Me...You... Everyone! is the Codependent Person

 1. The challenge of Life is to grow from codependence to interdependence.  Consider this assertion: to love you correctly, I have to grow from a loving based on neediness to a loving based on appreciation. Do you find this statement true? Love means I want what is good for you, not that I want you for my use. Do I love you, or do I love the way you satisfy my needs?  Or perhaps I love your need for me? Maybe you satisfy my need to be needed?  What happens if you grow to the point where you don’t need me?  Will I rejoice in your development?  Will I love you for being the person you are? When we are acting out of needs we refuse to recognize or admit, we become more and more codependent.  When we decide to give and receive the love we need based on our respect for our mutual dignity as persons, we become the interdependent members of God’s family that we were meant to be.

 2. The Price We Pay for Relationships. There is a Woody Allen story that helps us see what we are willing to pay for whatever love we get in life:  Man goes into the psychiatrist’s office and says, “Doc, I have a problem. My brother thinks he is a chicken.” The doctor says, “That’s crazy. Tell him he’s not!” The man says, “I would, doc, but I need the eggs.”  BINGO!  That hits the nail on the head. Codependency is the price we pay for relationships. It is the basic substratum of any and every relationship, even the most healthy, sane, and spiritually graced friendship. Why? Because, no matter who we are, we never get beyond our basic neediness. Needs are not something we have, but are. Our needs are endless, infinite, and insatiable, because need is the core of our created being.

3. Right and Wrong Ways of Loving our Neighbors and Ourselves.  Consider the commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.  That means I have to get beyond myself, deny myself, give myself away.  But it means first I have to develop a self to give away. I have to grow to some kind of maturity, whatever that is.  The trouble is that I can’t wait till I become mature to start loving, I have to start loving before I have myself together, before I acquire any degree of self awareness and self possession.  So I am going to get it wrong long before I ever learn to get it right.   What’s worse, the wrong will appear right because I will not know that I am acting out of needs I do not recognize. This is why we end up hurting ourselves and hurting others while thinking we are doing the right thing and loving them as we ought. We develop a style, pattern, or habit of relating that is counter-productive,  self destructive, and mutually harmful, all in the process of getting to the point where we are capable of understanding what the love is that we are called to.

Inevitably, I do end up “loving” my neighbor as myself, because the self love that is in me gets inflicted on him. In my case, that self love ends up being an invisible barrier of self hate that moves me to relate to the other person incorrectly. You may doubt that this is true.  I did. I thought being good or bad were two even choices, and we could go for one as easily as the other. Experience has shown me that the bad in us ends up affecting and coloring the good we do.  Why? Because we naturally do what is wrong with more of a readiness than we do what is right. I base my argument on my experience of growing up in a family.

 4. How a basic personality style develops:   The following childhood memory may illustrate the transformation:

 My brother and I are sitting at the kitchen table finishing our dinner. Mom gives us each a piece of pie for dessert. I look at his piece and say to her, “You gave him more than you gave me.”  A three way squabble starts. She tries to persuade me that she is being fair,   while he complains that I am always picking on him, and I start insisting that we trade pieces.  This nonsense continues till my dad  steps back into the kitchen and tells me that if I don’t shut up and eat my pie, he will eat it for me and I won’t have any dessert at all. Rather than risk that, I do as he says. But I am far from happy.  I put my face down and pout as I fork the pie into my mouth, scarcely tasting it. I am tempted to kick my brother under the table, but my dad is still there. Better to wait and get even with him later on.  There will be endless opportunities, especially when we alone in the bedroom later that night with no parent around to see which one of us started what….

                     Now, here is my “psychoanalysis” of that everyday situation. My sense of injustice isn’t really aroused because his piece may be a little bit bigger than mine. I just want more pie.  Call it greed, gluttony, selfishness, or whatever you want. I want more, and any excuse will do. Whatever the underlying motive,  I use my desire for more as the reason to raise a ruckus over nothing and  afterwards convince myself  that I am one hundred percent right. When I don’t get what I end up acting angry and resentful at my brother, and mother and father as well.  Then, when I have calmed down a bit, I can see that I really was making a big deal over nothing and should have behaved better.  But at that point I can’t admit it. Maybe it’s pride, or pigheaded stubbornness, or both. But again, what does it matter?  What does matter is that now I feel a twinge of guilt or shame for the way I behaved, but would rather die than say so. This also complicates the situation. 

That brief moment when I am a little mad at myself for being such a big baby is, I think, where self-hate enters the picture. That bad feeling, (call it guilt, shame, or remorse) means something inside me is waking me up to the fact that I am acting against myself, against what my insides tell me is right.  It is something I don’t want to face, because it is humiliating. It is a feeling of me not liking me because of my behavior. If I acknowledge this feeling to myself I will end up by having to acknowledge it to everyone else too. I will look stupid to them, and that will be much worse than being stupid without their knowledge. (Don’t look stupid. Looking bad is worse than being bad.) This personal self-disapproval is the seed from which the hate will grow, if I bury the feeling deep enough and water it by continual self- deception. The more I deaden this inner stirring that tells me I am wrong by continuing to insist  to myself and others that I am always right, the stronger the self-hate in me will become.  And I won’t even recognize the disharmony inside myself.  The disharmony itself will feel normal and become part of my style.

All the bad I do will get done in the guise of  being good to myself and treating myself right, while on this  deeper level I am acting badly and treating myself  and others wrong.    I will proceed through life to make my burden bigger, or heavier. How? By adding an ounce of guilt, a teaspoon of shame, a tablespoon of anger and resentment, and stirring the mixture up in a cup of stubbornness   whenever I fail to get my way.   The more I bake these ingredients together in the sauce of self deceit and pride, the larger the loaf of self-hate becomes and the more fuel I have for future disagreements.  That’s quite an accomplishment for a little kid who begins by just wanting more pie.  This is not the only way self-love feeds into self-hate, but the way I specialize in. We all have our own ways to do the same thing, based on our personality style.

5. Our Heart’s Movements and our Personality. There are three basic movements of the heart, summed up by the humble prepositions, towards, away from, and against.  In my example, I was being somewhat aggressive towards my brother, i.e. moving “against” him.  Why? To get what I wanted.  Another way to get what I wanted would be to try to please him and get him to like me more.  (That would have been mom’s style.) Kill him with kindness, so to speak. That way he would end up wanting to give me his pie, and feel guilty if he didn’t.  I didn’t have the patience or the inclination to try this technique. It would have taken too much time even if it did work. Being nice is not the usual style of brothers, or boys in general. My first impulse was always to bicker and fight to get what I wanted.  My second was to draw back, or move “away from” if the movement ‘against’ didn’t work.  Moving away from doesn’t usually get us what we want either. It is a defensive posture, a way of protecting ourselves from getting hurt. It works for the moment, but not in the long run because it isolates us from others and prevents real communication.  Given my basic instinct to fight or flight, and of resorting to first one and then the other, it was a long time before I learned to move “towards” another in anything like real caring.  My kindness was more a phony politeness, a way of getting along and avoiding conflict, not a way of pleasing the other person by doing what was right and good out of concern for him.  But I was able to see that some people really did care for others and genuinely move towards them in a sincere effort to please.

                I could also see how caring for others could end up in manipulating and/or being manipulated.   Momma did that all the time.  She often had a pity party and bemoaned the fact that my brother and I didn’t appreciate everything she was doing for us. Of course we didn’t. Our chief form of recreation was to amuse ourselves by discovering new ways to drive her crazy. If she wanted kids who were going to please her, she should have had girls instead of boys!  When we told her that, the results were more confusing than ever.  We boys felt she was trying to glue us to her, cling and cloy, control and smother, all in the name of doing her job and being a good mother. Yes, she was moving towards, but it was too much towards, excessive, and it had the effect of reinforcing our resistance and moving us to push her away. And this, of course, she interpreted as rejection. All the melodrama took place in our young minds and hearts with very little degree of self awareness as to who was acting out of what needs or why.  It was just part of growing up, part of life. I guess we were developing into what I later learned to call a dysfunctional family.  It’s what happens when we develop a style of relating based on moving towards, away from and against, in a way that is too much or too little.  We all build up behavior patterns of doing these three movements of the heart wrong before we realize what we are doing, and then spend our lives trying to get them right.  The wrong way feels normal to us, while the right does not.

                Throughout my life, I will expect that they, the people who are the objects of my “love”  satisfy my needs, never make me face my shortcomings or look bad,  agree that I am right, calm my fears, fulfill my desires, and be responsible for ensuring my complete happiness.   Unless corrected, the dynamic continues till death.  It means I want to make myself into God for the other person, or want the other person to be God for me.  The situation works either way, me idolizing someone else, or someone else idolizing me. It also works both ways at once, and with more than one partner, depending on how complicated our codependent collusion has become. The one unpardonable sin is for the other persons to point out my neediness to me, or expose their basic level of need to me.  Such naked honesty would pull me out of my comfort zone and be the first step towards Christian love.  I too have to careful not to tease anyone and break our tacit promise not to mention hidden faults. One heedless word, and the bubble of false peace bursts. It is much easier (and a lot less painful) to collude with others, and have them wordlessly contract to collude with us by “loving one another” within the sick styles that have shaped our personalities. Be happy with the eggs we get, even if they are rotten. 

                6.  Our Need for God to Move our Hearts beyond our Needs: Too often, psychology can be a substitute for spirituality instead of a means to spiritual growth.  “Go see a shrink and get your head on straight”.   There is a world of difference between that advice and “Get yourself a spiritual director so you can begin to see what God is calling you to be and do.”  The first presupposes you are in control, and the second that you are not. But I may need to do the first as a way of getting to the second.  However, psychological health is not the same as spiritual holiness.   I can be psychologically unhealthy, neurotic, depressed, etc. and still grow in God’s grace. Growing in His grace may help me psychologically, but the basic character defects my neediness expresses itself in, are going to remain in me.  My growth in holiness consists not in denying or ignoring them, but in exposing them to the healing rays of God’s mercy.  That way the stumbling blocks become stepping stones. His power is best manifested in our weakness. That’s what our weakness is for.

 Saint Paul helps us to get it right (or maybe less wrong).  “Owe no one anything except to love one another.” (Romans 13:8)I do not owe you anything but the love God commands of me. I do not have to make you happy, tell you that you are right when you are wrong, reinforce your suspicions and fears, lie to you about your self-deceit, or pander to your narcissism. I do not have to live up to your expectations of me, or define myself by your reactions to me. I do not have to live for your approval not wither and die if you withhold your praise. Nor do you owe me any of that nonsense.

                   “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by any human court. I do not even judge myself.  I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.  Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time.” (I Cor. 4:3-5) Strange as it may seem to us, Paul could care less what anyone thinks of him. He is not being contrary or acting like a curmudgeon. He is actually being supremely humble and charitable. The only opinion important to Paul is Christ’s. What does Christ think of him? That is the only thing that matters.

 Why do what others think mean so much to us? Why do we base our lives on their opinions of us, their praise or disapproval? It comes down to our basic neediness. After his conversion Paul had profound awareness of his needs because he always and only saw himself in relation to Christ.  So he did not live out of his delusions, desires and self deceptions. He lived out of his relationship to our Lord. From that center he had the proper perspective from which to relate, live with and love everyone and everything the right way. If we get out relationship with Him right, we will relate to everyone else correctly. In fact, “we will be able to be all things to all men” not because we have become experts at playing games with everyone, but because we have learned to love them with Christ’s love.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Choose title: a) For the Fun of it b) Sex for the Fun of It

Sometimes when reading I come across something that makes me smile, or, even better, cracks me up and makes me laugh.  What follows is a tidbit that did both, so I hope you enjoy it also.

        Dear Abby,

       I am a twenty three year old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It’s getting      pretty expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don’t know him well enough to discuss money with him.*

                That’s it. That’s the tidbit. My first smile was one of disbelief. I thought the author I was reading had made up a nonsense letter and was including it in his book to prove a point. I mean, who in the world would write to Dear Abby and say they were having sex with a man but were afraid to talk to him about money matters? Then I noticed the asterisk by the word him, so I looked down to the bottom of the page, and started laughing. The footnote indicated that that the letter was the real thing. It had appeared in a collection of Abby’s columns which had been published in a book “The Best of Dear Abby” way back in 1981 by Andrews and McMeel.  By then my mind had kicked into a playful mode, so I began to make up some questions:

1: Isn’t it great that President Obama wants to have Insurance Companies pay for the pill so that women today won’t have to bear the cost, but can get contraception free, if they want it, as part of their health benefits? 

 2. I wonder if the writer of the letter is around today to benefit from President Obama’s proposal…. If she was twenty three around 1981…she would be…. somewhere in her mid-fifties now. At present if she were still intimidated at the prospect of talking with a boy friend about something as personal and intimate as money, she would finally be able to relax and enjoy sex without that preoccupation.

3. Is it ridiculous to think that talking about financial matters is more personal and intimate than engaging in sexual activity?

4. Maybe not! Maybe I am the one who is out of touch with reality? Maybe today it is easier to talk about your sex life than your finances.

5. Why in the world did it take way over thirty years for a president to come along who wanted to have contraception subsidized as a woman’s right? Shouldn’t the Federal Government have stepped in and taken care of this problem before now?

 6. Let’s see…what’s the proper framework in which to pose the question?  Is contraception part of Reproductive Health….is it a human right…a right of all persons everywhere and therefore a woman’s right and a man’s right too?

7. Say it is a question of Human Rights.  Then what?  Well, logically the Insurance companies, or the Federal Government, or Somebody (the taxpayers) should end up paying for it and for Viagra for men as well, right? For all I know that may already be taking place. After all, the USA has always been a man’s world where male rights were recognized before female.

8. If a man has a right to sexual activity to satisfy his desire for pleasure, certainly a woman does too….If the woman’s taste happens to be for a male of the species, why shouldn’t the option for Viagra also be included in her health plan, thereby saving her the frustration of wasting her time with a dysfunctional male?

9. Could it be that in spite of all the benefits the Sexual Revolution has produced, it hasn’t gone far enough? Isn’t it a tragedy that there are still so many people all over the world who have so much anger and rage and do so much damage, all because of their repressed sexual urges?

10. I mean, look at Fundamentalist fanatics and the way they treat women, start wars and engage in terrorism all over the place. 

11. Why don’t we learn from History?  Back in the Sixties and Seventies, the Hippies had the answer: Free Love and Uninhibited Sexual Expression is the way to Universal Peace. Make Love, Not War!

12. That’s what we need to use our technology for! Instead of sending soldiers and armaments to other countries, this country should use its know-how to develop an International Peace Corps based on the Hippie model, respectful of local culture and indigenous religious superstition, but based on the deeper sexual needs that are hardwired into all of humanity. Instead of trying to export Democracy or Capitalism, we should export Therapeutic Sex.

13. Whoops. I just got a phone call. I was talking with a friend and got around to explaining this posting that I was composing. He sounded interested, so I read it to him and asked his opinion. His critique may show just how out of touch I am. He said, “What you wrote is somewhat amusing, but hardly strong enough. Most things you are trying to express satirically or ironically, a whole lot of people seriously hold as rock solid, self-evident truth. Remember, in this country pregnancy falls into the category of sickness or disease. That's why contraception, like abortion, is getting classified as health care. Another thing….your last point about the Hippie Movement and freeing people from their sexual inhibitions to produce peace…. It is a poor idea that continues to make poor people rich.  Hollywood and TV, with their Soft Core and Hard Core Porn, have specialized in making millions off it for years. ”

 I still get a kick out of that Dear Abby letter though.

The Black Priests I Know

              Since my retirement, I have been living with a group of retired priests, all of them White, at the old seminary. The classrooms, dorms, study halls and refectories of the place have been reincarnated as an archdiocesan center, so the facility is now filled with many Diocesan Offices and Agencies, as well as many daily and overnight visitors who are renting its meeting places.  Since the retired priests live here all the time, we get to see each other’s family and friends who drop in to visit. I was surprised the first time one of my fellow retirees asked me “How come you know so many Black priests?”  The second and third time, however, I found myself bristling. I think it was because no one ever asked me why I had so many White people coming in to visit me, but just took those visits as normal. I probably am reading into things, or overreacting, but I was picking up a tinge of prejudice in the question.

              By the way, the term “Black” in this context means African not “African-American” or “American Black”. The Black priests are all “foreigners” who come from six different countries in Africa.  Three have returned home to Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria, and about a half a dozen, all Nigerians, are working here in the states, usually in hospital or parish ministry.  And I put “foreigners” is in quotation marks, because they stay foreigners in everyone’s minds even if they become citizens. Often it is because of accent and language use that they are tagged with that label.

               I answered my fellow retiree's question with a shrug: “It is one of the blessings God has given me”. My words cut short any more discussion, which was fine with me, because who drops by to see me is nobody else’s business.  However, there is really a second question, unspoken, behind the first, which I do want to try to answer.  It is “Why are they coming here to visit you”?  That is my topic.

The Black priests I know stop by to visit because we are friends, not Black friends as opposed to White friends, but just human-being friends. I have just made an outrageous assertion which, I believe, should astound you. Why? I believe most friendships in my experience are really utilitarian relationships of codependent persons. It works this way: I pretend I like you for yourself, while in truth I like you for me, for what I can get out of you. You return the favor by engaging in the same collusion with me. Thus we secretly agree to not be upfront by acknowledging how we are using one another, and we make believe that mutual respect and regard is the basis of our relationship. But the “friendship” ends if the usefulness ends, or if one of the persons wakes up to the self deception involved, tries to raise the relationship to another level, and the other partner refuses. What happens, you ask, if both parties agree to go beyond the utilitarian mode they are operating in? Something wonderful: they go beyond codependence to interdependence. The process involves a lot of humility, honesty, and openness, but it actually does happen. Some (not enough!) married couples I know are best friends, some single people too, including celibate priests, believe it or not! I have to admit however, that in normal life, codependent relationships are the norm and interdependence is the exception.

Another outrageous assertion: the Black priests are often better friends and brothers to me than many White priests I have known a lot longer.  Although I know the Black priests a shorter time, we connect on a deeper level. Why is that? It is a question I have asked myself, a question I began asking in 1985 when I first began to know different priests from Africa. Why am I friendly with and more of a brother to, these priests from Africa, than many of the American priests I know?

My hunch is that in America we priests tend to be Lone Rangers, at least here in the Northeast. This may be a result of our training, our life-style, the declining numbers of the clergy, shifts in morale,    problems of busyness in ministry, and so on. But it is not a complete explanation.  I think a more precise answer involves the way we North Americans understand both friendship and Church.  Friendship takes time to form, just as Church takes time to build, because both at base are relationships. We usually find time to do what we consider important, and in this country   forming friendships and building church are not high on our list of priorities.  I believe our culture denigrates “Friendship” and “Church” to the arbitrary category of “Personal Likes and Dislikes”, and thus classifies them both as undeserving of serious attention. After all, a “personal” like or dislike (such as religion or a particular human being) is just a matter of taste. Also, what we call friends in America are often no more than acquaintances.  And what we call Church can be no more than a grouping of acquaintances, a bunch of people we are more or less comfortable being under the same roof with, so long as they don’t intrude into our private space by daring to sit in our pew. 

The priests I know from Africa, (and also, by the way, the ones who come from India), are usually more open to friendship than my North American confreres.  They experience the priesthood as a real brotherhood and not a snooty Old Boys Clerical Club.  This may be a matter of Culture, meaning their particular African culture versus our North American.  My African brothers also have a deeper understanding of Church than we North Americans do. They come from a connection that is organic and not one seen as a social construct.

 I suppose social scientists could prove or disprove these two working assumptions of mine regarding Friendship and Church. All I can say is that my theory is based on concrete experience. In any case, this openness to Friendship and Church is what I like most about the Black priests I have encountered.  Both on a natural level, (and therefore supernatural), I think we are able to meet each other without the pretensions illusions, and yes, prejudicial class consciousness that are so much a part of life in America.

 Another thing I like about these men is their courage. I have thought about that word, “courage” and can find none better to describe what I see in them. I am not talking about natural courage alone, because that is often mixed with foolhardiness, ignorance, stupidity, and/or desperation.  My African brothers have as much of that natural courage as we all do. To acknowledge that is no compliment.  What I admire in them, however, is a courage born of faith.  Perhaps it would be better to call this courage a happy fortitude, or strength of heart.

 It takes only natural courage to come to this country because of all the advantages and enticements of the American Dream, but it requires strength of heart to come in spite of the many attractions. Strength of heart presupposes the maturity to face the pros and cons of coming to America, and the steadfastness of spirit to deal with all the cultural conflicts that await them, including racism.

Racial prejudice is one of our cultural conflicts, but it deserves particular mention because it is such a pervasive reality. Most African priests who come to America have experienced racial prejudice at home or in their travels. Yet the American experience is different. Why? Here as elsewhere  prejudice can hide behind and combine itself with many more disguises, such as liberal condescension, preferential treatment, sophisticated jargon, anti-Catholic sentiment,   anticlerical attitudes, radical feminism, and sexual orientation. Such mixtures make it impossible to separate the strand of racism from whatever else it is married to at the moment.  Even when the African priests recognize prejudice over here, they are in no position to confront or deal with it.  “It’s in the water”, a friend of mine says, meaning it is so basic, so much a part of the culture, that we absorb it all the time without realizing it. Prejudice is in the water we drink and the air we breathe because we are raised with an innate sense of superiority as a result of being born White Americans. (Of course we neglect to realize that we had no input as to our skin color and nationality.)

 Our American bias does not usually express itself in anything so crass as  dirty looks or hate stares, but clothes itself in a mantle of personal  superiority for the simple fact of being not-Black.  Black is perceived as the basest of colors.  Any other hue is preferable, be it yellow, tan, or a light shade of brown.  Brown black, the normal Black color, is bad, but not as bad as Blue black, the darkest color of all. In spite of good manners, political correctness of expression and conduct, which we tolerant White Americans display, the blip of our bias will sooner or later flash on the Black radar screen.

 “Cada persona es un mundo,” a Mexican friend once told me. It was a wonderful way of saying that each person is sui generis, and a Mystery. Because each person is unique, and we can never fully know anyone, so writing a few lines about each one of the Black priests as separate individuals would serve no purpose. So, instead, I am going to focus on the one Black priest whom I have more contact with than the others. He was fortunate to find employment in a nearby hospital, while all the others live and work at greater distance. I hope that by portraying him with some accuracy I can give an idea of the qualities and characters of all the others. His real first name is straight from the Old Testament, so here I will call him Elisha. There are very real differences among all the Black priests, but Elisha is a great example of what they all have in common.  What he personifies in himself is true of the others as well, to various degrees.

What stands out to me about Elisha is his meekness. He personifies meekness to the nth degree. If you saw the musical Chicago, try to remember the song and dance routine called The Cellophane Man. Elisha really is the man nobody sees, and nobody notices. He does nothing to call attention to himself. This surprised me when I first got to know him, because the other priests, (especially the Igbo  from Nigeria), were often loud and assertive. Not that they weren’t humble, they were.  But they were humble more as a requirement of working in a strange country. More than one of them said to me, “Even when we are right, over here we are wrong, just for opening our mouths.”  They are saying quite a “mouthful” with that statement. As outsiders they have no way to address an injustice, or work the system against itself or manipulate it to their advantage. They are at its mercy. It doesn’t matter if there is a work-related problem in the Pastoral Department at the hospital, or in the kitchen at the parish rectory, the Black priests have no adequate recourse. Their only hope is to keep their mouths shut, their head down, and keep going.  This requires a great deal of self control.  Elisha however, doesn’t have to restrain himself.  His meekness is simply part of his personality. The others are humble because they are smart enough to be careful in a new environment, whereas Elisha would be meek even if he were home in Nigeria. 

 His humility is sometimes a problem. An example from around 2004: a couple of us were prepping Elisha for a job interview.  It was a real effort, (heroic, on our part) to get him to look us in the face while talking to us. He was so used to looking down, avoiding other persons’ eyes, that  it never occurred to him that he would need  to be more assertive, more in your face  in order to make a good impression at a job interview.  But he was humble enough to listen to us, make himself do what we told him, and he got the job!  

Another strange fact:  Elisha’s meekness is also the source of his boldness.  I presume that sounds as weird to you to hear as it does for me to say it, (or in this case write it).  My experiences with him over ten years have made me see that Elisha’s meekness is what fuels requests for help.

Many of us human beings, no matter what our nationality or culture, would be tempted to suffer in silence than admit our needs and wants by asking for help. We see this suffering in silence as a virtue, when it can be a vice.  Our stubborn desire to be independent deprives us of the care and support others would be happy to offer us. It also puts us in the unwitting position of trying to get others to satisfy the desires and needs we are unwilling to articulate. We end up playing manipulative games in order to meet needs we refuse to admit are there. Elisha doesn’t do that. He doesn’t confuse needs with wants, doesn’t manipulate or play games. With humble awareness of his personal limitations he forthrightly asks for the help he needs. He doesn’t play the victim, doesn’t get obsequious, or fawning or flattering.  He just states his need and asks for help. If you say no, he moves on with no hard feelings. If you say yes, he is grateful and receptive. He doesn’t mind receiving, doesn’t mind asking, and he doesn’t hold it against you that you are in a position to help him.  He will also go out of his way for you if you ever need him or give him the chance to be of assistance.

Here is a more recent example of his meekness, a case that irritated me: Elisha took his car to a garage for repairs.  The next day he got a ride back to the garage to pick up his car at the time he had been told it would be ready.  But it wasn’t.   He spent the rest of the morning and afternoon sitting there!  I find that so incredible.  Why didn’t he call somebody and ask for a ride?  Even if all his friends were busy or working, one of us could have found a free moment to go get him.   I know I am unfairly judging him by how I would have acted.  I would have gone crazy with frustration if I had to sit there the whole afternoon and wait until closing to get a ride. I suppose in Elisha’s case, it may have been simply a matter of long practiced self-discipline. Whatever it was, it is a quality I do not have. I do know that to Elisha it was no big deal, just another part of living and breathing. His lack of transportation was not a big enough deal to move him to bother someone else.

  I used to think that what I saw as his meekness was an inferiority complex, but it is not. Elisha does not think that he has nothing much to offer. He is just not a self-starter. But he is fun to be with. He as a great deal to offer in terms of charm, wit, practical wisdom, humor,  book learning and common sense, as well as pastoral experience. The challenge is to get him to share it.  Share it he does, if someone takes the initiative and speaks to him first. But if you wait for Elisha to take the initiative, you will be waiting a long time. Spontaneity, opening his mouth and expressing himself, or letting you in on what is going on inside him, well, that is just not going to happen.  

Another example of this meekness of his (and also his strength of heart) is the reason why he came to the United States.  It is very simple. He would have died if he had stayed home.  He had serious health problems, and no money. In Nigeria, I am told,  serious illness plus no money equals death as sure as one plus one makes two. If you are a poor man, you die.  End of the story.  You as a “Westerner” reading this may think I have just stated an obvious, foregone conclusion. But  most Africans would know better. In fact most Africans would probably find my statement naïve in the extreme.  Why? One reason is that they do not measure wealth and poverty in terms of money alone as we do in this culture, but in terms of what has been harvested from the previous season, and, more importantly, in terms of human relations. A man is rich because he is a member of a family a clan, a tribe, a people, and not because he has a big bank account. A man is poor in the extreme if he is an outcast, cut off from and rejected by the people he belongs to. Then he really is as good as dead! Another important factor which escapes our Western consciousness: traditional medicine in many African countries is both very effective and equally inexpensive. Therefore, in the case of seventy or eighty percent of all illnesses, Western medicine is not called for.  Elisha, sad to say, had exhausted the traditional remedies which had helped him all his life, and was left with no answers.

Fortunately, his bishop had told him he could come here and work for whatever time he had left, and fortunately that turned out to be quite a lot, since he got medical care as part of the salary benefits which go with his job. Coming here added years to his life. But he did not come out of a desire to have a career, enjoy the freedom America offers, make a lot of money, etc.  He came because, very simply, he had to find someplace to go if he was going to have any chance of staying alive.  

Why is that so unusual?  Isn’t that the same situation with many desperate immigrants?  No.  Elisha wasn’t interested in staying alive only for his own sake.  He also wanted to stay alive because he had responsibilities. Back home his life was not about him; he was living for others. His death would have meant that these others would have no means of support. He owed it to them to stay alive so he could fulfill his promise to his mother to take care of them. As a youngster he promised his mom he would take care of his brother, one single person. But it was a promise he made for life. Today his brother is married and has two sons. So caring for his brother means sending money back home for his brother and sister in law, as well as paying the university tuition for his nephews. Elisha lives frugally so he can keep his loved ones alive.  True, his standard of living has improved somewhat, but much of all he earns gets sent back to Africa.

This is typical of all the other priests as well.  They love life, but they do not live for themselves. One of them has had a well dug for his village; a second stocked a local clinic with equipment and medical supplies; a third bought books, supplies and uniforms for the kids in his village school, and of course, is sending money to keep his mom and dad alive with food and medicine. I could continue with examples from the lives of the other African priests, but you get the idea.  I admire them because they live for more than themselves, for their families, their church, and their people.  They do it automatically, naturally, without giving it a second thought. And if their care for a person or project ends, they do not say, “Now I have paid my debt, leave me be.” They quietly move on to the next person or project that demands their attention, because the needs never end.

  If there is anything the African priests are not, it is rugged individualists. But I think it is their solidarity with one another that enables them to stand alone. Perhaps the best way to understand them is to say that, in general, Africans start off with a communal perspective, while we Americans start off with an individualistic point of view. They see everything in terms of the group, even themselves. Friendship is a group thing to them, not only a matter of one on one. Of course, they have particular friends they are closer to than others, but their closer friendships are open to welcome others into relationship. They enjoy   being together. It is a cause for celebration, on however small or large a scale. In America, most of us see the group as an extension of the individual. To us, the group is little more than many individuals together, an aggregate of individuals collected into a sum total.

 With the Africans, the group is basic. In fact, the individual is a manifestation of the group, an expression of the group, so he is never by himself even when he is the only person in the room. He always carries the group in his heart.  Why do they see this way? Because it is the way things are. The group is basic.  It should be a truism to say that the family group is the basic unit of society, and that the individual is an extension of the family. Yet more and more, the common attitude in America is that the family is a bunch of individuals, or a collection of separate persons. The family is not even considered as an extension as of those individuals, because unity between them is seen as accidental and superficial.

 The same attitude, unfortunately, holds true with Church. I think most Africans build their concept of Church upon the interconnectedness of the family of man, which is a perfect fit. We Americans, well, I am not sure what we build our concept of Church on.  I think it may be accurate to say Americans experience Church as a bunch of individuals who share the same taste in creedal and moral preferences. It is a kind of religious association to attend to spiritual needs. You can shop for church as you shop for any other product that you have a taste for.  It is not something you are blessed with and stuck with at the same time like your family of origin.

 We Americans probably have work to acquire a sense of community, whereas the Africans have to struggle to acquire a sense of individuality. Their sense of the family, the group, the people, is what they start out with. Why do I think this is so important? Because I think it is the one characteristic that enables them to connect with one another and with anyone else, on a human level and therefore on the spiritual level as well.  Our spiritual bond doesn’t sit on top of our humanity but flows through our humanity and vivifies it.

This human level of connection is my concluding reason for my friendship with African priests, and calls for more explanation.

At first, I was surprised and put off by their constant use of titles. They were always calling me “Father” and addressing one another that way too.  I am used to calling fellow priests by their first name. As I understand it, in their culture what a title connotes depends a great deal on the country you are in.  Usually, the priest is seen by everybody as a special person, and may be put on pedestal by the rest of society. But in Nigeria, for example, the male still enjoys more power and prestige than the female. Although things are changing, there a man is more important than a woman, and a priest is more important than a nun or religious sister. So many connotations go into the title, “Father” in that country, both positive and negative. In general, in most places “Father” is a sign of respect given to an older man, not just to an ordained priest, and the same is true of the term “Mother”. When I introduce any Black friends to my ninety six year old mother, they all call her “mum” or “momma” or “mother.”  They also address my mother’s brother and sister-in-law by the titles Uncle and Aunt. They have a respect for the elderly that is genuine, and genuinely lacking over here in our culture!

   So when I called them by their first names and tried to get them to do this with me, I explained that we Americans are somewhat democratic in our relationships, and the term “Father “ while a sign of respect is often an empty formality and a way of distancing ourselves from one another or standing on class status.  If there was anything Christ emphasized with his disciples, it was how they were to be humble brothers. After a time most of them, especially all the younger ones, were able to call me my first name, but a couple of the older generation, Elisha included, were not. It was a result of their training I suppose.  But I did get them to use my first name after the title “Father”, which I see as a partial victory. I think “brothering” one another is how Christ wants us to “father”.  They agreed, I think, because they are naturally brothers to each other on a human level, and saw that common humanity as the foundation on which relationships with all their differences and distinctions were built.  If we can’t connect as human beings, how can we connect as children of God?

Let me finish this article with a mea culpa.  I plead guilty to the fault of exaggeration and oversimplification. I am sure there are individualistic African priests, men who are self centered, egotistical, selfish, indulgent, grasping, and greedy.  Every person who leaves the womb has the same flawed human nature that the rest of us are born with. It has something (everything!) to do with original sin.  However, I do not think I am idealizing or romanticizing very good and decent qualities of Black priests out of all proportion.  They suffer from the same defects and weaknesses that afflict priests the world over.  Are there not men  in Africa who leave the priesthood, who forsake their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, who lead double lives,  or who stay in ministry for the money, or because they find it easier to stay in than to go and earn a living by the sweat of their brow?  Of course.  I am sure there are priests from Africa who are not the men of God they should be. Let me also affirm there are plenty of good and great American priests, men of prayer and dedication, men who live for Christ and His Church.  All Black priests are not perfect saints, and all American priests are not self-centered functionaries. All I want to affirm, and affirm gratefully, is that to date, the Black priests it has been my good fortune to know exemplify the brotherhood that is Christ’s priesthood at its best.