washed out, and in our desolation could only pray.  It would never be the
same.  We had to pick up and learn to live with LBJ, a Texan with a
completely new style, but one willing to continue using the same cabinet.
With years, the tendency of some of us to idolize JFK faded into the
background, especially when his peccadilloes and his meddling with
influential persons, who were glamour stars of that age, were made known.
May he rest in peace!  

   Reflection on Fallen Heroes:  Only by taking the longer view do we see
how immature was our reaction as citizens to the JFK years.  I have told
others who exude adulation for living heroes that one should never canonize
another until five years after they are dead.  That advice was learned during
those years just mentioned.  We are not being critical citizens, only hero
worshippers, and that does not fare well in any democracy or the running of
any democratic institution for that matter.  We should know human nature --
even with living heroes.  Some, in the course of events, rise to the occasion
with ideas which capture our fancy and we glorify the message and the person
all at the same time.  Such hero-worship overlooks misdeeds and reduces our
critical powers by wrapping people and their messages into one package.  What
we ought to do is distinguish the person who is fallible from the message
which may have great merit.  Our nation and each of us with starry eyes
should have learned a great lesson in the JFK years.  However, the Clinton
impeachment proceedings make us say otherwise.

      Prayer to the Crucified One.  O Suffering Christ on the cross, let us
be able to endure untimely death of friends, relatives and heroes in the
manner that Your mother did who stood below the cross.  Let us see that glory
passes and that good health, fresh spirit and handsome looks are the passing
sunlight on a otherwise cloudy day.  Give us the chance to see heroes and
heroines for what they really are -- human beings -- and yet be willing to
follow their examples.  Help us to bear up when suffering strikes and to see
the cross that stands on Calvary and towers over our lives, though it is now
an empty cross for the Resurrection has dawned on a new day.  Allow our
dreams to refresh us, so we can face the reality of the world in which we
live, and someday brave entry into eternal life.


32   (1964)    Going from City to the Great Plains

   Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then
the full grain in the ear.             (Mark 4:29)

   My departure in August, 1964 from New York City was perhaps more public
than most of my travel patterns of slipping away into the sunset.  It
happened that the lab team that I was working with went to La Guardia Airport
to see me off on my trip back to the Midwest and theology near Chicago.  In
the process they passed the flight insurance machines and started putting in
quarters.  They had two million dollars insurance on my trip to theology, and
I confess it was the most uncomfortable air ride in my life.  Were they
rooting or praying -- and for what?  

   Lessons in Theological Studies.  This is the hardest period in life to
write about even though much was happening on the world scene and in the
school on the prairie.  I jumped in and applied myself diligently to theology
assignments and supplementary reading, but the work was not heavy and I
seemed able to achieve in two years what is done in four years as required by
Canon Law.  As it was, I received a rare exception of getting the whole
course of study done with only three years at the theologate.  This inability
to keep busy caused me to go beyond North Aurora, Illinois for additional
work during those years (1964-67).

   North Aurora and Affluence.  The place was really ill-suited for serious
theological work.  It was a motel which had been unable to get sufficient
business being at the end of the then incomplete Interstate-88, the East-West
Tollway, which now goes all the way from Chicago to the Quad-cities (Moline,
Davenport, Rock Island and Bettendorf).  It was about an hour from Chicago's
downtown and our theology buses ran into the town on a regular basis,
especially on our Wednesdays off.  The local parallel road to the Interstate
was virtually unused and was a two mile jogging track.  The school had a good
library but lacked recreational facilities, woods, and green space.  It was
next to a commercial trotting track, which drew some distracted students --
but I was no gambler.  The interior of the motel/seminary had lush carpeting,
deep chairs, a swimming pool in an interior court, a single floor with wings
jutting in all directions and a two-story central building which was the
chapel and library.  I was in the first class, and the school moved to
Chicago soon after my exit.  Affluence destroys the religious spirit,
desensitizes individuals and discourages vocations.  We lost our dean, one
moral theologian, speech teacher and our apologetics teacher through those
years -- along with students.

   Teacher of Scientific Questions.  Upon arriving back at Aurora I was
asked by Father Mike Montague, the philosophy dean, whether I would be
willing to teach Scientific Questions to the first year philosophy students
who shared the facilities with the theologians.  These included a number of
bright people who did more than just take required classes;  they wanted to
engage in discussion and wrote some very thoughtful and stimulating term
papers.  While it took time to prepare classes, it also reminded me that I
must integrate the science that I had learned with the theology I was now
studying.  

   The First Ecumenism.  Several of us were invited by the Urban Institute
to gather with seminarians from other Chicago area theology schools and
engage in one of their workshops for involved social activists.  This was a
first for a Catholic theology school and did not involve teachers, only
students.  Four of us went and it was to be a total immersion, which was not
quite possible because we were required to return each evening.  That broke
the magic workshop spell.  The trainers were shocked when in the first round-
robin of about 50 participants two of our people, Paul Schindler and Pepe
Santival, were able to name every person who introduced themselves in the
circle.  Part of the exercise was supposed to be the lack of attention which
workshop goers -- like me -- have.  We had good discussions, laughs and made
some fast friends with other seminarians -- and this began years of
association with other denominations.
 
    The Summer at Dartmouth.  The first year of theology (1964-5) was spent
at North Aurora for the most part, except on free Wednesdays, when I would go
to Loyola University, where the Chemistry Department had its weekly seminar.
The Department included some very gracious and kind people who befriended me
right away and we have been fast friends for three decades.  Tom Spittler,
another Jesuit chemist/theologian, who had received his doctorate from
Loyola, and I would partake in the Department lunches after the seminars.  I
lacked the skills at social repartee, and yet could not refuse the generous
offer.  That summer I was invited by Rudy Villarica's mentor at Dartmouth to
do some synthetic organic work at his laboratory.  It resulted in a paper
with a mention, but the laboratory work had hardly began in earnest when the
summer was over.  Rudy and his wife, Pilar, and others of us took some
weekend trips to other parts of scenic New England and it was a wonderful way
to break the theology studies routine.  However, in that summer of '65
something else the size of a small cloud in the horizon was looming -- a war
in far off Vietnam and, in the midst of lab work I was moved to support
Senator Wayne Morse's opposition to President LBJ's activities in the Gulf of
Tonkin.  The question was Peace or War?  
 
   Reflections:  Theology does not stand apart from the modern world in
which we are all engaged.  It is best seen in perspective that includes the
other sciences, current world affairs, and our own applications and
qualities.  To address the world we have to be both part of it and separate
from it.    

    Prayers for Wisdom.  Divine Wisdom, it takes many experiences to make a
person who proclaims your word to the world.  I doubt whether any one
experience adds everything, but it is part of the picture.  Since theological
study is ongoing, we gradually in an organic manner build up our personal
approach to spreading your word.


33  (1965)    Integrating Theology in our World

   The Word was made flesh, he lived among us.  (John 1:14)

   I returned from Dartmouth in September, 1965 and was thrust into the only
appointed position I ever held in the Jesuits, and that was beadle (leader)
of the theologate students.  The post consisted of rising early enough to
post notices on the bulletin board and coordinating schedules with the dean
and with the philosophy group as well.  I got news a little sooner than
others, but was one of the least to care about that honor.  The position did
allow me to get out of table waiting and other routines and was actually a
chance to do less housework than other theologians.  The extra time allowed
me to start writing down ideas for the start of a personal theology.  Here
began the germ of my initial book, A Theology of the Earth.

   Experimental Method: The Gift of Science.  Besides affluence and negative
influence on our culture, other personal reflections began to emerge.
Theology certainly is influenced by the writings of others and is a form of
literature and extended philosophical discourse.  But theology is more than
that and emerges from the Earth as we reflect during the final days of
Advent.  Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a
Savior (Isaiah 45:8).  All scientific knowledge has a part to play and
theology grows organically, and is not a set of precepts of Revelation that
need only literary interpretation.  Theology is held too tightly in the hands
of non-scientists and we must loosen the literary grip.  We ought to utilize
the experimental method to develop an organic theology, one that grows from
our practical and theoretical experiences of and with our Earth.  

Reflections --  

   1. Incarnation: The Sense of Time.  Christians are people who are rooted
in history.   We celebrate within our liturgical prayer life the coming of
the Lord in the past (which includes his physical coming into the world
through the evolutionary process, covenant-making process and genealogical
line), the coming of the Lord here and now (the Eucharistic celebration that
is Calvary ever present in space and time), and the future coming of the Lord
in glory (a future eschatalogical event which we await in faith).  Each
advent is part of the emergence of Christ in the world, and the enthusiastic
reality of this emergence is the Good News that we bring to others.  The
process moves forward in time from a beginning to a terminal point.  Our
mission, as Christophers or bearers of Christ, is to announce what has
occurred, is occurring at the moment, and will occur in time.

    2. Calvary's Sacrifice: Involvement with Suffering.  Though the
suffering and death of Christ is part of sacred history, its effectiveness
extends in space and time to include the suffering human and non-human
creatures of the Earth throughout the ages -- a  compassionate stance.  In so
far as we are in community with the rest of creation we extend compassion to
others living today through our responsive love and caring.  From the First
Law of Thermodynamics we learn that all suffering is of importance, and that
there is a conservation of all spiritual energy as well as physical energy.
Nothing is lost;  all is gain.  To be fully spiritual is to encounter and not
run from suffering and death, but see it as part of the total redemptive act.
We need to be immersed in the world of the poor and suffering, and perform
meaningful deeds of caring and concern.

    3. Resurrection.  We find our spatial and temporal bearing and direction
precisely in the reality of the resurrection event in our lives.  We are
Easter people, people planted with a direction to Calvary and the Empty Tomb,
and our focus is towards the redeeming Christ who reigns in power.  We give
testimony through a sense of victorious hope that permeates our entire beings
as Christians.  Yes, we affirm that the world can be healed, can be enhanced,
that the sick can be cured and that they can see meaning in their lives.
Only later did it become apparent that healing extends to all the Earth and
its creatures.  Our encounter with the risen Lord makes us Easter people,
eager to extend to others the victory that we now sense.  Through what seems
to be powerlessness we become empowered.  

    4. Ascension: A Way of Living Simply.  The Ascension is the fullness of
the Resurrection mystery.  The leave-taking is not total, but we so often
keep looking up to heaven instead of getting on with the work.  After the
Ascension, the work of the Spirit is to begin in our lives and we are invited
to become witnesses to others, true evangelists.  But if we are desensitized
by affluence we cannot be good witnesses;  we are not to have baggage but be
mobile people, and affluence is baggage.  As witnesses to the risen Lord we
must be alert to those who suffer in our midst and not being so alert could
be our downfall.  Why did you not see me when I was hungry?  Destitution is
not desired, but neither is overabundance.  We must, as Easter people, be
alert about the existence of both extremes, and overcome excessive affluence
and destitution alike.

    5. Pentecost:  A Christian Science and Technology.  Four of us developed
a seminar on a Christian science and technology and took it to Purdue
University's Catholic Center.  The testimonies by four of us theologians drew
a surprisingly large crowd and much interest in the aftermath of Vatican II,
and in the period of hope before the great disillusionment brought on by the
Vietnam War.  I used such terms as "Scientific Man" though a little after
this conference I became aware of the need to purge this term of its male
connotations.  What we were recognizing was a basic optimism that we could
not ignore in modern pre-computer technology, which would help conquer
disease, famine and control the destructive forces of nature.  The spreading
of the Good News is that technology is no accident, since it arose in the
West which was steeped in the Eucharistic mysteries.  If ordinary bread
becomes the Body of Christ, so ordinary technology can be transformed into
doing good for the human family.

   6. Transfiguration:  Liberation through our Works.   Just as we need to
bless science as compatible with Faith, so technology is blessed by being a
way of a hope-filled Earthly transformation.  Through harnessing of wind and
water and the use of electricity and modern industrial development we enter
into the process of extending Christ to others in space and time -- and this
is a form of consolation, especially for the poor.  To build better housing
and give a steady supply of food to the poor is to liberate them from want,
and to open for them the vision of a better life.  However, here is where the
optimism of Teilhardians clashes with technology's shortcomings, such as the
after-effects of nuclear power discovery and use in war.  Technology is good,
but it must be controlled for what is a promise can also be a peril.  That
sub-theme would become part of my boiler plate homiletic message.  

  7. Thanksgiving: The Need for Celebration.   God's gifts of creation
abound all around us.  We see our human shortcomings, the mishaps of the
suffering and the marvels that God works.  A sense of thanksgiving must
always swell in our hearts and from our lips.  The act of thanking God could
be the very reason for creation -- others live a thanksgiving filled world
without articulation; we human beings freely give thanks, and that makes all
creation worth while.  We especially thank God in the formal setting of
Liturgy, which is "the work of the people."  So often we become too overly
restrictive on liturgical celebration (the number of candles, the arrangement
of flowers, and the line-up of servers and we miss the purpose of Christian
Mass -- thanksgiving.  Here ecumenism calls for expanded celebrations.  A
symbolic celebration can take on a wide variety of expressions from concerts
to festivals, from fairs to massive gatherings.  We can celebrate life
together in many creative ways.

  8. The Second Coming.  Bearing Christ to the world is part of our mission,
but that terminal transitory event, a transformation into the New Heaven and
the New Earth that is puzzling, mysterious and standing out in the distance
of time.  It is our duty as Christians to hasten the day of Christ's coming
as the Second Letter of Peter says.  While we do not know the time, we do
know that we can have a catalytic effect when we work with others in the
Church community.  The anticipated Day of the Lord is not something to be
dreaded -- except by those captured by sin.  Rather, the hastening process in
which we as other "Christs" help bring on, is according to the tradition
going back to the Apostles.  We perfect our housekeeping with spirit and
gusto.  We do not pretend to be busy; we are commissioned to alleviate
poverty, furnish housing and food to the homeless and hungry, educate the
illiterate, and rebuild ruined lives and communities.

     Prayer to the Creator of the Earth.  O God, You created the Earth as a
marvel to behold.  You gave us a responsibility to be good stewards of this
Earth.  You show us how to integrate the mysteries of the life, death and
resurrection of your Son into the world, while we extend your work in space
and time.


34   (1966)    Confronting Vietnam War Issues

   Peace be with you.    (John 20: 20)

   History:  As the theology program was progressing in North Aurora in the
late 1960's, so was the warring activities in southeast Asia.  Every night
the television was showing body bags, and bombing raids, and soldiers
departing for Asia, and shadowy combatants who wounded and killed and engaged
in flashing fire fights.  Also what was starting to appear were the voices of
opposition.  The optimistic spirit of the can-do JFK generation was beginning
to erode and be replaced by a sense of foreboding and discontent, somewhat
sporadic at first, but simmering underneath.  "Hell no, We won't go" was
first a whisper and then a deafening chant.  Simultaneously, the Civil Rights
Crusade led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others was on the march
through Atlanta, Georgia, Memphis, Tennessee, and Selma and Birmingham,
Alabama as well as a number of Mississippi Delta towns.  Desegregation was
the call of the day and the ghettos of Afro-Americans in the northern cities
were seething and ready to explode.  The times they were a changing.  

    Mr. Johnson's War.  LBJ, who was an author and supporter of the War on
Poverty and the civil rights reforms, was the inheritor of the expanding
conflict in southeast Asia.  This conflict heated up during the Johnson
Administration and gradually consumed his presidency, which overlapped my
time in theological studies.  I actually tried to vote for LBJ in 1964 by
absentee ballot since I was in the process of moving to Illinois, but somehow
my New York registration got lost and I could not get the proper ballot -- my
only adult non-voting election.  The  LBJ elected term (1965-68) brought an
ever-expanding police action.  It seems so fruitless today, but not at the
moment.  Were we for peace or for war, and were we for stopping Communism or
not?    

    Ambivalence in Politics.  Throughout 1966, the escalating war was
costing  us as people -- casualties, attention, eroding enthusiasm, swelling
anger, and lost civility.  The living room war was dragging us down, but we
hardly realized it at first.  The Johnson years were  ambivalent times with
some solid support for him, especially among Blacks, on the domestic scene
and a growing opposition to him, especially from students and liberals, on
the global level.  I partly sympathized with this grandfatherly President
with his southern drawl, his confident way of acting, his ability to hug and
cajole and tower over others.  But as televised battle casualties sobered us
and left such gruesome images, we moved apart, became embarrassed, and became
less identified with LBJ.  A few years later, I saw him across the stadium at
a University of Texas football game after he resigned and felt an ambivalence
which I always held.  Still a few years later, I was residing on Capitol Hill
when his body was brought to lay in state.  The evening he was brought there
a line was seven blocks long and included many of his black friends.  I got
up at 4:00 am and went over to the deserted Capitol and paid my respects.  

    Marching and Peacemaking.  That unpopular war led many of us to take to
the streets and to express a growing social and political awareness through
public expressions.  During these war years a number of my fellow seminarians
were going into downtown Chicago on free days to organize people in the lower
income areas on housing issues.  I gave them encouragement and was becoming
politicized also.  Yet I was torn by the views of the pacifists and the
tradition of fighting just wars.  Desegregate, if the court orders it.  Stop,
Communism in its tracks.  Don't force pacifists to go to a war they disagree
with.  Defend those oppressed, but don't back corrupt right-wing
dictatorships.  It was like paddling in a swift moving stream with waterfalls
roaring up ahead.  At this time, fellow Jesuit Dan Berrigan and his Brother,
Phil, and friends were organizing and becoming more and more aware of the
war's cost in human life as well.  During this time (1968) Thomas Merton made
his trip to Asia and died there of accidental electrocution, but he too was
concerned about the need for peace and the justice of the Civil Rights
Movement.  I started also marching at this time and soon found that being in
solidarity with other people did have a witness value.        

    Disillusionment.  A generation of people were listening to speakers,
organizing, carrying banners, and becoming deeply agitated.  Many were youth
who would be called to active service, and some within the armed service were
wanting to get out.  Suddenly college campuses were exploding with ever-
increasing protests, which became more and more violent.  Traditional ways
and values were being questioned at the same time when we were moving from
Latin to English in theology, from rigid ways of class attendance to informal
study practices, from a silent Mass away from the people to the turning of
the altars around and the participation of the congregation in new songs and
the use of guitars.  Things were changing often faster than some people could
take.  Isolationists were urging doing battle with the Communists.  Peaceniks
called for bringing the boys home, wise former leaders called for staying out
of the expanding Southeast Asian quagmire.  All were talking and few were
listening.

   Reflections:  The undercurrents of social unrest were reaching into
church circles and differences in theological interpretation to direct social
and political action was showing itself, even in the Seminary.   The
optimistic spirit and general good will of Vatican II was rapidly giving way,
and this could be felt when people questioned America's involvement in
Vietnam or the racial biases of a church congregation.  Feminism was
beginning to surface, and the use of "him" for "him and her" and the "he" God
was being criticized.  People were beginning to be seen as in opposing camps.
We even tended to identify students and teachers as right or left of some
sort of political center.  One such person we placed on the right was our
theology teacher, John Hardin, who was the soul of charity and would do
anything for a needy person.  However, he was quite traditional in many
issues and took issue with my interpretation of one of the authors on his
approved reading list.  Looking back, such confrontations were more
reflections of the politicized times rather than honest exchange of ideas.
We were a people under stress and we were finding it hard to find our
peaceful modus vivendi in a time of political stress and of an unpopular war.

   Prayer:  Great Ruler of the Universe, help us to see the Spirit working
in our land and our people, as well as our church community and personal
lives.  Give us the courage to speak wisely and well on urgent social justice
issues.  Let us not be so taken up with our patriotism as to see our national
power as beyond criticism and rebuke.  Teach us to be humble at times of
adversity, gentile in relations to other people, sensitive to their needs,
and willing to admit our own faults as a collective people.  

                The tumult and the shouting dies,
                   the captains and the kings depart,
                 Still stands the ancient sacrifice,
                   the humble and contrite of heart,
                 Lord God of hosts be with us yet,
                   lest we forget, lest we forget.
                                         Rudyard Kipling

The Latch String is Out -- Copyright © 2002 by Al Fritsch