Saturday, January 31, 1998

Jots and tittles from the world of religion

By Tom Schaefer / Knight Ridder Newspapers

Jots and tittles from the world of religion:

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If you were dying, who would you want to be with you to offer comfort?

Not surprisingly, 81 percent of respondents to a Gallup Poll survey said they'd look to family members, and 61 percent said close friends.

But the poll also found that only 36 percent said that a member of the clergy would be comforting (compared to 30 percent who would look to a doctor for comfort and 21 percent to a nurse).

While other death-related issues were examined personal worries about death, attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide and beliefs about the afterlife the real issue that stood out, according to George Gallup Jr., was the attitude toward ministers.

"It's a wake-up call for American clergymen," Gallup said.

And that had me wondering: Is there a "professional distance" that members of the clergy naturally have that impedes their ministry to the dying? In your experience with loved ones who were dying, who was most comforting to them, and how did they do it?

I'd like to hear your insights both laypeople and clergy, churchgoers and those who don't.

Write to me at: Tom Schaefer, c/o The Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, Kan. 67201

You can also e-mail me at: tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com

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The rock group Aerosmith has some folks hissing at its album "Nine Lives." It seems that the cover of the CD features a well-known image of Lord Krishna subduing the multiheaded serpent Kaliya. But the head of Lord Krishna has been replaced with the head of a cat.

Protests by Hindus in this country resulted in an apology by the group and a promise from the CD distributor, Sony, to change the cover as soon as the first run of 4 million is sold.

Overseas, efforts to remove the CD from stores have been more successful, reports the January issue of Hinduism Today. In Malaysia, the CD and cassette versions have been pulled from shelves and replaced with inoffensive covers.

"The Hindu population here is less than 10 percent, and yet we made it happen," said a Hindu leader in Malaysia. "I hope that every country can do this so that no one will think of playing with Hindus' religious feelings in the future."

The preceding is a public service announcement to note that 1. boycotts and protests against offensive religious material are not just conservative-Christian tactics, and 2. mocking a religion's sacred images will -- and should -- be opposed by those who honor such images.

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"Our task is to offer ourselves up to God like a clean, smooth canvas and not bother ourselves about what God may choose to paint on it, but, at every moment, feel only the stroke of his brush." --Jean Pierre de Caussade, "Teachings of the Christian Mystics" edited by Andrew Harvey (Shambhala, $10).

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It was a strange sight to see: the head of the Roman Catholic Church preaching to hundreds of thousands of Cubans and calling for justice and religious freedom throughout the country, and the head of a communist nation that abandoned official atheism in 1992 quietly listening to this message of a spiritual revolution.

Cardinal John O'Connor of New York said the pontiff's visit had inspired Cubans to hope for a continuation of religious freedom, "a glasnost."

Hmmm. The last time we heard that Russian word for openness, the Soviet Union was trying to ever so slightly crack open its political doors -- only to be engulfed by the tides of freedom.

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When silence is golden ...

The minister and the businessman were tied on the 18th hole. The businessman had put his drive right on the green, but the minister sliced his shot into the trees. Staring at his errant shot, the clergyman bit his lip, flung his seven iron to the ground, stomped about the tee area -- but never said a word. After an awkward silence, the businessman finally said: "Reverend, that was the most profane silence I have ever witnessed."

With that, I'll be quiet.

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(Tom Schaefer writes about religion and ethics for the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle. Write to him at the Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, KS 67201, or send email to tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com )

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(c) 1998, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).

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