Second Sight

It is of course well known that religious people, and especially Catholics, live a miserable life. Obliged to worship an egotistical and vengeful deity who demands nothing but praise and endless sacrifice, they are trapped in a web of sinfulness which touches every aspect of their lives. They are ultimately motivated by the selfish reward of eternal happiness, the nature of which they do not know, but they are extremely unlikely to get there. They are much more likely to arrive in a place of eternal torment - in which fire and brimstone is the expected environment. And should they be fortunate enough to avoid this they will undergo a lengthy and painful cleansing process continuing until the least sin has been expiated.

No wonder Catholics live out their lives in anxiety, guilt and fear. They, and others, need to be told that “there is probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

The only problem with this conclusion is that it does not concur with what actually happens. Let’s look at the evidence. We might start with a study, reported in March 2008, by the University of Toronto. The researchers concluded: “We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They’re much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error.” They actually had greater cognitive control. “Believing in God can help block anxiety and minimise stress” was the summary headline.

Studies which tracked older people over a number of years, conducted by the Rush University Medical Centre, looked at outcomes related to people’s sense that they had a “higher purpose” which inspired their lives. A person with high purpose in life was about half as likely to die over the follow-up period compared to a person with low purpose.

A study, reported in March, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, looked at people dying from cancer. The study’s author reported: “Recent research has shown that religion and spirituality are major sources of comfort and support for patients confronting advanced disease.” We should not be surprised at this, given that it was reported in September 2008 that Catholics viewing a religious image, compared to a secular image of similar quality, experienced 12 per cent less pain on receiving electric shocks. This was confirmed by scans of brain activity. Atheists had no such reduction.

Broadening out the scope, the University of Miami’s study (reported in January) which evaluated eight decades of religious studies from different countries found “… persuasive evidence from a variety of domains within the social sciences, including neuroscience, economics, psychology, and sociology, that religious beliefs and religious behaviours are capable of encouraging people to exercise self-control and to more effectively regulate their emotions and behaviours, so that they can pursue valued goals… This, in turn, might help explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviours, less depression, and longer lives.”

The BBC News channel published an interesting overview of the advantages of religion, including a dissenting statement from Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society. Broadly, we get a similar picture of religious observance, summed up in the phrase “They had higher levels of life satisfaction.” You might like to check the pros and cons (see first link below).  And we enjoy this satisfaction for longer; a longitudinal study by Yeshiva University reported, in November 2008, that women who attended religious services regularly had a 20 per cent lower mortality than those who did not. This corroborated earlier studies, showing a 25 per cent reduction.

To bring us up to date, recent scientific work, reported in the Sunday Times on September 6, shows that a tendency to religious belief is hardwired into the human brain, using a network of neural connections rather than a simple “God spot”, as originally thought. The argument, as one might expect, is that this tendency arises from its evolutionary value - adding a sense of identity, social cohesion and bonding to the kind of advantages I have already described.

And that brings me to a point of considerable importance. The studies which I have quoted cannot in themselves be taken as proof that any reality lies behind religious belief in general - let alone the beliefs of any particular denomination. They are scientific observations made, we may hope, with proper scientific objectivity. The most we can say is that, whether religious belief be true, it does appear to be useful in areas such as sense of purpose, freedom from anxiety, ability to endure pain, higher levels of life satisfaction and greater longevity. The bus advertisement should have read: “There is certainly a God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

But the spiritual side of man - whether we are talking about faith, the exercise of free will, our response to our aspiration to do good and to avoid evil and so on - does not exist in a vacuum. In this life it operates through the machinery of our biology, just as the violinist can only express his inspiration through his violin. We should be surprised not to find the biological correlates of spirituality in the brain.

In order to find spirituality we have first to look inside ourselves. You must forgive subjectivity here, for I can only look inside me. I find that, at a deeper level, faith (pace the penny catechism) is not an assent to a collection of truths, but an active encounter. When I say that I believe in God, in the Nicene Creed, I am not making a metaphysical statement (what an impertinence to inform the Almighty that I believe that he exists!) but that I have confidence in Him and, however inadequately, I commit myself to Him.

So faith is not a state but an active journey. In my case it is a bumpy, boulder-ridden path as I thread myself through the obstacles of temptation and sin. I look continuously at the compass, which is Christ, and almost invariably find that I have to correct or even reverse my direction. Am I making overall progress? I can hope, but only God knows.

At the heart of this is prayer. Whether we think in terms of prayers of worship, gratitude, repentance, intercession or a deeper and wordless contemplation of God, prayer is always the fundamental encounter which sustains the determination and direction of the journey. I find that the Eucharist has become more and more important as I age, and that I need the Holy Spirit more frequently in the dilemmas of life. I wouldn’t miss for anything my conversations with Our Lady; they are by no means one-sided. She has a lovely sense of humour, as Bernadette revealed in one of her accounts. Truly, in prayer the veil between heaven and earth is so translucent that you would not know that it was there.

So I was delighted by Archbishop Vincent’s pastoral letter on prayer last week. Forgive my using just the name by which he will be known in heaven. When I first met him he was nobbut a priest - albeit a priest with the sort of backbone which travels. His choice of models for us is just right.

St Thérèse (my wife’s baptismal name) is the saint for the straphanger in the bus, or, in my case, the saint for finding me a lower syncromesh gear on a steep hill. Cardinal Newman is the model for those who must struggle towards faith and an uncompromising clarity of vision. Surely he should become the patron of all writers in this newspaper. And the Curé d’Ars, about whom I first wrote in these pages 50 years ago, made no claim to a great brain; indeed, he was only accepted for the priesthood because his virtues so exceeded his academic abilities. But he had the quality which is the one essential for the pastor: the quality of holiness.

God calls each of us according to our individual temperaments. But I find that I cannot choose between the models the Archbishop offers. I find that each one has something to teach me.

Here are the links to the brief, professional accounts of studies I mention. They will give you a fuller picture. You may well want to comment, adding further thoughts, and telling us whether you agree.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7302609.stm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090304160400.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615144207.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090317162842.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3096743/Belief-in-God-really-can-relieve-pain.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081231005355.htm

How was it for you? We are all living in a time of sudden social change. The recession has bitten deeply, leading to loss of jobs, reductions in income - whether on savings or failed pension schemes, and in some cases substantial loss of capital built up with difficulty over a lifetime. And, of course, the fall in the golden goose of property, leading to re-possession of homes, or the collapse of buy-to-let schemes designed to provide for retirement.

While (at the time of writing, for events move so swiftly) some improvement is apparent, we do not know whether or at what rate this will continue; we know that there is a huge burden of national debt, and the gurus tell us that the effects on unemployment have by no means reached their peak. So what effect is all this having on people’s state of mind?

I find myself to be an odd case. Through my wife’s excellent financial management, and our rather conservative investment policy, we are fortunate to have suffered few practical effects. Mind you, our several children, who have families of their own, have not grasped the idea of supporting their aged parents, and the cash flow has tended to be the other way. But we have been happy to meet urgent needs. Nevertheless, I did go through a period of starting each day in a blanket of depression. There seemed to be no good reason for this. In the end I traced it to hearing, on Radio 4, the early financial news with its list of disasters. My solution was to switch to Radio 3, and the depression disappeared.

Others have not been so lucky, and we know this because enough time has passed to evaluate the effects of social upheaval in the countries of the USSR where, over a short period of time, there were widespread changes from state-run enterprises to private enterprises.

An interesting study published in the Lancet in January this year showed an overall increase in male mortality in these countries of around 13 per cent. But the differences between countries were even more revealing. Five countries, including Russia, showed an increase of 40 per cent. These were countries which had gone through rapid “shock” privatisation, and unemployment increased by around 300 per cent. The other countries, which had taken a path of much more gradual change, fared quite differently. The five best performing countries saw only a rise of two per cent in unemployment, and male mortality actually fell by 10 per cent.

This reinforces our knowledge that human beings do not cope well with change. Even good changes, like getting a rise or buying a new car, while producing elation, are rapidly absorbed into our psyches, and elation fades. Bad changes, which happen quickly and often unexpectedly, have deleterious effects on morale, depression, illness and, as we see, death. Another reported finding in this study was that belonging to social groups and organisations was an effective way of reducing the pressure and its outcomes.

An American study, published in Demography this May, found that the closure of a business, resulting in mass redundancy, led to an increase of over 80 per cent in rates of hypertension, heart disease, heart attack, stroke or diabetes. Incidentally, illness from stress continued after re-employment. In other cases, where jobs were lost individually, blue collar workers had increased rates of illness, but white collar workers were not significantly affected.

There are some lessons to be learned from this, I believe. We remember that Adam, following Original Sin, was condemned by God to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, but we do not as easily remember that, before he had sinned, his task was to till the Garden of Eden. So work is good, and its loss is an evil.

There is the obvious evil of not having the wherewithal to provide for oneself and one’s family, but also the, perhaps, more fundamental evil of loss of self-identity. We so often define ourselves by the work we do. And quite often an early question we ask of a new acquaintance is: “What do you do for a living?” There is no satisfactory way of saying with pride that one is unemployed.

Perhaps those of us who are in a position to give to charity should at least review the destination of our funds for the next year or two in order to help the situation. But greater benefits could well be achieved at parish level by looking at ways in which we can help the less fortunate (Catholic or otherwise) to bear more easily with their troubles.

This is not just a question of financial support but solidarity and social support which, as we have seen, can be important factors. And there are a myriad of opportunities for voluntary work. Of course we should constantly be looking for ways to help our neighbours (of whatever sort) but, right now, the need is particularly great. I would like to see every parish discussing and deciding how to do this - or what is a parish for, if not for love?

But let me end on a more optimistic note. Again in May this year, Kansas University, in conjunction with Gallup, reported a poll of 140 countries and no less than 150,000 adults. It provided a representative sample of 95 per cent of the world’s population. Some 89 per cent reported that they expected life to be as good or better in five years time.

Age and household income made little difference to individual results. The least optimistic areas were central Europe and, of course, Africa. Ireland led the list for optimism, America was 10th and Britain was 19th. Hope springs eternal, and God is good.

O     O     O

Perhaps I should have been neither surprised nor shocked when I read about the effects of recession at an individual level. But I was. Do you know of people in difficulty in your parish? Is this something to discuss with the pp and the parish council? Does anyone have the experience to tell us about credit unions and how well they work? By the way, although the evidence suggests that white collar workers who lose their jobs on an individual basis are quite resilient, I wonder whether this holds when, as seems to be the case now, there are very few white collar vacancies.

How do you know that God exists? This question was the title of a Channel 4 programme broadcast twice during August. I hope that some of you chose to watch it.

The question was put to a number of faith leaders: the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, our own Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the Muslim theologian Tariq Ramadan, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the Hindu authority Sadhu Paramtattvadas.

What struck me most forcibly was not the difference between the religions but their radical similarity. That is, they all professed a belief in a supreme personal being, and that our purpose in life was to achieve eternity with God through perfecting ourselves in virtuous living. This included the Hindu, for whom reincarnation was to be seen as a series of successive opportunities to scale the ladder and eventually to be ready for eternity with God. Incidentally, it was explained that the multiplicity of gods in Hinduism was not polytheism: each separate god was a different manifestation of the supreme God.

Of course all the religions represented (except Catholicism) have their different schools, and I daresay that different spokesmen would have varied in their answers. But at least I was left confident that what we heard was respectable, mainstream doctrine. (I was taken by the Muslim explanation of paradise. The prospect of numerous virgins and lush green gardens was addressed to a desert people. What it was offering was simply a reward which would give them what they wanted most. I thought of angels and harps in the Christian tradition. I do not choose to say which I thought was the more inviting prospect.)

Only too often we think in terms of the worst aspects of a religion.  Dawkins et al. choose to see Christianity only in its worst aspect. And, quite rightly, we think that selectivity to be unjust. Sauce for the goose.

My conclusions drew me not one whit closer to religious indifferentism. I have never doubted that the one way to salvation which God offers is through the redemption of Christ and the Church. But it did show me that those who, for whatever reason, do not accept this can point in the right direction. I do not find it hard to accept that they may share in the redemption, albeit through remote means. They may even have insights hidden to us through habit and culture. And if they adore God and love him through true love of neighbour (just as we must do) then I expect to meet them in heaven.

If you saw the programme, I wonder if you interpreted as I did. And, even if you didn’t, you may have some comment to make on my understanding of the similarity between the major faiths.

What is your native language? No, it’s not English, nor Italian, nor Urdu. For we are all born with one native language: non-verbal communication (NVC). Watch a baby. Many months before the first recognisable word is said, a baby is able to communicate its feelings and its wants – sometimes more graphically than we would prefer. And, similarly, the baby can recognise a wide range of communication from us, without understanding a word. Throughout the animal kingdom, from the dominance displays of the apes to the domestic dog or cat, NVC rules.

While it is the only available form of communication in such cases, we know that NVC continues throughout life. Sometimes it replaces words (I can tell very easily when I am in bad odour with my nearest and dearest), but it also accompanies words, supplementing the impact of the message in many different ways. It acts as a kind of music behind the text.

We all know this, but I wonder whether we are fully aware of it. Do we attend sufficiently to our own NVC and to that of others? Is it possible to increase our interpretive and empathic skills? It would be useful, if sometimes uncomfortable, if a little box appeared over someone’s head saying “I’m warming to you” or “You’re not convincing me” or “I’m bored, why don’t you shut up?”

NVC majors on our true feelings. While it is possible for a skilled manipulator to simulate the appearance of feelings, this is rarely encountered. On the other hand deceptive words are easy. So accustom yourself to watching for the non-verbal music. Try an exercise. Stand upright, looking out like a soldier, and then say out loud: “I am an incompetent worm, thoroughly depressed, and I feel really bad about myself.” It doesn’t go, does it? Your stance is stronger than your words. In fact, if you were feeling depressed you might well find that the stance makes you feel better.

NVC covers a wide range. Tone of voice, facial expression, use of hands, the way we dress, posture, and many other elements, all communicate. But be wary of any one sign; it’s safer to review them all. And you are likely to be more accurate with people you know well, because you can recognise what is uncharacteristic.

There are racial and cultural differences too. To westerners, for instance, Asian faces can appear passive because expression is concentrated on the eye area, and not on the whole face. Business people often need to study such cultural differences if they are negotiating overseas.

In the marriage counselling room I noticed that initially a couple would sit close together. They were more frightened of me than they were of each other. As counselling progressed and the resentments began to emerge they would separate: their alienation expressed in their physical disharmony. As they moved towards reconciliation they would gradually restore their physical closeness. I knew that counselling had run its course, and that they needed me no longer.

A fascinating aspect of NVC is that it is well established that our own feelings can be affected by the expressions of others. This is a subject in itself, which perhaps deserves a whole column. Here I just note that we unconsciously absorb expressions from others and then mirror their cause in our own brains at a level that can actually enable our feelings to mimic those we have seen expressed. Not only do we need to be on guard against “catching” other people’s feelings, when we don’t wish to, but we have a responsibility for infecting the feelings of others through our own expressions. Of course the feelings transferred may be good or bad.

There are many books on non-verbal communication - ranging from the popular to the comprehensively analytic. And these are useful for theory. But it is more important to start observing quite deliberately. Pick out strangers on a train, for instance, and decide what sort of people they are, and how they relate to each other. And then analyse the clues you have used. Your recognition and interpretation will quickly develop if you practise this regularly.

It may seem a leap to move from this to religious questions. But consider the non-verbal signs we use continuously in our religious lives. Many of these are formalised in the liturgy, and we are all familiar with the “outward signs of inward grace” as a definition of the Sacraments. Then there are the incidental ones like genuflection or the sign of the cross. Of course these can be carried out mindlessly, and so lose their value. But the action and the thought should go together.

The Church is very wise in this. She recognises that we are embodied souls, and so we need to express our devotion corporally as well as spiritually.

The changes tell us something too. The loss of Latin was a loss of a sense of universality, but replaced by a sense of direct participation in the Mass. As it happens I still abstain on Fridays, but its sign as an expression of community is lacking. We all know the difference between a priest who says Mass impersonally and the priest who communicates to us that we are present at the most important act in human history.

Some would say that such things may be of interest, but of no importance. After all, a Mass is a Mass - whether well or badly said. But a Mass which communicates to us in our fullness as whole human beings has an added, and important dimension.

But you may disagree, or you may have further thoughts on NVC, and further good examples. You will have read of proposed ways to modify the celebration on Mass. For example, the priest looking towards the altar, with the congregation behind him – at least at the consecration. And the possible withdrawal of receiving Communion in the hand (which was always by concession). At papal liturgies use is made of a kneeler, used as an expression of piety. Do you look forward to such changes, or do you think they are retrograde and unnecessary?