Articles

THE SOCIAL EDGE INTERVIEW: AUTHOR ROBERT ELLSBERG

by Gerry McCarthy

Robert Ellsberg is Editor-in-Chief of Orbis Books, the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. In the early 1970s, he left Harvard and spent 5 years working with Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker community in New York. In 1980 Ellsberg converted to Catholicism. He later returned to Harvard and received a degree in theology.

In 1997 Ellsberg's book All Saints won two top religious awards. His new book The Saints' Guide to Happiness was just published by North Point Press. I reached him by telephone in New York to speak about the book.

Gerry McCarthy: Dorothy Day is mentioned many times in The Saints' Guide to Happiness. At one point, you explain that she used to wonder where the saints were that changed the social order. You write that: "It was a question to be answered with her own life. By serving Christ in the poor, while battling injustice, and trying through small means to create a peaceful alternative, she found the meaning of her vocation. By inventing a new model of holiness, she found her own way to happiness." I was struck again by Dorothy Day's humanity, wisdom, faith and determination. What were some of the first impressions you had of her when you went to the Catholic Worker?

Robert Ellsberg: I went to the Catholic Worker when I was 19. I had dropped out of college. In my own way, I was searching for my vocation. I wasn't framing that question in religious terms at the time. It was toward the end of the Vietnam War, and it was more of an ethical journey I was on. I didn't come from a Catholic background, and I wasn't drawn to Dorothy Day on the basis of her Catholicism. But it was more to do with her life of integrity, pacifism, and commitment to social justice. One of the things I learned over time from her was to see those questions in a wider context.

      She's one of the figures who runs throughout the book, because she epitomizes the insight that inspired me. It was the idea that holiness and happiness in the deepest sense proceed from the same practice and converge on the same goal. She was the first person who sparked my interest in the saints. They weren't just figures on a pedestal to her. They were friends and members of the family. They had struggled to be faithful in relation to the needs of their neighbours and the challenges of their moment in history. She was trying to do the same thing. But what struck me about Dorothy -- even as I knew her at the end of her life -- was how intensely alive she was and the interest she took in everything around her. That helped to expand my appreciation and understanding of the saints. Because we tend to think of them as close to God -- one foot in heaven somehow -- but not really walking on the earth.

      Thomas Merton said that sanctity is about being more fully alive. He said this implies a greater capacity for concern, suffering and sympathy. But also for human joy and the appreciation for the good and beautiful things in life. Those are things I particularly observed in Dorothy Day.

GM: Toward the end of the book you write about an experience Dorothy Day had in her childhood seeing a next-door neighbour in prayer. "I felt a burst of love toward Mrs. Barrett that I've never forgotten," she said. There are spiritual moments in our lives which continue to affect us profoundly -- but often they're seemingly simple things aren't they?

RE: I was glad you noticed that passage. It means a lot to me. I'm not sure many people notice or remember it from her autobiography. So many large things happened in her life. There were the dramatic events of being arrested, falling in love, having a baby, starting the Catholic Worker movement. In recounting the steps that led to her conversion and discovering her vocation why did she remember this incident from her childhood? The story is that she was living in Chicago as a little girl, and went next-door one day looking for her friend to play with. The door was open and she went in -- but no one was there. The breakfast dishes were cleaned and stacked away in the kitchen. Then she came across her friend's mother Mrs. Barrett kneeling on the floor saying her prayers. She looked up and saw Dorothy, and then told her that her friend was at the store. Dorothy left and the woman went on with her prayers. Somehow this seemingly small event made a tremendous impression on her. It was one of the early moments that she felt a first encounter with the transcendent. This sense there was something more to life became an irresistible call beckoning her and ultimately leading her into the Church and the Catholic Worker.

      I told this story at the end of my book in a chapter called "Learning To See." Traditionally the Church has devoted more attention to the question of the ultimate happiness we can look forward to in heaven. This is the beatific vision -- the goal of our lives. But the Church pays relatively little attention to asking how this relates to the possibility of happiness in this life. And that's something we can find in the visions of the mystics, for example, who have these experiences that seem very much like the anticipation of the beatific vision. But most of us don't really have experiences like that. But with the story of Dorothy Day and Mrs. Barrett I wanted to write about the way many of us have moments in life where we do catch a glimpse of something true, good and beautiful. It reminds us that we are living in a wider world. I wanted to suggest the importance of recognizing and honoring those moments, as if they tell us something fundamentally true about how we ought to live our lives.

GM: In the book you write about St. Irenaeus who was a second-century bishop and theologian. He said that: "The glory of God is the human being fully alive." You explain that Irenaeus wrote those words "to oppose a kind of spirituality that scorns natural existence in the world. But his words pose a challenge for anyone who settles for a truncated life, whether reduced to work, entertainment, or an otherworldly spiritualism." Our prevailing culture makes it difficult to be fully alive doesn't it? We don't seem to honor the attempt to balance work, family, prayer life do we?

RE: I don't know whether it's particularly difficult to be more fully alive in our culture more than in previous times. I begin the book describing the early Desert Fathers who fled what they perceived to be the deadness of their prevailing culture. They went into the desert to find a deeper sense of life. The idea of being fully alive operates in my book as one way of talking about the theme of happiness and holiness, and how they're connected. The opposite of happiness is not sadness, but a kind of deadness, numbness, or a sense of just going through the motions that so many of us can relate to. In contrast, happiness is not just a matter of happy feelings, or something subjective based on circumstances in the moment. It's more like an objective state like the flourishing of a healthy plant. It's the health of the soul. It may make us more capable of happy feelings. But it also may make us more capable of sorrow, anger, desire, or remorse depending on the circumstances. Jesus said he had come to provide life in abundance. Many Christians think that refers only to the life to come. But the Good News has more to do with discovering that source of life -- that living water -- that is around us in the present.

GM: Throughout the book you weave in social critiques with wonderful passages about saints and holy Christians. One social critique stood out. You write that: "Thanks to mobile phones, instant messaging services, beepers, and call waiting, we are constantly available for interruptions, whether in the middle of another conversation, while listening to a concert, while sitting in Church, or even as we sleep. The telephone companies exclaim that now 'we are all connected.'" Then you add that: "On the other hand, all this 'connection' reflects a terrible desire to be somewhere else, anywhere but in the present moment." The saints you write about lived in the present moment. This is an important entry point to holiness isn't it?

RE: It's one of the many possible entry points. That particular chapter begins with the observation that occurred to me one day as I was walking down the street in Manhattan. I saw so many people striding the street busily talking -- seemingly to no one -- but chattering into their mobile phones. On the one hand, there's something marvelous about that technologically. But it also speaks to me of this terrible difficulty we have in just being in the moment. We're always trying to cram more activity into our lives. In that light, I was struck by reading Blaise Pascal's Pensées written in the 17 century. He diagnosis the same need for distraction even back then. It's not just a modern thing -- it's part of the human condition. He said that the cause of human unhappiness is that we don't know how to sit quietly alone in our own room. He was writing before the time of mobile phones and the emergence of palm pilots and home entertainment centres. Pascal was an acute observer of the human capacity for what he called boredom, anxiety, and restlessness. Also: the idea that we're constantly dreaming of the future or living in the past. As a result we're seldom alive in the actual moment where we're living. He said this was a major sign and cause of human unhappiness.

      The kind of happiness I describe in the book involves our effort to move away from the surface of life (where we usually live) and where we try to find our happiness through distraction, breaking news, or excitement. It's describes an effort to move into the cultivation of an inner life. In that light, the saints did many things. They didn't just sit quietly in their rooms. But they were rooted in a stillness that affected the quality of all their activities.

GM: I was struck by your writing on Cardinal Bernardin. He said the task of trusting and letting go was a lifelong process until life's end. It seems the idea of "letting go" was an important part of your book -- particularly with regard to resentments, fear of death, and the idea of trying to control everything. It's sometimes hard to imagine the saints harboring bitterness. But as humans they must have had those feelings. Can you talk to me about how important letting go is critical in following the path of holiness?

RE: On an obvious level "letting go" relates to a detachment from material things and the insatiable spirit of acquisition. Our economy is driven by fanning the flames of desire. It's the feeling that we'll be happy if only we buy the latest gadget, a better car or look a certain way. On some level, we know that can't be true. But so much of our life is spent trying to get ahead and keep up a certain appearance or image. We suffer from the illusion this will make us happy. Letting go doesn't necessarily mean we need to adopt a certain level of material possessions. It has much more to do with what's in our hearts and adopting a different attitude, because the fault is not in things themselves, but in their capacity to hook our hearts.

      One of the Desert Fathers said there are those who've given up great possession only to become anxious or obsessed about a book or a pen. The letting go we have to accomplish isn't just a matter of letting material things go, but letting go the illusions that things will make us happy. That's an idea that's fairly commonplace. But I wanted to go beyond that, because I believe what we really cling to isn't so much material possessions -- but a certain image of ourselves. In other words: we cling to our status, the sense of being more important than other people, a compulsive need for order and perfection, the sense of ourselves as victims, or the feeling that we're completely right in some argument or dispute. Those are the things that tend to cloud unhappy families and relationships. We're prone to cling to the memory of all the ways we've been wronged by other people. We'd rather hold onto to all those memories -- painful as they are -- than achieve reconciliation and healing. For many of us, that's the most critical kind of letting go. This is what Cardinal Bernardin was talking about as he approached death from pancreatic cancer. Often we hear about people facing death saying those things they thought were important now seem to fall away. Their priorities become completely different. I'm asking how we might achieve that kind of freedom and detachment without having to be on the door of death.

GM: The passages on Henri Nouwen were very inspiring. But you write very openly about a period in his life where everything came crashing down. But Nouwen was an amazingly exuberant, faithful, and warmly human person wasn't he?

RE: No doubt Henri was a spiritual master -- a genius of the spiritual life. I knew him for more than 20 years. I met him when he was at the Catholic Worker and he was teaching at Yale. We remained friends right up until the end. When I came to Orbis he began publishing with us. In fact, I was working with him on his last book when he died. He was a very dear personal friend. But he was also one of the most complex and neurotic people I've ever known. He had tremendous spiritual gifts as well as a capacity for friendship, but this was always competing with a great yawning gap in him -- a tremendous insecurity and need for affection and affirmation. He wrote about this very frankly in his books. So I don't think I'm saying something that is not known to anybody who read his journals carefully. But that vulnerability doesn't detract from his real holiness.

      It's also important to note that Henri continued to grow tremendously over the years. In some ways he was a very different person at the end of his life from the person I'd known earlier. Although a lot of the same qualities were present. He was achieving a tremendous level of integration. But he was a work-in-progress. Ultimately that's what is important to me. I don't think of saints as finished products. They're always on the way. One of Henri's lessons for me was the idea that the life of a Christian is a matter of learning to see your own life in relation to the story of Jesus. Then learning to ask: what's the story God is telling through my life. In that light, Henri's story itself -- more than his writing -- remains with me as a kind of Gospel story about the power of life, love, and these amazing gifts. But they were all wrapped in a story that's also about pain, suffering, and brokenness. Just like the story of Jesus itself.

GM: You write about Thomas Merton many times in the book. It was interesting to discover some of his struggles with his monastic community. At one point in his monastic life he experienced a vision. "There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun," he wrote. "There are no strangers…the gate of heaven is everywhere." Can you talk to me about Merton -- and why he had such an impact on so many Christians.

RE: That experience of Merton that you mention came more or less in the middle of his monastic career. But it was a critical turning point. In his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain he told the story of his conversion, and how he came to enter the Trappist monastery in Gethsemani. It's a tremendously appealing and compelling story, precisely because he was so much a complete product of the 20th century. But he turns his back on that image of himself, and sees it as an illusion. He enters into a religious world that people hardly thought existed anymore. But the book was marked by a smug attitude toward the world he'd left behind. He found it easy to contrast the holiness of the monastery with the fallen secular world outside.

      It was in that context that he writes about going on an errand to Louisville, Kentucky, one day. He says he was standing at the corner of Fourth and Walnut -- in the heart of the financial district -- when he had this amazing vision where he felt the walls separating the religious and secular world falling down. He suddenly felt his real connection and solidarity with the human race. A connection not just in sin, but in God's love. He described that insight in that wonderful phrase you quoted. It led him to see his vocation more and more as a ministry of healing and compassion. He brought this into the arena of civil rights and questions of war and peace. Also: in his dialogue with people of other religions. As a monk living in a very traditional order he served as a bridge between each ancient traditions of Christian spirituality and the experience and struggles of people living in the contemporary world. That's why he's so important. In fact, that's what I was trying to achieve in the book. And he's one of the paradigmatic figures in the book.

GM: Merton did come out against the Vietnam War didn't he?

RE: Absolutely. He became a kind of confessor and guide to the Catholic peace movement. There's a wonderful collection of his writings on war, peace, and social issues entitled A Passion for Peace. All of his writing in his last years was marked by the idea that the monastic life should be principally concerned with peace in the larger sense. Pax was the motto for St. Benedict, after all.

GM: Most of the saints you write about never had children. Do you think that's what makes it difficult for some people to relate to their lives given the often wearisome day-to-day responsibilities in raising children?

RE: Most official saints were priests, monks or nuns. That in itself places them outside the typical day-to-day experience of most people. But I don't think that's the only reason why it's difficult for people to relate to them. The problem also has to do with the stereotypical way saints are often presented as almost perfect people who never doubted, or had particular struggles or anxieties, and spent their lives in a pious bubble. It's no wonder people think saints are not like us. That's one of the reasons Dorothy Day use to say: "Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed that easily." The more we learn about saints the more we realize they were not strangers to wearisome day-to-day responsibilities. They faced the same pressures and insecurities as anyone does in the world. Someone like Dorothy Day -- who was a single mother -- felt the same kind of stress and pressures in overseeing the Catholic Worker family. She agreed that sometimes that community could be a foretaste of heaven. But there were other times when the bickering, backbiting, and petty conflicts -- familiar to any family -- made her want to cry.

      But I write about these things as someone who does live in a family with three young children. I confess to feelings of envy when I read about the peace and quiet of Thomas Merton in his hermitage. But I've come to see that the spiritual wisdom of the saints has a lot to say to me in my life. For example: in the way of letting go of resentments, learning to have a more forgiving heart, and of the need to cultivate a spirit of inner stillness -- rather than just seeking some externally quiet place -- even when you're surrounded by the chaos, anguish, and suffering which is an inevitable part of love. All of these are things you can cultivate in a family, as well as a monastery or anywhere else.

      Finally, there is the basic spiritual question of vocation that came to me through reading about the saints. The idea that it's the situation in which we find ourselves that provides our own road to heaven. My place doesn't happen to be a monastery -- it's a family. And so this is my monastery in my commitments and faithfulness to the requirements of being a husband and father. If there's a way to happiness and holiness for me, I have to find it -- in part -- in the midst of this. My life is about other things than being a husband and father. I also have a job and work with people and colleagues. There are other aspects to my life. Still, helping children with their homework, getting up early to walk the dog, being a patient and faithful listener I inevitably fall short. But I can relate to stories of the saints. There's so much that I find in the saints that allows them to serve as companions along the way.

GM: You chose to end your book with a beautiful passage from George Eliot's Middlemarch. In the passage Eliot is writing about the character Dorothea Brooke. "But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive, for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs." Tell me why you decided to write about this in the conclusion of your book?

RE: As I suggested, I'm critical of the tendency to put saints on a pedestal and treat them as if they're completely other. But by the time I reached the end of the book I was concerned that by writing about so many truly heroic men and women I was falling into the same trap. In other words, these people would seem far out of reach and irrelevant as our own companions and guides. I wanted to return to a central point: that the goal of the spiritual life is not to be another St. Francis or Dorothy Day, but to become our true and best selves. The Church maintains the celebration of All Saints Day on November 1 which is a day we remember the famous and recognized saints, but also the countless and anonymous holy men and women who are only known to a few, if not to God alone.

      In this wonderful novel Middlemarch, George Eliot brackets the story with reflections on St. Teresa of Ávila. It's odd that she's writing about a counter-Reformation Catholic saint living in Spain, because the subject of Eliot's book is provincial life in Victorian England. It's only on the last page that she relates St. Teresa to her own heroine Dorothea Brooke who is this idealistic would-be reformer with a sense of mission and a lot of projects that really don't go anywhere. Somehow she never achieves the greatness that is implied in her spirit. Eliot is suggesting that perhaps Dorothea lived in a time and place that didn't offer the kind of traction that lifted St. Teresa to leave her mark on history.

      But most of us are more like Dorothea than St. Teresa. I wanted to end on a note saying that's okay. We may leave just a small mark known only to a few friends and people around us. But it's something if that mark contributes to the balance of love and goodness in the world. That was the message of St. Thérèse Lisieux who was one of the most celebrated saints of modern times even though she passed her life in an obscure fashion in a convent in Normandy. She called her spirituality "The Little Way," believing that if we're faithful and loving in small ways we can contribute to the balance of love in the world. Ultimately I ended the book on that note, because I hope that's the message people will take away from reading it.

Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.