My second reading of Father Ronald Rolheiser’s new book “Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years” has helped me not only to better understand Rolheiser’s insights but to appreciate just how important they are. This is really a book that could profoundly change a person’s life. To read the book seriously should move any reader to ask questions about his or her life. Indeed to ask the most important questions about what it means to be human. Two pages in the book almost leaped at me because Rolheiser expressed so well what I think is very important, especially in the contemporary world. They deal with what Rolheiser calls a “meta-narrative.”
Rolheiser introduces the problem by quoting a university chaplain who has found that a significant problem in dealing with university students is that they have no sense of belonging to a story larger than themselves. The chaplain claimed:
“None of them has a bigger story within which to set his or her story so as to draw on some meaning beyond the idiosyncratic limits that he or she is experiencing on a given day. Their own story is all they have.” This experience of having no sense of belonging to a story larger than they realize is not limited to university students. I think it may apply to the large number of people today who do not identify with any religion. I am thinking of the many people who respond “none” to a question about what religion they profess.
Commenting on the university chaplain’s description about many university students, Rolheiser writes the following:
“This is a good insight. We don’t draw hope from our own stories; we draw it from a much bigger communal story within which our own stories take place. As psychologist James Hollis points out, ‘Life is never about happiness; it is about meaning. And meaning is only found in the whole picture.’ … Faith can offer that more compelling story within which to understand both our miseries and our joys. It sets our lives inside the ultimate meta-narrative, the biggest of all stories. And the need for a meta-narrative becomes especially strong as we age and face more and more marginalization and debilitation. These are crushing realities; it is not easy to make peace, even when we place them within a narrative of faith. But nature itself helps the process because the marginalization and debilitation that come with aging will soon enough let us know that we are no longer in control; we can no longer guarantee our own security, and we must now throw ourselves at the mercy of something bigger than ourselves because now all the wishful thinking and natural optimism in the world are powerless to save us” (pp. 43-44).
Rolheiser makes an interesting distinction between achievement and fruitfulness. I confess that until I read Rolheiser the difference between the two had never occurred to me. Pointing out that what we achieve brings us a sense of pride, we have accomplished something, often leaving something that is helpful to others. Fruitfulness is something else. Rolheiser writes the following:
“Our fruitfulness is often the result not so much of the great things that we have accomplished but of the graciousness, generosity and kindness we bring into the world. Unfortunately, our world rarely reckons these as accomplishments, as achievements, as successes. We don’t become famous for being gracious. Yet, when we die, while we may well be eulogized for our distinguished achievements, we will be loved and remembered more for the goodness of our hearts. It will be the quality of our hearts, more than our achievements, that will determine how nurturing or asphyxiating the spirits we leave behind are when we’re gone. Our real fruitfulness will flow from something beyond the legacy of our accomplishments.
“When we distinguish between our achievements and our fruitfulness, we will see that, while death may be the end of our success, productivity, and importance, it isn’t necessarily the end of our fruitfulness. Indeed, often our true fruitfulness occurs only after we die, when our spirits can finally flow out more purely” (p. 49).
I am going to think about Rolheiser’s notion of fruitfulness after we are dead. First I want to be sure I understand what he is claiming. At this moment I am connecting his thoughts with my belief that whenever a person dies in the state of grace they become present wherever the risen Christ is present. So my deceased mother, father, and sister are personally present every time I celebrate the Eucharist. I realize that this cannot be pictured or imagined but nevertheless I believe it to be true. I am wondering if this is what Rolheiser means when he claims that fruitfulness can happen after a person is dead.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.