Blog Archive » 2005 » December

Everybody knows certain phrases, songs, scents that evoke memories that grow even more powerful with the years. For me, the strains of Adeste Fideles mingling with the incense and overheated wool coats of Midnight Mass has just that effect. (Adeste Fideles is the Latin opening to the Christmas hymn most Americans know in English as "O Come, All Ye Faithful.")

Each year at Midnight Mass (now held at 8 pm for those who can't stay awake!) at St. Colman's Church in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, my mother and I sing the entire Latin verse (sometimes two!) with the congregation that packs this great neo-gothic church with its cold granite pillars, monumental high vault ceilings and thousands of poinsettias decorating the altar and sanctuary. Our family history with this parish goes back more than four decades. I only visit once a year now, but when the first notes of Adeste Fideles boom from the organ, I know I've come home again.

The rituals and memories of this season are about deep expressions of faith and belonging to families and communities where, for at least a few brief hours or days, tradition triumphs over the trials and strains of daily life. In all of the myriad ways we express our faith and celebrate these great traditions, we manifest the transcendent part of human nature, the reach toward something divine, eternal. These expressions may have different vocabularies and languages across different cultural and religious traditions, but all celebrate the life of the Creator within us. Through stopping all routine work to enjoy these few days, we gather the strength to move on to meet the challenges ahead.

Because all of humanity owns this season in various ways, we should be glad with the many forms of celebration while certainly being proud of our own traditions. So, for example, I think it's very important for Christians to wish each other a "Merry Christmas!" while also respecting other traditions through wishing our Jewish friends a "Happy Hannukah" or "Happy Holidays" for those who may have other traditions. Those who say it somehow cheapens Christmas to include good wishes to those of other traditions seem to miss the whole point of the Gospel. Loving our neighbors sometimes means saying, "Happy Kwanzaa!" and meaning it.

"O Come, All Ye Faithful" is a song about the Christian tradition, but its meaning can extend to all of humanity. Come to celebrate together, come join in the best expressions of our humanity, come work together for joy, for justice, for peace. We do that by being open to each other and respecting the traditions through which each of us becomes more fully human.

Adeste Fideles, laeti triumphantes. Joyful and triumphant, the faithful gather again to renew family ties, affirm faith, enjoy the sense of belonging to a community that is essential for human life to thrive.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Peace to All!

Friday's news that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States reminded me of one of my earliest academic arguments at Trinity. In 1971, in the spring semester of my freshman year, I enrolled in the Political Science "Field Work" course along with many other first year students who intended to study Poli-Sci and then go on to careers in politics and law. Field Work was a required course at that time (a precursor to the idea of internships), and we had to pick a topic to study through interviewing people in Washington. We also had to work in teams, a terrific pedagogy that was a new idea back then. The whole concept seemed so new and exciting — we would ride the Senate subway for days an interview Senators and their staff about the important issues of the day! Those were the days of Vietnam and protests and civil rights struggles. President Nixon was in office, and Watergate was still more than a year away. The climate in Washington was full of conflict and intrigue.

My team of young political scientists included me and two other classmates with whom I shared a desire to study a topic that was pretty hot in student protest circles in those days — the idea that our government might be spying on civilians. We were convinced by some older students that this was something that needed to be exposed, and that a field work paper on this topic could be shocking to the world. So, of course, we Trinity Women wanted to do just that!

But when we proposed our topic to the professor supervising our field research, she was taken aback. No, she said, that's impossible. Our government would not "spy" on civilians! There's nothing to study! Our professor was convinced that this topic had no future, and was not worth studying.

My friends and I protested: "…but how do you know unless you investigate?" we asked the professor. There's only so much time in the semester, she replied, and you must choose a topic that has substance.

We could not identify any other topic that would hold the same interest for us. So, she gave us an assignment: the anti-ballistic missile system. We were stunned. But we soon were riding the Senate subway trying to collar senators and staffers to talk to us about their views on the ABM treaty. One of our team even followed Senator Kennedy into a men's room in the Capitol in order to get his quote. We camped outside of Henry Kissenger's Georgetown home in the futile hope of scoring an interview with him. We eventually interviewed scores of people and wrote an "A" paper. (Along the way we also gathered convincing evidence that the massive concrete silos at McMillan Reservoir were not missile silos, a popular myth among students at that time.)

But long after we moved onto other courses, we still felt that we had missed an opportunity to study something very important.

35 years later, Trinity's budding political scientists continue to debate the contentious issues of the day with fervor and well-disciplined study. More opportunities than ever are open to Trinity students as they explore the great issues of this day.

This year, an extraordinary new opportunity arose when the Intelligence Community awarded a major grant to Trinity to establish an Intelligence Studies program here. Through this program, Trinity students have been able to study abroad and explore new career pathways that have become critically important as a result of September 11.

Some alumnae and others have asked me why Trinity would associate with the Intelligence Community. Some have suggested that this is incompatible with our commitment to social justice. To be sure, Trinity's values compel us to stand against any actions, including governmentally-sponsored actions, that are illegal, immoral, or degrading to human dignity.

But Trinity's values of honor and integrity, strong moral capacity and commitment to social justice, are precisely the values that must be present in the federal workforce, including in the intelligence agencies and military, as well as the more typical locations where Trinity students and alums work on the Hill and at the White House. We believe that Trinity students and alumnae can and should have these career opportunities open to them so that the benefits of the Trinity value system will be present in public policy choices and policy implementation. Trinity alumnae have already worked with great distinction in the intelligence field for many years.

Whether President Bush's direction to the National Security Agency was legal will be for the courts to decide. Whether protecting the United States from terrorists requires the repression and even abandonment of the very civil liberties the President is sworn to protect seems clear: absolutely not. This includes torture as well as abridgement of other fundamental human rights and dignities. This is about values, not politics. People on both sides of the aisle agree that our values as a free people insist that our leaders act morally, which includes respect for human rights and civil liberties of all people. Tactics do not trump values. The important work of intelligence and national security can occur in ways that are legal, moral and effective. To suggest that the first two must concede to the third is the ultimate in Machiavellian thinking.

The death yesterday of former Senator Eugene McCarthy seems especially poignant in this time of suspense as the world waits to learn the fate of four international humanitarian workers held hostage in Iraq. The kidnappings and threats to murder the peace activists are further evidence of the sick and utterly degenerative nature of violence, terrorism and war — cascading horrors slashing across the superficial veneer of civilization. Shadowy, hooded figures — terrorists, prisoners, hostages — give human shape to the evil that flourishes when moral compasses spin out of control.

In another age, in a different war, Eugene McCarthy stood up to decry the utter senselessness of a national policy to wage war in order to spread democracy. The Senator from Minnesota challenged presidential authority to wage war without the consent of the people. In 1968, as the tragedy of the Vietnam war escalated, Senator McCarthy stunned the nation by challenging President Lyndon Johnson — members of the same Democratic Party, such a challenge from within the ranks was almost unthinkable.

McCarthy hit a nerve, galvanizing voters, stoking the fires of the student anti-war movement that was gaining strength in 1968. Eventually, the challenge was so clear that President Johnson declined to run for a second term. Gene McCarthy did not win, either — Richard Nixon eventually won that election after the catastropic events of 1968's presidential election season, a year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the riots in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention that eventually nominated Hubert Humphrey, riots in Washington and other major cities. The quest for peace and justice, so elegantly and eloquently led by Dr. King and Senator Kennedy and Senator McCarthy, provoked the murder of the first two and the defeat of the third.

Advocating justice, working for peace requires courage of heroic proportions — the peace activist must know that he or she risks defeat, disdain, disgrace, even murder.

Consider the despicable treatment of Cindy Sheehan, whose couragous stance for peace after her son's death in Iraq has been ridiculed by high governmental officials whose disdain for her effort has encouraged cruel and contemptuous attacks on her by others.

The four peace activists held hostage in Iraq are just the latest exemplars of the courage of people who are willing to risk their lives, their reputations, their comfort, in order to bring some sanity, some hope, some peace to this troubled world.

Remembering Gene McCarthy also reminds me of his late wife Abigail; they were separated for decades after the 1968 events, but both of them continued their active advocacy for peace and justice in many venues. Abigail Quigley McCarthy was a graduate of the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota, and she was a lifelong advocate of Catholic women's colleges. She called these institutions "A Luminous Minority" in an essay she wrote about the importance of colleges devoted to women's leadership. I had the privilege once of visiting her in her apartment on Connecticut Avenue where she often held forth on the many issues of the day — women's rights, the peace movement, social justice, the Church. On that particular day she made a point of introducing me to other women who were very helpful to Trinity over the years. She was very fond of Trinity and a great champion for this institution.

In this Christmas season, let's take time to remember all of the advocates for peace and justice who have sacrificed so much through the years. "Peace on Earth" is not just a song or greeting or Hallmark card phrase. Peace on Earth is the whole point of Christianity, the driving force of our faith. Let's live it like we mean it.

Last night, a group of students, faculty and staff gathered in Social Hall for Trinity's annual Festival of Lights. During the ceremony, so ably led by Campus Minister Barbara Humphrey McCrabb, the four candles on the Advent wreath were lit, and the community reflected on the meaning of the season through readings, prayer and song. Trinity's Choir was outstanding, with many strong solo voices raised during different parts of the evening.

The lighting of candles in this season — the Advent wreath, the Hannukah menorah, and the more secular traditions of candles and holiday lights in great profusion on many streets — proclaims the essential optimism of the human spirit. No matter how dark the night, how difficult the day, how doubtful the soul in any given moment, hope flickers anew in the warmth and light of the taper's fire. From the humble, elegant beeswax candle to the gaudy, extravagant Walmart Santa balloon, the human community affirms hope and even mirth against the darkness of these short days.

2005 has been a year of many dark, short days — too much war and terror, too much catastrophe beyond our comprehension, too many homeless neighbors, too many lives twisted, abandoned or even ended in tragic ways in our own city. But the Festival of Lights calls us to renewed hope, a stronger affirmation of our own powerful light. As people of faith, people privileged to receive the precious gift of a great higher education, we have the ability to light so many other fires, to carry our flame to places that are unable to kindle their own.

In this short December season at Trinity, let's use the few days left before the mad dash for the winter break to think about the many ways we can extend the meaning of the Festival of Lights all through the year. Let's find more ways to illuminate our own campus community, to help each other, to improve relationships and reach out to the larger needs of the Trinity family. Let's also renew our commitment to work for justice and peace each day.

Today, the day after the Festival of Lights, is the 50th Anniversary of the day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. As candles against the darkness go, Rosa Parks was a Roman Candle bursting high against the night sky. Let us remember her example with gladness and thanksgiving. Then, let's pay tribute to her by going out to find our own ways to light up the night sky.