Catholic Studies. Book Review A. GREELEY: Letters to a Loving God.

Andrew M. GREELEY: Letters to a Loving God. A Prayer Journal. Franklin, Wisconsin: Sheed and Ward. 2002. Pp. 182. $16.95 pb. ISBN 1-58051-120-1.
Reviewed by William V. D'ANTONIO, Catholic University, Life Cycle Institute, Washington D.C. 20064

For those who have been wondering what Andrew M. Greeley really is like, what pleases him, what upsets him, how he sees his colleagues, family, friends, the Church and its leaders, this may be the book that will provide as much insight as we are likely to get from his pen. Greeley tells us this about himself and this journal in the Introduction:

"The person who appears in this prayer journal is given to complaints, perhaps because he often writes his reflections in the morning when he is not quite awake. He complains about colds, pests, mail, and jet lag; critics who, as he sees it, distort his work; his inability to relax and reflect; the frequent sterility of his spiritual life; distractions when he is working; email, and , oh yes, pests. He does so because he believes that God is the kind of lover with whom you can be candid, especially since God knows what you're thinking about anyway. There's no sense in trying to pose as someone you're not when engaged in intimate conversation with the deity." Greeley ends the Introduction with the hope that this journal might encourage others to keep their own journals. After reading and rereading passages that pleased, provoked me, challenged my own reflections about love, justice, and God, and many that dismayed me, I decided that the best way to inform the reader about this Journal is to quote excerpts from it, and to tell you that I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Greeley as I have not known him over the more than 40 years that I have been acquainted with him. As to whether this journal has encouraged me to try my own hand, I recall having started a journal while I was in the Navy in WWII. Sometime after leaving the Navy, I found the journal among other belongings, read it over, and burned it. I admire Greeley's ability to be candid with all his complaining, his questioning of God, his reflections on family, friends, work, Church, and the like. I am currently struggling with efforts to do a sociological autobiography. We will see what happens. At any rate, I actually enjoyed this journal, found myself in dialogue with some part of almost every page, and expect that most readers will also have the same experience. The letters in the journal were written during the period between May, 1999, and November, 2001. The numbers in parentheses refer to the pages in the journal from which the quotations were taken. The following excerpts provide a taste of the good fare to be found in these letters.

Greeley tells the truth: he is a big complainer; but these letters are about more than the people, weather, and other pests that Greeley complains about. He also thinks a great deal about death, and his reflections often hit close to home: "I admit that I am afraid of dying, though not of death. The worst thing that can happen at death is that there be nothing at all, which at least would be painless. The best, in which I believe, is that eyes have not seen and ears have not heard..." (21)

And he is quick to say that he has learned the hard way, "that doubt and faith coexist. I find myself on occasion arguing that however weak the rational arguments may seem, the poetic arguments are unanswerable and I fall back on them as superior knowledge, at least in time of crisis. How will I react at the time of my death? With your help I will believe in the light, no matter how great the darkness." (12) Note how he sees himself in this passage: "I can't have my cake and eat it too. I can't be the critic, the square peg, and still expect to be accepted. I can't be all the things I am and still be a man approved in my city, my university, my Church." (13) Just as often Greeley acknowledges a sense of abandonment and failure, that his efforts are trivial as has been his life. (16). "Life is tragic no way one can escape it....We don't need wars to accelerate the problem, do we?" (20) "I thought of my own obituary as I quickly passed that page in the morning's paper. I wouldn't want to have to read it, because it would be like some of those nasty reviews and feature articles." (103) I have always felt comfortable with Greeley's attitudes toward the Church and its leaders, and with his moral theology. A taste of these from the letters: "Could I be a good vicar general? Certainly not. In the short run, like a week, I might be all right. I'd fire just about everyone in the office." (28) "I am also discouraged by the more general thought that so much of the Church's effort has gone into "defending the faith," especially in France, against the Revolution.. . . Would it not be better to propound the faith, teach the faith, instead of obsessively defending it? Your Son's promise that the gates of hell would not prevail seems to have put the obligation on himself rather than us. But what do I know?" (31) He confesses to having a poor image of priests because of what many of them had said falsely about him. And adds that "the present condition of the priesthood is depressing." (19) "Christianity is a life-giving and life-transforming story before and after it is a doctrinal system." (36)
"I'm in a grim mood tonight. Nice wedding: beautiful, rich, charming, and utterly secular people. I told my strawberry story, which they all liked, of course. It's not their fault they don't know You. It's our fault. Their youth and beauty made me feel old and weary. Weltsmerz. What a nice world.... Like I say, life goes on." (175)
"My biggest spiritual problem is exhaustion, weariness, overwork." (66) As with his novels and other writings, so also, the letters reveal his appreciation of nature, music, the arts, and physical well being: "So many wonders in the world. Take for example the exhilaration of skiing today, or the breathtaking loveliness of my garden....How marvelous that the human organism is built for exercising, and is so stimulated by it."(83)

Or this warm, lyrical, almost mystical passage: "Swimming lat night, there were lights everywhere: airplanes from O'Hare almost indistinguishable from the fireflies. Glorious. ...Why the fireflies?... they're so wonderful when they dart about on a hot summer night, sparking out little bursts of beauty, little hints of You. Well done, my Love, very well done!" (161)

He can be warm and loving: "Back from the Goggin wedding in Chicago, a day of triumph for that resourceful and deeply religious family. Thank You for bringing them into my life and for permitting me to serve them through the years."(14)

About God: "My problems are with figuring out who You are and how You are consistent with things like food chains. And tragedy. All life is tragic. I can't believe you like unhappy endings. So tragedy doesn't have the last word." (94) Or later, in a more challenging frame of mind, he asks: "whether You are as good as You say You are, whether, for all the risks You take, You still take care of the least of your creatures. . . . Stories about women with postpartum depression in the paper, like Nuala Anne in Irish Love. One drowns her four children. One here in Chicago drowns herself after giving birth to quads.... Take care of these women and their children and all like them, as the loving mother that You are." (160)

"A prayer I read this morning suggests that everything happens for the best. I don't believe that. Neither, I think, do You. You can indeed, convert evil to good, just as You convert helium into hydrogen. But it isn't easy, and You don't approve of a lot of things that happen.. . . The prayer is pangloss. Evil happens. We must learn to resist it as best we can, like the people in Yugoslavia are resisting it today. Help them in their fight for freedom, and help me to realize how precious our freedom is." (102) He refers often to Chicago, revealing a variety of moods: "The city is gray today, with a few splashes of light blue and red and white. All dreary and lifeless, more, maybe it's me that 's dreary and lifeless. So much anger piled up through the years. Not Good." (143)

And this conversation with God: "Last night the sun set in a thick haze and looked like a red beach ball that someone had bounced into the air....I had the thought that it was, after all your beach ball, and You might get tired of bouncing it!. . . Your Big Bang is a much more spectacular game, even if it is hard to understand and even harder to understand why."(95) His mood is reflected in the way he ends his letters: "And I love You," or "As I try to love You," or again, "I love You , despite my spiritual dullness."

About his work: "I look forward to my work and dread it at the same time. . . . I don't like to begin it, but when I have done so, I enjoy he exercise of creating stories or understanding social reality better." (97)

And about how he and his work is received: " I wondered last night as I tried to go to sleep why I am an outcast almost everywhere in the archdiocese, at the university, with my old group of friends, in the literary world. What is it in my character that causes these problems? Perhaps it is my combination of roles. Perhaps I speak my mind too much.. . . Perhaps I am, as someone remarked years ago, a loudmouth Irish priest. Which is surely true. . . . and a few sentences later:

"I am a marginal man, partly by necessity and partly by choice, but it does give me freedom. What do I know? Maybe I've made a lot of mistakes. No, I have made a lot of mistakes. I'm sorry about them."(97) To which this reader wrote in the margin: Amen! Earlier on there had been this insight: "I understand why they hate Clinton: he's bigger than life, and small people always hate big people. I can catch a hint there of why I have trouble. I'm not as much larger-than-life than the president, but I am somewhat larger-than-life and that's enough to stir up the envy of the small people. Especially priests." (34) And I wondered, why especially priests?

About his life as a priest: "No regrets surely, none at all. As life winds down, I'm as certain as ever. I would, as the man said in the book, 'do it all again!'" (98)

On his family: "On this day in 1947, my father died fifty three years ago. He was only sixty, twelve years younger than I am now [September 17, 2000]. Too much smoking, too much stress, too much heartache perhaps.

"He had an enormous impact on me, made me a man of principles and integrity. I'm sorry he suffered so much during the Depression, and that we never became really close.
"We will meet again, in the not-too-distant future, as time goes. I will be interested to get to know him again. . . . In your good time! I love him, and I love You!" (100) On his sister's failing health: "she is deteriorating rapidly. I don't think she even recognized me yesterday. What a terrible life she has had. Why? Do you know? I don't . I'm sure you will wipe away all the tears, including the few I almost shed yesterday." (30) A year and a half later, he reports: "my sister Grace is in a bad way again, slowly starving herself to death. Mary Jule and I think it is now legitimate to ask You if You will please call her home and grant her a life, one that, for some reason or the other, she never had here. Thy will be done." (142)

On Sept. 9, 2001, he reflects on his last day at his summer home on Grand Beach for the season. After noting the beauty of the place and how it reflects God's presence, he adds ruefully: "I'm a failure as a human being. What would I say to someone else who was surrounded by so much beauty and paid no attention to it? I'd call him an eejit. Sorry, so sorry, for being an eejit." (171) On the contrary, of course, in many letters throughout the Journal, he rhapsodizes about the beauty of the place.

In the late afternoon of September 11, he is still trying to cope with the dimensions of the New York tragedy. He addresses God directly: "I'm sure that You're grieving now.. . . I have turned off the TV for a while. I grieve with and pray for everyone involved. Heal them, save them, grant them peace, I beg You. I love You."

(171) A week later, he notes: "The president called on the world, including the Islamic nations, to join his "crusade" against terrorism. That 's like asking Jews to join a pogrom. Too many people are saying that we must rally round "our" president in this time of crisis. Even when he scares the rest of the world with his cowboy talk? I'm clearly in dissent again, and have no regrets about it either. Give me the faith to continue." (174)

Greeley refers to and often quotes poets he is reading, and which I found usually appealing and uplifting. So it is perhaps appropriate that he concludes his last entry with the following notation: "Poetry had only one good poem this month. It is a translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem 'Doer.' The poet says his name is known and that he sang until another singer took his place. Then he concludes (every stanza) -----Original Message----- From: Pierre Hegy To: dantonio@cua.edu Sent: 11/7/02 2:18 PM Subject: review Bill, It would be easier for me if you were to change the text. Changfe anything you want, but do not take out the tags in brackets. Letters to a Loving God. A Prayer Journal. Franklin, Wisconsin: Sheed and Ward. 2002. Pp. 182. $16.95 pb. ISBN 1-58051-120-1.
Reviewed by William V. D'ANTONIO, Catholic University, Life Cycle Institute, Washington D.C. 20064

"The person who appears in this prayer journal is given to complaints, perhaps because he often writes his reflections in the morning when he is not quite awake. He complains about colds, pests, mail, and jet lag; critics who, as he sees it, distort his work; his inability to relax and reflect; the frequent sterility of his spiritual life; distractions when he is working; email, and , oh yes, pests. He does so because he believes that God is the kind of lover with whom you can be candid, especially since God knows what you're thinking about anyway. There's no sense in trying to pose as someone you're not when engaged in intimate conversation with the deity." Greeley ends the Introduction with the hope that this journal might encourage others to keep their own journals. After reading and rereading passages that pleased me and many that dismayed me, I decided that the best way to inform the reader about this Journal is to quote excerpts from it, and to tell you that I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Greeley as I have not known him over the more than 40 years that I have been acquainted with him. As to whether this journal has encouraged me to try my own hand, I recall having started a journal while I was in the Navy in WWII. Sometime after leaving the Navy, I found the journal among other artifacts, read it over, and burned it. I admire Greeley's ability to be candid with all his complaining, his questioning of God, his reflections on family, friends, work, Church, and the like. I am struggling with efforts to do an autobiography. We will see what happens. At any rate, I actually enjoyed this journal, found myself in dialogue with some part of almost every page, and expect that most readers will also have the same experience. The following excerpts provide a taste of the good fare to be found in these letters.

And he is quick to say that he has learned the hard way, "that doubt and faith coexist. I find myself on occasion arguing that however weak the rational arguments may seem, the poetic arguments are unanswerable and I fall back on them as superior knowledge, at least in time of crisis. How will I react at the time of my death? With your help I will believe in the light, no matter how great the darkness." (12) Note how he sees himself in this passage: "I can't have my cake and eat it too I can't be the critic, the square peg, and still expect to be accepted. I can't be all the things I am and still be a man approved in my city, my university, my Church." (13) Just as often Greeley acknowledges a sense of abandonment and failure(16), that his efforts are trivial as has been his life (16). "Life is tragic no way one can escape it....We don't need wars to accelerate the problem, do we?" (20) "I thought of my own obituary as I quickly passed that page in the morning's paper. I wouldn't want to have to read it, because it would be like some of those nasty reviews and feature articles." (103) I have always felt comfortable with Greeley's attitudes toward the Church and its leaders, and with his moral theology. A taste of these from the letters: "Could I be a good vicar general? Certainly not. In the short run, like a week, I might be all right. I'd fire just about everyone in the office." (28) "I am also discouraged by the more general thought that so much of the Church's effort has gone into "defending the faith," especially in France, against the Revolution.. . . Would it not be better to propound the faith, teach the faith, instead of obsessively defending it? Your Son's promise that the gates of hell would not prevail seems to have put the obligation on himself rather than us. But what do I know?" (31) He confesses to having a poor image of priests because of what many of them had said falsely about him. And adds that "the present condition of the priesthood is depressing." (19) "Christianity is a life-giving and life-transforming story before and after it is a doctrinal system." (36)
"I'm in a grim mood tonight. Nice wedding: beautiful, rich, charming, and utterly secular people. I told my strawberry story, which they all liked, of course. It's not their faulty they don't know You. It's our fault. Their youth and beauty made me feel old and weary. Weltsmerz. What a nice world.... Like I say, life goes on." (175)
"My biggest spiritual problem is exhaustion, weariness, overwork." (66) As with his novels and other writings, so also, the letters reveal his appreciation of nature, music, the arts, and physical well being: "So many wonders in the world. Take for example the exhilaration of skiing today, or the breathtaking loveliness of my garden....How marvelous that the human organism is built for exercising, and is so stimulated by it."(83)

Or this warm, lyrical, almost mystical passage: "Swimming lat night, there were lights everywhere airplanes from O'Hare almost indistinguishable from the fireflies. Glorious. ...Why the fireflies?... they're so wonderful when they dart about on a hot summer night, sparking out little bursts of beauty, little hints of You. Well, done, my Love, very well done!" (161)

He can be warm and loving: "Back from the Goggin wedding in Chicago, a day of triumph for that resourceful and deeply religious family. Thank you for bringing them into my life and for permitting me to serve them through the years."(14)

About God: "My problems are with figuring out who You are and how You are consistent with things like food chains. And tragedy. All life is tragic. I can't believe you like unhappy endings. So tragedy doesn't have the last word." 94. Or later, in a more challenging frame of mind, he asks: "whether You are as good as You say You are, whether, for all the risks You take, You still take care of the least of your creatures. . . . Stories about women with postpartum depression in the paper, like Nuala Anne in Irish Love. One drowns her four children. One here in Chicago drowns herself afer giving birth to quads.... Take care of these women and their children and all like them, as the loving mother that You are." (160)

"A prayer I read this morning suggests that everything happens for the best. I don't believe that. Neither,,I think, do You. You can indeed, convert evil to good, just as You convert helium into hydrogen. But it isn't easy, and You don't approve of a lot of things that happen.. . . The prayer is pangloss. Evil happens. We must learn to resist it as best we can, like the people in Yugoslavia are resisting it today. Help them in their fight for freedom, and help me to realize how precious our freedom is." (102) He refers often to Chicago, revealing a variety of moods: "The city is gray today, with a few splashes of light blue and red and white. All dreary and lifeless, more maybe tit's me that 's dreary and lifeless. So much anger piled up through the years. Not Good." (143)

And this conversation with God: "Last night the sun set in a thick haze and looked like a red beach ball that someone had bounced into the air....I had the thought that it was, after all your beach ball, and You might get tired of bouncing it!. . . Your Big Bang is a much more spectacular game, even if it is hard to understand and even harder to understand why."(95) He ends his letters with a phrase like: "And I love you," or "As I try to love you," or again, "I love you , despite my spiritual dullness."

"I am a marginal man, partly by necessity and partly by choice, bit it does give me freedom. What do I know? Maybe I've made a lot of mistakes. No, I have made a lot of mistakes. I'm sorry about them."(97) To which I add my own amen. Or this insight: "I understand why they hate Clinton: he's bigger than life, and small people always hate big people. I can catch a hint there of why I have trouble. I'm not as much larger-than-life than the president, but I am somewhat larger-than-life and that's enough to stir up the envy of the small people. Especially priests." (34)

About his life as a priest: "No regrets surely, none at all. As life winds down, I'm as certain as ever. I would, as the man said in the book, 'do it all again!'" (98)

On his family: "On this day in 1947 [September 17, 2000] my father died fifty three years ago. He was only sixty, twelve years younger than I am now. Too much smoking, too much stress, too much heartache perhaps.

On Sept. 9, 2001, he reflects on his last day at Grand Beach for the season. After noting the beauty of the place and how it reflects God's presence, he adds ruefully: "I'm a failure as a human being. What would I say to someone else who was surrounded by so much beauty and paid no attention to it? I'd call him an eejit. Sorry, so sorry, for being an eejit." 171.

In the late afternoon of September 11, he is still trying to cope with the dimensions of the New York tragedy. He addresses God directly: "I'm sure that you're grieving now.. . . I have turned off the TV for a while. I grieve with and pray for everyone involved. Heal them, save them, grant them peace, I beg You. I love you."

The letters were written in the period between May of 1999 and November of 2001. I recommend the book to all who would like to know Greeley better; you will have no shortage of opportunities to nod in agreement with him, and to be upset at him, as he reflects on his foibles, his loves, his hates, his many mistakes, and his dialogue with God.

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