Saturday, August 22, 1998

Spiritual words, images can provide links to everyday life

By Tom Schaefer

Knight Ridder Newspapers

"This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it."

The words from Psalm 118:24 were attached to a wall near a shower as a reminder to start the day with spiritual direction.

On a refrigerator were magnetized cards with phone numbers of an insurance company and a foot-care specialist. Next to them was a small sign with the words: "Only what's done for Christ will last."

Such sayings, or other religious pictures or objects, can be found in lots of homes - next to bathtubs, in family rooms and on front doors. You may have one or more in your home.

For many people, the words and images have the power to make them stop, if only for a moment, and think about their link to spiritual matters.

John Merrill, who teaches photography at Harvard University, has put together a collection of photos he has taken of these devotional reminders which he will exhibit this fall at Harvard Divinity School.

In advance of the exhibit, Leigh Schmidt, associate professor of religion at Princeton University, has written about the significance of Merrill's work and the connections she has found between spiritual objects or aphorisms and everyday life.

"Merrill's photographs help us make that transition from quick dismissal to lingering engagement with the prosaic goods of faith," Schmidt writes in the current issue of The Christian Century.

Although some of these displays can seem superficially pious instead of profoundly reflective, they still provide a window through which people see beyond the ordinariness of their day.

And that made me wonder: What spiritual sayings or objects do other folks have in their homes? What meaning or insight do they provide? I'd like to know.

In a few sentences, write to me at The Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, Kan. 67201 and share your comments. You can also reach me by fax at (316) 268-6627, or by e-mail at tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com

As Schmidt notes about such displays: "Meditating on these images teaches me something about how ordinary time is redeemed, about how meaning, security, fortitude and transcendence are snatched in very tiny pieces out of the flux of the everyday."

How about you?

X X X

The fallout from President Clinton's speech to the nation, in which he apologized for his "critical lapse in judgment" in his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, continues.

Pundits and politicians wonder whether the office of the presidency has been irrevocably diminished by his admission. It's a question whose answer will only come in time - and after some personal and public healing.

Recently, I came across a comment on the office of president by Ray Price, a former close friend of and speech writer for Richard Nixon.

The comment was included in the 1968 book "The Selling of the President" by journalist Joe McGinnis, who revealed how Nixon manipulated the media and deceived voters in his election campaign to win the White House.

In a memorandum, Price explains how voters respond to the image of the president rather than the person:

"People identify with a President in a way they do with no other public figure," Price wrote. "Potential presidents are measured against an ideal that's a combination of leading man, God, father, hero, pope, king, with maybe just a touch of the avenging Furies thrown in. They want him to be larger than life, a living legend, and yet quintessentially human; someone to be held up to their children as a model, someone to be cherished by themselves as a revered member of the family."

Expectations, it seems, haven't changed.

Today, our nation works through its pain - in the form of anger, sorrow or disgust - of seeing the president admit to wrongdoing. What will be the long-term effects - on him, his family, the presidency? No one knows for certain.

That's why all of us - in private as well as in the synagogues, mosques, temples and churches of this land - need to pray for President Clinton, his family and our nation.

People of faith can do no less.

(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 e-mail to tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com )

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

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