The Good Life Examined 2014-2015

MOUNT ALOYSIUS COLLEGE

The Good Life Examined 2014-2015

 Mount Aloysius College, Cresson, Pennsylvania - Old Main Buildling.

Introduction Mount Aloysius is fairly uncommon in the ranks of higher education institutions in that we choose a theme each year and try to coordinate Orientation, our First-year Connections Seminars, our Speakers Series and other events around that single idea. Our theme this year is a simple one, The Good Life.

There is a long history of intellectual and moral thought on the idea of the good life dating back to the ancient Greeks and all the way through to the philosopher-founders of our own republic.

The Greek word Eudaimonia is commonly interpreted as “happiness.” Its root words are significant—“eu” for “good” and “daimon” for “spirit.” When Aristotle, Epictetus and the Stoics began parsing this notion of eudaimonia they aligned it with Greek words for character (“ethike arête”), and argued that eudaimonia signified not just “happiness” but the “highest human good.”

Socrates pursued perhaps the most extreme definition of the idea, arguing that “life is not worth living if the soul is ruined by wrongdoing.”

This brief lesson in Greek grammar is how we began our 2014–2015 Speaker Series, which we dedicated to a vigorous exploration and careful parsing of the theme of The Good Life. The pages herein contain many of the ideas developed during that Series.

The Declaration of Independence gave us a signature definition of the good life as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Whatever the intent in 1776, public policy discussions of the good life today tend to focus far more on metrics like “economic growth” and “average annual consumption” than on any values like happiness, or the common good, or even liberty. Given that context, the case for offering our students a broader and deeper understanding of what constitutes a good life was compelling.

Former Catholic University President Father Bill Byron, S.J. was in full stride at our Convocation 2014 when he defined the good life as “one lived generously in the service of others,” citing biblical and modern sources to support his proposition. Sr. Sheila Carney, R.S.M. gave us a perspective on the topic from our own Mercy tradition, using poetry and prose to describe the good lives of Dublin Founder Catherine McAuley and American Mercy pioneer Frances Warde. Our Fall Honors Lecture featured NYU Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Larry Jackson, who gave us a philosopher’s overview of the good life in, “Pursuits of Happiness: From Aristotle to America.” Mount Aloysius Trustee Ann Benzel closed out the fall semester offering a contemporary definition of the good life in remarks at the December Graduation. In the spring, our Annual Moral Choices Lecture was delivered by Special Olympics CEO and author Dr. Timothy Shriver who stressed inclusivity—making room for the “other” in our society—as an essential element of the good life. The series concluded with the commencement address of Senior Federal Judge and former Dean of the Yale School of Law Guido Calabresi. Judge Calabresi, who escaped Mussolini to come to America at age seven, offered profound personal reflections from his own example of a life well-lived.

We trust the good readers of this Mount Aloysius College The Good Life Examined monograph to carry the discussion forward, as together we pursue, if not true happiness, at least our own version of a good life and a meaningful existence.

All the best,

Thomas P. Foley President Mount Aloysius College

THE GOOD LIFE

2014-2015 Speaker Series | Mount Aloysius College

“Introduction to a Theme, The Good Life” — Fall Convocation Address Rev. William J. Byron, S.J., University Professor of Business and Society at Saint Joseph’s University, and past President of The Catholic University of America, the University of Scranton, and Loyola University-New Orleans.

(September, 2014) “Catherine McAuley and The Good Life” — Mercy Week Sister Sheila Carney, R.S.M., Special Assistant to the President for Mercy Heritage and Service at Carlow University, Chair of the Board of McAuley Ministries, and Vice Postulator for the Cause of the Canonization of Catherine McAuley. (September, 2014) “Pursuits of Happiness from Aristotle to America” — Fall Honors Lecture Dr. Larry Jackson, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Global Academic Planning at New York University. (October, 2014) “Perspectives on The Good Life” — December Commencement Ann Benzel, philanthropist, arts advocate, and CEO of Benzel’s Bretzels, Inc., a fourth-generation family business. (December, 2014) “Fully Alive, Discovering What Matters Most” — Moral Choices Lecture Dr. Timothy Shriver, Chair of International Special Olympics, and founder and Chair of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (April, 2015) “Good Life Lessons” — 2015 Commencement Address Judge Guido Calabresi, past Dean and current Sterling Professor of Law, Yale School of Law, and Senior Judge, Second Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals. (May, 2015)

THE GOOD LIFE

Introduction to a Theme - The Good Life, William J. Byron, S.J.

So let me begin ... with the simple assertion that the good life ... is a life lived generously in the service of others.

Who are those others?

What are their unmet needs? Where will you meet them?

How will you help them? What kind of a companion are you going to be for them.

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It is a joy for me to be back at Mount Aloysius in response to an invitation from your president, my old friend Tom Foley, who asked me to speak to you on the topic of The Good Life. That’s what you are all hoping to have but I suspect that not all of you would immediately agree on what constitutes the good life.

So let me say it right here at the beginning by opening this Convocation address with the simple assertion that the good life is, as I see it, a life lived generously in the service of others.

That’s how I see it, and I’ll elaborate on that one-sentence summary of the good life in just a few minutes.

I want also to acknowledge that each of you is the world’s leading expert on your own opinion; you may have a different view on this topic than I do and you are certainly entitled to hold it. Your view may stress wealth, or health, or fame as elements that are constitutive of the good life. And while I have nothing against health, wealth, and public recognition of personal achievement, I have observed that fame is fleeting, health sooner or later diminishes, and it is a great mistake to spell success with dollar signs.

You may have a lot of money in the future, but you’ll never have enough. So if the accumulation of money is your goal in life, you will come up short, you will never have enough. Of that you can be sure. You simply cannot count on money to deliver happiness.

And without happiness, which, of course, is not to be confused with pleasure, hilarity, and fun, there is no good life for you. This is not to say that fun and pleasure are not out there in front of you; it is simply to say that there is a lot more to life than having fun.

Make a mental note right now. Say it to yourself. This is my idea of the good life. Go ahead; say it, at least to yourself. And remember what you’ve said at least until I get to the end of this presentation. The good life is… . Go ahead now, say it to yourself.

Surely happiness will be there in your response. Family will be there, I suspect. An occupation or profession will be part of that picture. So may be a location—a city or town, a country of origin or choice. If you haven’t thought of other persons—a spouse, unborn children, as-yet unknown workplace associates or companions on this way—you are missing a critically important element in this picture. If you agree with my point that the good life is a life lived generously in the service of others, you have to give

some thought now to who those others might be, starting closest to home and stretching on out into an unknown future. Who are those others? What are their unmet needs? Where will you meet them? How will you help them?

What kind of a companion are you going to be for them?

There are a lot of options out there in front of you. A lot of choices to be made. Drift and purposelessness won’t help you get there. Passivity certainly will not help. You may have noticed that you can’t steer a parked car; you’ve got to get rolling. But in what direction and at what speed?

How’s your sense of direction? Do you have any kind of a map? I’m sure you do, although you may not be thinking of it at the moment as a map.

A dream can be a map; so let yourself dream.

I recall being of assistance some years ago to a young woman who found herself at a career crossroads, an important decision point in her life. She sought my help in trying to figure things out.

So, I encouraged her to focus on her feelings and deepest desires. I gave her an idea drawn from the Hindu faith tradition, an ancient saying from the Upanishads. She carries it now, years later, tucked in her address book; it put her on the path to the good life. Here it is: “You are what your deep, driving

desire is, as your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

That’s another way of saying: get in touch with your deepest-down dream, and follow it. This requires, of course, a lot of common sense and no small amount of maturity.

You have to be realistic. Sober assessment of your dreams can help you keep your feet on the ground; it can also assist you in getting those feet moving in the right direction, through deeds toward destiny.

You are what your deep, driving desire is, as your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed.

As your deed is, so is your destiny.

Have respect for your feelings.

How do you feel about the future?

What is your gut telling you that you really want to be and do?

What do you like doing? Are you drawn toward mathematics and science, or are you drawn toward history and literature. Do you enjoy music and appreciate art?

Or are sports and tinkering with automobiles your thing? Where are you inclinations pointing you?

I have a friend who is an executive search consultant. He is often asked to advise clients as they face the challenge of making a good job choice. He tells them, “If your head says ‘go’ and your heart says ‘no,’ don’t go. But if your heart says ‘go’ and your head says “no,’ give it a whirl.” I mention this simply to point out that you should listen to your tummy; you should read the feelings in your gut. That is one

“If your head says ‘go’ and your heart says ‘no,’ don’t go. But if your heart says ‘go’ and your head says ‘no,’ give it a whirl.

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THE GOOD LIFE

way of discovering the will of God for you. God chooses, at times, to communicate with you through your gut—drawing you this way or that by the push or pull you experience through your feelings.

»» Saint Paul

St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians... speaks of the “fruit” of the Spirit... . Nine values [to] live by: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control... a nine-word portrait of what Jesus revealed as authentic human existance.

Your faith can be and should be a map guiding you into the future.

I’m assuming that most of you are Christians and I suspect all of you will agree that signposts to the good life can be found in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

You have no doubt heard of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) and I hope you see them as happiness principles. That’s what beatitude means—happiness.

The Scriptures—God’s inspired word to you, both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and, for Muslims, the Quran—can be an enormous help in mapping out your way toward the good life.

Permit me to open up for you a few verses of St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. That letter, as you may know, was written to help the Galatians exercise their new found freedom “in the Spirit,” freedom from the restrictions of the Old Law through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let yourselves be “guided by the spirit,” said St. Paul; and I say the same to you today: be guided by the Spirit—the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Paul speaks of the “fruit” of the

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Spirit—evidence, if you will, of the presence of the Holy Spirit in a human life. Nine values, or principles, constitute evidence that the Holy Spirit is there within you.

I call these nine values the “Pauline criteria” for detecting the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, in your home, your workplace, in the very environment in which you move and have your being.

“For you were called for freedom,” Paul writes to the Galatians and derivatively to you. “But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Gal. 5:13-14). He then continues: “I say, then, live by the Spirit…[and] the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness [and] self-control” (Gal. 5:16; 22-23). There you have a word portrait, a nine-word portrait of what Jesus revealed as authentic human existence. Now surely some echo of that should find its way into your idea of the good life.

As you map out your understanding of the good life, take a bit of time to ponder the meaning of each of those nine values. What is your understanding of love? It has to be big and broad enough to make room for sacrifice. How mature is your appreciation of

joy? It is a lot more than hilarity.

Are you perceptive enough to recognize peace when you see it, and are you at peace with yourself and others? And although patience may not be your strong suit, do you realize that the root meaning of the word patience is suffering?

Are you prepared to suffer when the good of others requires it?

Kindness is easy to recognize and understand; the question is with what frequency does kindness appear in your words and actions?

Generosity is not hard to define, but the trick is to let generosity become habitual and characteristic of you. Faithfulness means you can be counted on, that dependability and reliability are part of your make-up. Gentleness is often confused with timidity, which is a vice, but gentleness is a virtue; it is a form of courage and strength.

Surely, being gentle has something to do with leading a good life.

And the ninth of Paul’s criteria for the presence of the Spirit in your life—self-control—is an admirable characteristic, a sign that you have yourself well in hand.

Notice how all nine are imitable human virtues, each within your reach, and notice how in combination they shape you into an attractive person with all makings of a leader, a really good person. And doesn’t being a good person have more than a little to do with finding and leading the good life?

As you consider these nine Pauline criteria today, as you ponder the meaning of these principles, let me suggest that you also consider wrapping yourself in them as in so many bands that hold you together for your journey through life. If you can manage that and if you associate yourself with others similarly bound, you are going to find yourself leading the good life.

And you will, I think, agree with me that the good life is a life lived generously in the service of others.

Notice how all nine values are imitable human virtues, each within your reach, and notice how in combination they shape you into an attractive person with all makings of a leader, a really good person.

Now, as this academic year begins, remind yourself that every course you will take has something to contribute to that toolkit you will need to navigate your way in and through the good life, and resolve to invest the needed effort now to gain the unseen rewards that await each one of you.

Well, here we are at the end of a reflection on what constitutes the good life. I could run on with a lot of examples and stories; I could try to sell you on the wisdom of what I am proposing. But I will spare you all that. I will simple say get moving, get on with it. It is the beginning of an academic year that might well be the best of all the years you have yet experienced.

Take a moment now to make a promise to yourself that you are going to give this year your very best. And don’t be surprised to find that the very best will come to you in return.

As you consider those nine Pauline criteria today, as you ponder the meaning of these principles, let me suggest that you also consider wrapping yourself in them as in so many bands that hold you together for your journey through life.

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THE GOOD LIFE

Catherine McAuley and The Good Life, Sister Sheila Carney, R.S.M. When I received the invitation to be with you today, I was intrigued by the topic, I think mainly because my first notion of the phrase The Good Life had to do with comfort and ease and the resources to provide them–a notion that didn’t feel comfortable in association with Catherine McAuley. After I dug a little deeper about how you were interpreting that phrase in your exploration this year and through, what else but a Google search, I became more comfortable with the association.

There were ... two periods in Catherine’s life when comfort and ease ... were her companions ... first when ... the McAuley family was well off and ... later ... as heir to the Callaghan fortune...

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There were, of course, two periods in Catherine’s life when comfort and ease and resources were her companions, if only briefly. The first was in her earliest years, before the death of her father when she was five. During this time, the McAuley family was well off and enjoyed all that went with a more than adequate income. The second period of ease and comfort came 40 or so years later when, as heir to the Callaghan fortune, she continued to live for a time on their estate and enjoyed the lifestyle her inheritance afforded. Vita Mary Pandolfo, a Sister of Mercy from Detroit has captured this period in a poem titled “Catherine’s Call.”

Here’s how she described it.

Catherine’s Call Catherine, young woman of high esteem, heiress with pale gold hair, who kept a carriage and dressed in black merino or rose brocade, high-waisted and trimmed with Irish lace as the fashion went, was mistress of Coolock House—a kind one, common folk said, and Merciful to the poor.

She loved her flower-strewn gardens, her oak-paneled doors (among the finest in Dublin, it was said); her house was often filled with friends and sounds of the harpsichord, and the clink of claret glasses—and dancing: jig, reel, hornpipe, hopjig, dancing—swivel and spin, Kitty dancing, bow and circle (Sir Roger de Coverly), bend and bob in the See-Saw Dance; now change of pace with the Duval Trio lately imported from France, Then—Grand Right and Left: winding, right hand, left hand, passing, winding, coming to where she’d begun—Now, partnered by One in her heart, all circles closed in a vortex of love, she whirled to the boundaries of time, leaped over and danced, and did not stop until her step resounded Mercy around the world.

This poem is teeming with images!

There are images of Catherine: a highly esteemed, golden-haired, fashionably-dressed, comfortably-housed heiress. There are images of what was important to

her: her great heart for those who are poor, central to her being from her earliest days until her death.

And then wonderful, sensuous images of the life she created during her Coolock days, filling the house with friends and music and dancing. This stanza of the poem leaves you almost breathless in its listing and description of the steps, swivel and spin, bend and bob, passing, winding, leaping. We glimpse in the poem Catherine’s enjoyment of wearing fashionable clothing, her appreciation for fine architecture, her love of flowers, the sounds of the harpsichord and the clinking of claret glasses and the voices of dear friends and the floor pounding as they danced.

This poem, of course, comes from Vita Mary’s imagination. There are no historical descriptions of scenes such as those she portrays. But we do know that Catherine used goods she had inherited, as long as she had them, to accomplish what she deemed to be important.

For instance, when she wanted to begin the ministry of visiting the sick in hospitals, a ministry from which Catholics were barred for fear that they would proselytize the patients, she realized that it would behoove her to create the appearance of being a wealthy Protestant woman. And so she and some of her companions arrived at the hospital in the finery of her Coolock days, transported by the coach and coachman. Not

long afterwards, the estate and its trappings were sold but, while she had them, she knew how to use, for her purposes, the trappings of wealth.

While we can’t place our complete confidence in the poem’s description of Catherine’s life at Coolock, we do recognize her spirit in it. Especially in the poem’s ending –

»» Coolock House

Now, partnered by One in her heart, all circles closed in a vortex of love, she whirled to the boundaries of time, leaped over and danced, and did not stop until her step resounded Mercy around the world.

Whatever else was happening during these years at Coolock, the whole of the 20 some years she lived there, there was the awareness of God’s call and the conviction that she was “meant to make some lasting effort for the sake of the poor.” The image with which the poem leaves us is God’s hand grasping hers and swinging her and her mercy out across the aching world. And that’s where our understanding of Catherine McAuley and the good life turns.

Because it was in her partnering with the God of Mercy—and her great heart for the poor—it was in the wedding of these two that, I believe, the good life consisted for Catherine McAuley.

And it was the integration of these two movements that she expected

»»

Victorian heiress

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THE GOOD LIFE

It was in her partnering with the God of Mercy—and her great heart for the poor—it was in he wedding of these two that ... the good life consisted for Catherine McAuley.

In The Familiar Instructions, a book written to accompany the Rule, Catherine quotes Saint Theresa as saying, “We must leave God for God. That is, we must be ready to quit even prayer to find God in our neighbor.”

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from those who wished to join their energies to hers. When asked for the requirements for a woman seeking entrance into the Sisters of Mercy, her response was, “an ardent desire to be united to God and to serve the poor.” Integration is an important word here. Because, for Catherine, these were not separate energies or separate experiences, but one life force flowing within her. Catherine’s union with God turning her outward toward the suffering world, intergrated with her service to the poor inspired by and energized by the God in whom her heart was centered. In The Familiar Instructions, a book written to accompany the Rule, Catherine quotes Saint Theresa as saying, “We must leave God for God. That is, we must be ready to quit even prayer to find God in our neighbor.” The call to “leave God for God” is, Catherine wrote in her Rule, a reason for joy and gratitude as in “Let those whom Jesus Christ has graciously permitted to assist Him in the persons of his suffering poor, have their hearts animated with gratitude and love and placing all their confidence in Him endeavor to imitate Him more perfectly day-by-day.” (Chapter 3, 3rd). Other teachings, “Love of God and love of neighbor are cause and effect;” or, “If the love of God really reigns in your heart it will quickly show itself in the exterior” continues the theme of the necessary integration of union with God and service of the poor.

A primary characteristic of Catherine’s approach to service was her reverence for each person.

The witness of her father and his care for the poor planted this seed in her and it flourished throughout her life. We can imagine that in the Callaghan household, Quakeress Catherine Callaghan introduced her to the central tenet of that religion—There is that of God in every man, in every person. We certainly know that the Callaghans gave both moral and financial support to her work with the poor.

In Tender Courage, written by Joanna Regan and Isabell Keiss, we read that her biographers spoke of Catherine as having “impeccable manners which she bent to the ministry of a courteous presence that revealed the divine spirit alive in her services of mercy and charity.” When describing her in this way, her biographers are describing a woman who reverenced those with whom she interacted as bearing within them the presence of God. While Catherine lived at Coolock both before and after the death of the Callaghans, she regularly travelled into the city to pursue her ministry of visiting the sick poor in their homes. On one such occasion, she discovered an elderly, somewhat demented woman named Mrs. Harper living in a hovel and much in need of care. Rather than try to see to her needs there, Catherine decided

to offer her a home with her. She brought her to Coolock where, because Catherine was now the only resident, there was plenty of room. But rather than move into one of the available bedrooms, Mrs. Harper chose to take up residence under the basement stairs near the kitchen. She was a nocturnal creature, unseen by day and coming out only at night when the rest of the household had gone to bed. During these night-time excursions she was in the habit of acquiring things that struck her fancy such as a candelabra or a silver tea pot. So every day began with the struggle to retrieve what had disappeared during the night. Catherine was usually the mediator of these encounters between Mrs. Harper and the household staff. One might think that someone thus cared for would be grateful but such was not the case. Mrs. Harper, in her dementia, developed a hatred for Catherine and she responded with vitriol to her kindnesses. Nevertheless, Catherine cared for her over a period of several years until her death.

It is noteworthy, I think, that though Catherine, in inviting Mrs. Harper to Coolock, undoubtedly had a notion of what the good life might consist of for her; her guest had a very different idea. Catherine’s reverence for Mrs. Harper is seen not only in providing for her and warding off

the anger of the household staff, but in respecting Mrs. Harper’s wishes about how she would live and her sense of what the good life was for her. There is a depth of hospitality here that allows the guest to be free.

In my Google search around this topic I discovered the web site of the Good Life Project. Here is how they describe themselves:

Her biographers ... describ[e] a woman who reverenced those with whom she interacted as bearing within them the presence of God.

“The Good Life Project” is a movement. A set of shared values.

A community. A creed, bundled with a voracious commitment to move beyond words and act. First, as a manifestation of your soul.

And then as a quest to have the adventure of a lifetime, and to leave the world around you changed.

It’s about building an extraordinary life, deeper relationships and meaningful bodies of work, businesses and movements. It’s about becoming a creator, a leader, a mentor, a giver, a doer. It’s about telling a story with your life that you’d want to read and share. (www.goodlifeproject.com) Creator, leader, mentor, giver, doer.

These are all words descriptive of Catherine. I’d like to focus for a minute on the word “mentor” and offer an example of Catherine in that role.

When the Sisters of Mercy were asked to establish a foundation in Limerick, Elizabeth Moore

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THE GOOD LIFE

What does it mean to live the good life?... three descriptions that stood out for me were: first, heartfelt connection, contribution and service; second, connection to source and self; and third, connection to ordinary moments ...

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was chosen as the leader. A year after the foundation was begun, Catherine wrote to Elizabeth a letter that ended, “I ought to say all that could animate and comfort you, for you are a credit and a comfort to me. Every week I hear all that is edifying and respectable of your Institution.”

Travel back with me in time one year earlier and you’ll understand the deep significance of this praise.

It was Catherine’s practice to stay with each new foundation for 30 days. During this time she helped the sisters to organize their living situation, establish ministries and welcome new members.

Meanwhile, the entire Institute prayed the Thirty Days Prayer for the success of the new venture.

When the 30 days were drawing to a close in Limerick, Catherine decided that she could not yet leave.

As she wrote to Frances Warde, “As to Sister Elizabeth, with all her readiness to undertake it, we never sent forward such a faint-hearted soldier, now that she is in the field.

She will do all interior and exterior work, but to meet on business, confer with the Bishop, conclude with a Sister, you might as well send the child that opens the door.

I am sure this will surprise you.

She gets white as death, and her eyes like fever. She is greatly liked, and when the alarms are over and few in the House, I expect all will go on well.” In the end Catherine stayed for three months and found it difficult to leave even then.

Young Elizabeth Moore, it seemed, was in need of a great deal of support and mentoring. Catherine found her a little stiff and perhaps severe in her role as superior. But there is great delicacy in her manner of conveying this observation. Rather that discuss it with Elizabeth in person, she wrapped it in a poem and left it for her to read after Catherine had gone.

My dearest Sister M. E. Don’t let crosses vex or tease: Try to meet all with peace & ease notice the faults of every Day but often in a playful way And when you seriously complain let it be known—to give you pain Attend to one thing at a time you’ve 15 hours from 6 to 9! be mild and sweet in all your ways now & again bestow some praise. avoid all solemn declaration all serious, close investigation Turn what you can into a jest and with few words dismiss the rest keep patience ever at your side: you’ll need it for a constant guide show fond affection every Day and, above all—Devoutly pray That God may bless the charge He’s given, and make of you, their guide to Heaven.

The parting advice of your ever affectionate MCM.

Austin Carroll, in the first volume of her Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy, tells us that Catherine’s confidence in Elizabeth was well rewarded, for when she finally seized her responsibilities as

superior, she did so with great faith and dedication. She lived for 30 years in Limerick, making 10 foundations during that time.

At her death, the obituary in the local newspaper described her as possessing “gentleness that never wounded, firmness that never relaxed when duty commanded resolution, subdued ardor that ever invigorated without exciting, grand hope that was never confounded, charity that embraced every evil and individual, thoughtful providence that in all the magnitude and multiplicity of labors and projects comprehended all things and never failed in anything, and noble majesty.” All this, after gentle and wise mentoring, from the young girl who was afraid to open the door.

One of the initiatives of the Good Life Project was to interview 29 people described as changemakers and solicit their response to the question, “What does it mean to you to live the good life?”

Some of the responses were: peacefulness, intentionality, integration, passion, gratitude, and authenticity. Again, all that could be applied to Catherine, but three descriptions that stood out for me were: first, heartfelt connection, contribution and service; second, connection to source and self; and third, connection to ordinary moments—rather than steamrolling over them. The

word connection is common to all these responses: connection to others that calls forth service (as in the story of Mrs. Harper); connection to God and to oneself, (as in the ardent desire to be united to God); and connection to the simple, ordinary moments of life.

This last connection is contained in Catherine’s teaching on the perfection of the ordinary action which calls upon us not to seek to do extraordinary things, but to do extraordinarily well the ordinary actions of every day. This is another expression of reverence, one that manifests itself in careful attention to each moment, each task as a gift from God to be honored, to be savored as revelatory. Remember that, in her poem to Elizabeth Moore, Catherine wrote “Attend to one thing at a time, you’ve 15 hours from 6 to 9.”

»» Bishop Michael O’Connor.

By way of example, I’d like to slip in here a homage to one of my heroes among the early sisters, a woman named Veronica McDarby.

In 1843, the pope created the new Diocese of Pittsburgh and appointed Michael O’Connor as its first bishop. O’Connor knew of the Sisters of Mercy because he had translated Catherine’s Rule from English to Latin during its approval process. He knew this was a community well-adapted to life in the new world. And so, on his way from Rome to Pittsburgh, he stopped in Carlow to solicit sisters to come with him

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THE GOOD LIFE

to build this new local church. Of the 36 members of the Carlow community, 35 volunteered. The one who demurred was Veronica.

She was, nevertheless, chosen for the mission and, in obedience, off she went with the others. Her task in the new world was to answer the door. While the others went out into the city establishing ministries, she stayed home and answered the door for 40 years. »» Sr. Frances X. Warde, R.S.M.

There are three things the poor prize more highly that gold though they cost the donor nothing ... these are the kind word, the gentle, compassionate look and the patient hearing of their sorrows.

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A pretty unknown life, you might think. Yet, when Veronica died, there was public mourning in the city because she had turned the answering of the door into an art form. She is described as being warm, witty and motherly, and with those characteristics she met everyone who rang the convent bell. Sometimes she could supply their need—food for the children or warm clothing, perhaps.

Sometimes all she could do was cheer them up but what she could do she did and she did it in a way that was heartwarming. She was the living embodiment of Catherine’s maxim, “There are three things the poor prize more highly than gold though they cost the donor nothing. Among these are the kind word, the gentle, compassionate look and the patient hearing of their sorrows.” Veronica took the menial task of responding to the bell and made of it an opportunity to witness the mercy of God to everyone who came to the door.

I am challenged by her to do the

same, to create the good life for others by making every encounter an opportunity to know God’s love and mercy.

This turning away from ease and comfort and personal preference; and seeking instead the dignity and well-being of the reverenced other, is what I am naming the good life as it applies to Catherine McAuley.

This turning away was evident also in those who joined her in her endeavors. Each woman who donned the garb of the Sisters of Mercy robed herself also in those requisites that Catherine named for her followers—an ardent desire to be united to God and to serve the poor. These were the garments they wore across Ireland and then to England and then around the world. In each place they went, they sought the good, not only of the individuals they served, but of the places where they settled.

Some ministries were common among them such as education and visitation of the sick poor. But beyond that, the new community sought to understand local needs and to find ways to meet them. In Catherine’s words, “Each place has its own peculiarities which must be yielded to when possible.” This attitude allowed for flexibility and adaptability to each circumstance.

Carlow is a good example. In every new foundation, the Sisters began a school for the poor. But in Carlow, the Presentation Sisters had already done that. What was

needed was a school for the middle class. After careful discernment between Catherine and Frances Warde, the local leader, it was decided to put aside community custom in order to meet local need. The fact that Catherine had consented to this arrangement made way for communities in America to establish academies, the profits from which supported the ministries to the poor even though there was controversy about it at first.

As the Sisters of Mercy spread across the United States, this movement of turning outward toward need took new forms as they met and engaged a variety of circumstances.

Sisters in Pittsburgh became aware of a need for the religious education of adults and engaged in that ministry.

Frances Warde ransomed at least one slave, a woman named Mary.

Visitation of the imprisoned was also a need and was undertaken by the sisters. This ministry continued until a long-unused law was invoked barring gentle women with religious purposes from jails. Prison ministry was also important in New York where Catherine Seton, daughter of Elizabeth Ann Seton, was called the Angel of the Tombs because of her work there. In New Orleans, when officials declined to provide female wardens for female prisoners, Theresa Austin Carroll took out a full-page ad in the paper

both chiding and daring them with the offer that the Sisters of Mercy would pay the salaries of female wardens if the prison officials would not. In Michigan, the need was for medical insurance for loggers, and the sisters met this need at the price of 25 cents a year.

The stories could go on and on.

Each new foundation beginning the traditional ministries of education and health care, coupled with attention to whatever local need presented itself.

When Catherine McAuley wrote that the spiritual and corporal works of mercy are the business of our lives, she laid out a path as broad and diverse as human need. And the response in each new situation was uniformly self-forgetful, and the sufferings which accompanied this “turned-outward life” were accepted with equanimity and even cheer. In Birr, where they endured a harsh winter in the Irish-midlands, they danced to warm themselves up before getting into bed between damp, cold sheets.

Kathleen Healy’s biography of Frances Warde relates a story that actually occurred 168 years ago today, September 23, 1846. When Bishop Quarter invited the sisters to Chicago, he turned over his own house to them. This is described in the book as an unpainted frame building, a shanty without a single living convenience. The bishop, repenting of this arrangement, found himself unable to sleep.

Kathleen writes, “He was tortured

Catherine’s teaching on the perfection of the ordinary action ... calls upon us not to seek to do extraordinary things, but to do extraordinarily well the ordinary actions of every day.

»» Sisters of Mercy with students.

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THE GOOD LIFE

»» Sister of Mercy with Union soldier.

with doubts and misgivings at having brought five young women to labor in so bleak a wilderness.”

The next morning, the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy, while he was talking to Frances Warde, he heard the laughter of the five sisters ringing through the house. “I am contented,” he said to Mother Frances. “Such laughter could never come from the dissatisfied.”

Nothing, it seems, overcame the gladness of the call to serve God’s people.

As I prepared for this presentation, my reflections were drawn toward the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas’ most recent statement of how we will engage the world and be turned toward the world.

This Declaration was adopted in 2011.

At the heart of this document is the question: “God of Mercy, of Wisdom and Mystery, where do we need to be led now to come to both a deeper response to our Critical Concerns and a radical embrace of our identity?”

Invoking the question of our identity takes us right back to the beginning, to Catherine’s statement of what is required of one who would be a Sister of Mercy—“an ardent desire to be united to God and to serve the poor.”

Down through the 186 years since the opening of the House of Mercy on Baggot Street, an event

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the Mercy world commemorates tomorrow, that rhythmic call reminds of us how Catherine McAuley experienced what we are calling the good life. It is the rhythm that moved her life and it is to this same rhythm that she invites all of us who follow in her path.

Yesterday, a quotation from Catherine appeared in the evening prayer of the Sisters of Mercy.

“Jesus, implant your love in my heart. It is all I desire in this world or in the next.”

This seemed to me a final gift as I was finishing up this presentation; Catherine reminding me, once again, of the ardency of her desire to be united to God, knowing full well that the cost of that love is that she and her mercy would be danced out across the aching world.

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THE GOOD LIFE

Pursuits of Happiness from Aristotle to America, Dr. Larry Jackson

We can have a variety of perspectives ... And yet, that variety... lead[s] back to certain commonalities, certain things that we share in common as human beings.

Walt Whitman ... in his wonderful 1871 essay, Democratic Vistas ... talks about personality and solidarity, the diversity of our viewpoints and ideas and our commonality as people.

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Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to be here. I had the great pleasure of meeting President Foley nearly a year ago. He spoke with so much enthusiasm about this community, about all of you students and faculty here, and I’m very pleased to see that everything he said about you is true. This is a wonderful community. I’ve been impressed by the various insights that I’ve heard today and the wisdom shared with me. And I feel a little guilty because I feel that I’m learning a lot more than I’m teaching.

I think that this speaker series really embodies the best of what a liberal arts education should be.

The idea that you explore common themes and important issues such as The Good Life, or your previous campus discussions on citizenship and hospitality—two related topics that matter immensely.

You might be thinking right now, come on, Jackson, there’s war in the Middle East, there’s disease in West Africa, what do you mean The Good Life is an important topic? Well, all of those kinds of issues, which change from day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year all leap back to these same profound questions. How

should we live? How should we be with one another? How should we regard one another?

And I think that this speaker series really allows you to see that we can have a variety of perspectives on these questions. And yet, that variety, that diversity of perspectives can only lead back to certain commonalities, certain things that we share as human beings.

And I think that that really embodies not only the best of an academic community like Mount Aloysius College or New York University, but it really also embodies the very best of a democratic society as well—a place where we can really celebrate a diversity of views and opinions and recognize a certain amount of, you might say, human solidarity.

That’s how Walt Whitman put it in his wonderful essay from 1888, Democratic Vistas, where he talks about personality and solidarity, the diversity of our viewpoints and ideas and our commonality as people.

So, The Good Life. What is the good life? Now, this is a very old question in the history of philosophy. Western philosophy, as we know, goes back to ancient Athens about 2,500 years ago.

We’ve all heard the names Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Yes, it was Aristotle who said philosophy begins in wonder. Socrates said it

too, apparently.

And one of the oldest questions that philosophers have been asking is the question of what the good life is. And so it’s an important issue for me as someone who reads a lot of philosophy and has a degree in philosophy. But every time I hear the phrase “the good life,” I think of this guy in the picture on the screen behind me. That’s my dad, Art Jackson. And he’s retired now, but when he was 18 he went to Vietnam. He’s a decorated Vietnam veteran. He came back and he was a cop in Philly for nearly 20 years.

And when he left the police department, he continued to work several jobs, sometimes more than one at a time. He worked double shifts as a security guard and delivered bread at 4:00 in the morning so that I could have food, I could have clothes, I could have shelter. And probably more important than all of those things in his eyes, so that I could have an education.

I have an image of my father on a rare day off, sitting with his feet up, a cold beverage in his hand, watching the Phillies. He would turn to me in those moments and say, “Larry, this is the good life.” And what he meant by that was an experience of serenity or tranquility. All of his basic needs were being met. The mortgage check was paid. We had food, we

had shelter, we had clothes. We had everything that we needed.

And as a result of that, he could really enjoy some leisure. Now, leisure is a very important thing.

We all need to get some rest. But it’s especially sweet or it’s especially important when you live the kind of hard life that he was living in those years, working as hard as he did.

There’s a view of the world that goes with this, I think. The view is that the world can be a very difficult place. We have pushy bosses, we wrestle with bill collectors, there are a lot of stresses and worries out there in the world. And it can be very nice to retreat from the world and to enjoy the serenity of being in a private place where we don’t have to deal with all of those things. And as a result, we’re free of suffering, free of anxiety, free of worry, free of pain. So that’s the picture of the good life that I get from my father, that I associate with my childhood.

I have an image of my father ... his feet up, a cold beverage in hand, watching the Phillies.

He would turn to me in those moments and say ... “This is the good life.” And what he meant by that was an experience of serenity or tranquility.

All of his basic needs were being met. ... We had everything that we needed.

But of course, no sooner do I think of that then I think of this lady on the screen. That’s my mom, Jackie Jackson. And yes, that really is her name. And I told her I was going to try to find an embarrassing picture to use, so that’s why her eyes are closed here. My mother is still working; she actually just announced her pending retirement yesterday. She still works full -time. She has always worked very hard. And in addition to working

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THE GOOD LIFE

full-time, she raised me, which I can assure you was no easy task.

[My mother] said ... “I was never so happy as in those moments when I was doing something that I thought was ... of value, where I was giving something of myself.”

Here, too, there is a view of the world.

The world is good, but it’s a little imperfect.

And the way you fix things, the way you improve things is by engaging locally with your community.

And on top of that, when her father had a debilitating stroke and he needed to be cared for, we took him in. And she took care of him for four years, the last four years of his life. He was completely paralyzed on one side of his body.

He needed a lot of care. And after he died and his sister got sick, we took her in and my mother took care of her for the last four years of her life.

And as if all of that wasn’t enough, on Thursday nights you’d find my mother at St. Phillip Neri, the local Catholic parish, running church bingo, and on Sundays you’d find her after Mass running the church breakfast. And every summer she’d run the church carnival. She probably put in 20, 30, 40 hours a week just doing these volunteer activities.

And I asked her recently, “Mom, why did you do that? That was crazy, you could have been spending that time just enjoying yourself, kicking back, relaxing, or you could have been doing something that would have allowed you to make more money.” She said, “Larry, I was never so happy as in those moments when I was doing something that I thought was important, something that I thought was of value, where I was giving something of myself.” And then she went on to tell me a story,

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that she actually had lied about her age when she was a teenager, not for the reasons that most teenagers lie about their age. She wasn’t trying to get into a movie or a bar or anything. She lied about her age so that she could volunteer at the local hospital because she was too young to do it.

So the vision of the good life that I have for my mother is a picture of service or devotion, and this is characterized by giving, a sense of selflessness. Nothing that goes along with this is about making money. It’s not about glory. It’s not about being popular. It’s about giving for the sake of giving, and yet at the same time it can be enjoyable. It’s a kind of joyful labor.

Anyone who knows me well can tell you that if I have to sweep a floor or cook something, I’m miserable. You don’t want to be around me. I’m going to be really cranky. And yet, I can see my mother and the other women that she volunteered with, and there was a great sense of joy in what they were doing. There was also a sense of humility. There was a sense of belonging to something bigger, of serving something greater than themselves.

And here, too, there is a view of the world. The world is good, but it’s a little imperfect. It requires some housekeeping. And the way you fix things, the way you improve

things is by engaging locally with your community. You don’t go off to Washington and pass legislation.

Do they still pass legislation in Washington? You don’t change the world all at once. You go out and you serve your neighbor one by one. It’s a local experience, almost an intimate experience, face-toface.

But I have one final picture of the good life which comes from my high school—the Perkiomen School which had about 200 students. It was a really special place. We were expected to do well in our classes, of course, as students are at any school, but that was never enough.

In addition to doing well in our classes, we had to play sports, we had to be on the debate team, we had to do theatre, we had to do music, we had to do art, and we were expected to do well in all of those areas. And so the picture of the good life that I saw in that very small community was one of a flourishing of excellence. It was the idea that the way to live well is to do well.

And, according to this picture you distinguish yourself but always within the community. It’s only among your peers that you can really distinguish yourself, that you can really stand out. Be yourself. Be unique, but you need a community of people to support you. And so there was always the

sense of both pride and belonging, of standing out, of being special in some way, and yet being part of this small, very special community.

According to this picture, all areas of life are important. There might be some that are more important than others. Our studies were, of course, the most important aspect.

But as I said, it was not enough to be a bookworm. You also had to be a good athlete, you also had to be a musician. You at least had to try.

You had to take the risk of doing those things. And finally, the view of the world here is that the world is a challenge to be faced, that with this flourishing of excellence you can go out into the world and you can do something really good.

So, those are three pictures that I have of the good life; a picture of serenity or tranquility, a picture of service or devotion, and finally, a picture of a flourishing of excellence. Now, it just so happens—and I swear to you this is just a coincidence—that those are basically the three major theories of the good life in the history of western philosophy going back 2,500 years. What I’d like to do now is to connect those pictures to the three theories. I want to talk a little bit about what three different philosophers have said about the good life by giving you a sketch of their thought.

One final picture of the good life ... comes from my high school ... In addition to doing well in our classes, we had to play sports, we had to be on the debate team, we had to do theatre, we had to do music, we had to do art, and we were expected to do well in all of those areas.

The picture of the good life that I saw in that very small community was one of a flourishing of excellence. It was the idea that the way to live well is to do well.

After that, I’d like to offer four criteria for the good life. These

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THE GOOD LIFE

So those are three pictures that I have of the good life; a picture of serenity or tranquility, a picture of service or devotion, and finally, a picture of a flourishing of excellence.

Now, it just so happens ... that those are basically the three major theories of the good life in the history of western philosophy going back 2,500 years.

are standards. These are basic standards that I think any theory of the good life has to meet. And we’re going to test each of these theories.

We’re going to assess them and see if any of them are right or if any of them are wrong. And then finally, I want to say a little something about the relevance of all of this to us, to people who live in the United States in the 21st century. I want to talk a little bit about the good life in America.

So, Part Two: Philosophers on The Good Life. So our first philosopher is Epicurus. Epicurus lived about 2,400 years ago. He lived about 400 years before Jesus, and he lived in an age which was known as the Hellenistic Age—right after the death of Alexander the Great.

And after Alexander’s death, the great empire that he had built was divided in three.

And I think of it as being a time in history not unlike our own. If you’re as old as I am, you know that about 25 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the world became a little more chaotic. It was no longer always clear who was in charge, who was running things. And what we’re dealing with in the world today is the resulting chaos.

It’s the fallout from not having the old order of two mighty superpowers running everything.

Well, that’s what the Hellenistic Age was like. Once the Greek

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empire was split into three, there was a sense that the world was much more chaotic. And as a result, philosophers like Epicurus tended to retreat into private life, to get away from the world. The world is a messy, complex place.

That’s not where we want to be.

And so the vision of the good life that Epicurus has is known as ataraxia. There actually is an English word ataraxia, as well.

And if you know anything about ancient Greek, you know that the a at the beginning of a word means not or un. It’s the negation of something. So the word anarchy, for instance, means without rule or without a ruler. Well, this word means without pain or without disturbance or anxiety, and it’s usually translated as tranquility or serenity.

Epicurus actually wrote quite a bit in his day, but not many of those writings survive. One of the writings that we do have is known as the Letter to Menoeceus. And in this letter, Epicurus basically lays out his whole philosophy; he says that pleasure is the most important thing that we can seek. Everything that we do in life is about pleasure.

It is the alpha and the omega of a happy life. Sometimes that gets translated as a blessed life as well.

But here’s the thing. Epicurus has a very strange definition of pleasure. It’s not the definition that I would give of pleasure. His definition of pleasure is the state

wherein the body is free from pain and the mind is free from anxiety.

So pleasure is simply understood as the absence of pain. It’s nothing more than that, according to Epicurus. That strikes me as a pretty weak definition of what pleasure is. Epicurus goes on to say that when we do not suffer pain, we no longer need pleasure.

Pleasure is just the absence of pain.

Now, Epicurus says that happiness is being free from pain in the body and anxiety in the mind. So how do we do that? Well, there are different ways of achieving that state. For the body, the way we become pain-free is to satisfy only the most basic needs, the simplest of all needs, the most natural of all needs. And that means we should avoid any kind of complex pleasures, or any pleasures that might eventually lead to pain.

It’s important for Epicurus to be self-sufficient.

And if your pleasures are too complicated, if you like luxurious things, if you like really rich food, you might became too dependent on it. You might start to need it. Epicurus says give up the rich food, give up the luxury, live simply, eat bread and water. That’s his definition of pleasure.

When it comes to the mind, the way we free ourselves from anxiety, according to Epicurus, is through study. I know not everybody in this room shares that

view, that studying is the way to get rid of anxiety. It’s usually the cause of it; right? Through study and meditation two things will happen, according to Epicurus.

The first thing that will happen is you realize pain isn’t such a bad thing. Pain should be avoided, but all pains are temporary, and no pain is so great that you can’t bear it. So that’s one way to get rid of anxiety. You stop being afraid of pain because you realize pain is no big deal.

The other benefit of study and meditation is that you stop fearing death and the gods. Now, if you’ve read your Greek mythology, you know that the gods in Greek mythology are constantly toying with humans. They play games with us. They’re not loving, they’re not benevolent, they’re not doing good things for us. Epicurus says all of that is simply wrong. Spend a little time thinking about the gods, meditating about the gods, and you realize that is not the case. The gods are not toying with us.

He also says that there’s no reason to fear death. And this is probably Epicurus’ most famous line. It’s a clever line, though I think it’s dead wrong. Epicurus says, “Death is nothing to us; when we are, it is not; when it is, we are not.” So if you study and you meditate on that thought long enough, you won’t be afraid of death.

»» Epicurus.

And so the vision of the good life that Epicurus has is known as ataraxia... mean[ing] without pain... disturbance or anxiety, and it’s usually translated as tranquility or serenity.

Epicurus ... says that pleasure is the most important thing that we can seek ... [but] pleasure...simply understood as the absence of pain.

So that’s Epicurus’ philosophy.

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THE GOOD LIFE

»» Saint Augustine.

For Augustine, the vision of the good life is characterized by caritas ... the origin of our word charity ... [But it] also means love ... an unconditional, giving love.

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It’s the pursuit of pleasure. But pleasure is merely the absence of pain, and we pursue this by satisfying only the most basic pleasures, by avoiding complex pleasures, by avoiding pleasures that will lead to pain in the long run, and we do this by studying and meditating and coming to a state of clarity about death and the gods.

We’re going to have a very different view from Saint Augustine. This is our second philosopher on the good life.

Augustine lived about 400 years after Jesus. He was a major figure in the history of the Catholic church, and a major figure also in the history of philosophy. Among his works you’ll find all sorts of theological writings. The early centuries of the Catholic church were really a time of argument, a time of contesting ideas about God, about Jesus. And Augustine loved to get involved in these arguments, and a lot of his writings are about that.

But he also wrote two very important philosophical texts.

The first is The Confessions, which I think is one of the most beautiful, most sublime works in the history of literature. And if you haven’t read it, I urge you to go out and read it as quickly as you can. His other major philosophical text was City of God Against the Pagans, which took him 13 years to write, and was

his response to the presence of evil in the world.

For Augustine, the vision of the good life is characterized by caritas. Caritas is a Latin word. It’s the origin of our word charity. But it doesn’t simply mean writing out a check or pouring a bucket of ice water over your head. All of that’s very good, but that’s not the kind of charity that Augustine has in mind.

Caritas also means love. And again, not romantic love, not the love that you might have—that I have for coffee, for instance, but rather an unconditional, giving love. It’s selfless. That’s caritas.

And Augustine defines this love as doing good in accordance with God’s will. So the will is a very important part of all of this. We have to turn our will towards God, and the will has always to be subsident, beneath God. Now, to really understand what this means, you have to know something about Augustine’s view of the universe. Augustine thought that the universe had a highly structured order. But unlike a scientist, Augustine thought that what gave the universe its structure and its order was love. Call this the “great chain of being.” The great chain of being is an old philosophical idea and actually predates Christianity. But Augustine was, I think, the first to apply it to Christianity. He takes it

from the Greeks and he applies it to Christian thought.

rocks and grains of sand, and all other inanimate stuff.

And the great chain of being is simply the idea that everything that exists, exists on this continuum. It’s a hierarchy, a continuum. At the top you have a highest being and at the bottom you have a lowest being, and everything has a place in between. So for Augustine, the highest being is, of course, God. In the beginning there only was God and nothingness. Ex nihilo, God created all that there is. So God is the supreme being, the highest being.

And according to Augustine, God created all of it, and God loves all of it, even rats and cockroaches.

It’s all good. It might not be convenient for us when we see a cockroach in our kitchen. It might not be convenient for us when a rat runs in our way while we’re on the subway, but those are all evidence of God’s creation. They’re all part of God’s creation, and God has some purpose for them, some plan.

And as long as we can appreciate that, as long as we can see evidence of God’s love in everything—see God’s plan—then we’re living in accordance with God’s will.

And among the things that God created are the angels, who are lower than God. And then he created us. We’re lower than the angels. We have freedom, we have consciousness, we have motion, but we have our problems, our mistakes and flaws, as well.

Beneath humans, you’ll find my cat Perry, your dog, various animals.

Animals can move around. They seem to respond to their environment. They have a little bit of intelligence, but not as much as humans.

Beneath the animals you’ll find the insects, bees, spiders, all of those things are there. Again, they can move freely, but they don’t seem as smart as animals. Under insects, you’ll find plants. Plants are alive, but they really don’t do much.

And under the plants, you’ll find

Here’s an example. You take gold.

You look at gold and you say gold is good. God created gold. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it a wonderful example of the power and the benevolence of God? That’s fine.

Then you look at gold and you say I want all the gold for myself. I want all the money. I want all the power. I want this gold to be able to glorify myself and ratify my ego and rule over others. Then you’re sinning because then you’re being greedy. Augustine asks, do you love the earth? Then you will be the earth, meaning you’ll be the corpse under the ground. But do you love God? Then you will be with God. Here’s a really beautiful quote from The Confessions. Augustine is

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THE GOOD LIFE

Augustine goes so far as to say we actually cannot love God unless we love our neighbors...

seeking God and he’s saying where is God? I put my question to the earth, and it replied, I am not he, and to all things which stood around the portals of my flesh, I said, tell me of my God. You are not he, but tell me something of him.

Here’s the really important part.

Then they lifted up their mighty voices and cried, he made us. My questioning was my attentive spirit, and their reply, their beauty.

So as long as you see things of the Earth and of the world in that way, as evidence of God’s power and love and creation, you are living in accordance with God’s will.

The great chain of being runs from the top down...

Augustine, when talking about our neighbors and how we love our neighbors adds this horizontal axis. He turns it into a cross, that to love God ... to turn upwards to God, you have to turn to your neighbor, you have to turn sideways ...

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How else can you love God? I don’t think that’s an easy question to answer. For Augustine, it’s by loving your neighbor. Augustine goes so far as to say we actually cannot love God unless we love our neighbors. Our neighbors are those who are right here, all around us. They live in the same time as us, they live in the same world as us. And so, it’s by loving them and serving them that we are best able to love and serve God. Now, who is my neighbor?

Everyone. Everyone that you ever meet is your neighbor, according to Augustine.

And I hope you’re seeing that Augustine actually adds another axis to the great chain of being.

The great chain of being runs vertically from the top down. And Augustine, when talking about our neighbors and how we love our neighbors, adds a horizontal axis.

He turns it into a cross, that to love God, to look upwards, to turn upwards to God, you have to turn to your neighbor, you have to turn sideways. It’s only through loving and serving them, that you’re able to love and serve God. Now, according to this view, the greatest possible sin is pride. It’s the refusal to serve God. It’s the refusal to serve your neighbor. The greatest virtue then is humility and willingness to serve.

So that’s our second theory of the good life, which comes from Augustine. So we’ve got Epicurus with serenity or tranquility, the absence of pain, and we now have Augustine with love and charity and service and devotion to our neighbors. We’re going to have a very different theory of the good life now from Aristotle.

Aristotle is one of the big three of philosophers. About 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece, there was a very strange guy named Socrates who went around talking to people and asking them questions.

Socrates had a bunch of fans who hung out and listened to everything he said.

Socrates never wrote anything himself, but among his most famous fans was Plato. Plato wrote many beautiful dialogues

based on the conversations of Socrates. And Plato’s student was Aristotle.

Aristotle was also the teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle wrote probably some 200 books, on just about every subject under the sun. He wrote about oceans, he wrote about constitutions, he wrote about history, he wrote about literature, he wrote about the theater, he wrote about justice ... he wrote about politics ... just about every subject that was known to the ancient Greeks in his time.

But my favorite work by Aristotle, and probably his most important, is a series of lectures that he gave in ancient Athens called The Nicomachean Ethics. What does that mean, Nicomachean Ethics?

Nicomachus was the name of Aristotle’s father, and also of his son. And the theory is that the series of lectures that he gave in ancient Athens was actually dedicated to either his father or son, hence Nicomachean Ethics.

This word ethics comes from the Greek word ethika, which means character. So, ethics for Aristotle is not going to be a series of rules.

Aristotle is not going to say, here is what you must do, here is what you must never do. Aristotle is going to talk about different ways that we can develop our character as human beings. His word for the good life is eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia is a word that was

associated with several different ancient Greek philosophers, but most of all with Aristotle. And it’s translated in a variety of ways, as happiness, prosperity, blessedness, success. My favorite definition of this word though is to flourish.

The eu- at the beginning of Eudaimonia means good or well.

And your daimon was kind of a guardian angel. It’s a little deity that supposedly lived over your shoulder. You could never see it because every time you turned around, it swiveled behind you.

That meant that your god is looking out for you, your guardian angel, your daimon is looking out for you. You’re living well as a result. This was kind of a myth that the ancient Greeks had.

Now, the way we flourish or live a happy life according to Aristotle is through virtue, actually through a series of virtues. Virtues are acquired qualities of excellence that enable us to achieve various goods.

So, to develop virtues is to become very good at certain things. And among the virtues that Aristotle lists are courage, fair-mindedness, friendliness, generosity, modesty, patience, self-respect, truthfulness, wittiness, and my personal favorite, righteous indignation.

Now, these are all forms of excellence. These are all ways of doing things well in life. And every virtue has two vices, two opposite extremes that are really

Now, according to this view, the greatest possible sin is pride.

It’s the refusal to serve God. It’s the refusal to serve your neighbor.

The greatest virtue then is humility and willingness to serve.

This word ethics comes from the Greek word ethika, which means character. So ethics for Aristotle, is not going to be a series of rules...

Aristotle is going to talk about different ways that we can develop our character as human beings.

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»» Aristotle.

Now, the way we flourish or live a happy life according to Aristotle is through virtue, actually through a series of virtues. Virtues are acquired qualities of excellence that enable us to achieve various goods.

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bad. So if you take courage, for instance, courage is a virtue. We would ordinarily think that the vice that goes along with the virtue of courage would be cowardice.

That’s only one of the vices. The other vice might be having too much bluster, being reckless, going into situations and taking risks that you shouldn’t take. So every one of these virtues functions in that way.

For every one of these virtues there are two extremes which are vices.

All of these virtues fall into two categories. There are virtues of character—things like courage, generosity and modesty. And there are virtues of intellect— such as truthfulness, fair-mindedness, good judgment, and wisdom.

And for Aristotle, it’s these virtues of the intellect which are the highest virtues. They’re the most important virtues. But the only way to be truly virtuous and to live a happy life is to possess all of these virtues. It’s not enough to have just one or two. It’s not enough just to be smart. You have to be courageous as well. You have to be generous, you have to be modest.

So how do you acquire these virtues? We’re not born with them. We don’t just develop them naturally. We acquire them through education and through other shared practices. What do we mean by other shared practices?

Anybody who was in the theology group this morning might be

aware of all of this. Things like sports, things like music lessons, all the stuff that you do while you’re growing up and getting an education is meant to instill in us certain virtues, to teach us how to have discipline, to work hard, and to have self-respect. And we practice these virtues as well.

You don’t just learn them. It’s not as simple as that. They require a lot of work, a lot of exercise and practice. And they also require— which people usually don’t like to hear—obedience to authority.

Who wants that? But you have to listen to your teachers and your coaches and your professors.

It’s through that kind of obedience that you are able to learn these various virtues. And it always has to happen in the midst of community, according to Aristotle.

It’s in a community where we have duties and obligations, where there are certain expectations for us, where we have standards of excellence and where we have rewards and punishments.

So I always think of Aristotle’s ethics as really being a great example of a college campus or an academic community where you do have certain duties and obligations. You have to go to class, you have to do your homework.

We have standards of excellence.

We have various ways of honoring people who do all of those things especially well, and they get various

rewards for it. Every now and then somebody gets recognized.

Now, this sounds pretty heavy, right, duties and obligations and standards of excellence?

But another important point for Aristotle is that it must be enjoyable. We must actually enjoy doing all of these things. We have to enjoy having all of these virtues and practicing these virtues as well.

So those are our three theories of the good life. Now, you’ll see that I’ve taken the three pictures that I began with and I’ve fleshed them out a little. I’ve given you a more elaborate argument defending each of them. The pictures and the theories aren’t exactly the same, but they’re similar enough.

So we have Epicurus, serenity or tranquility, the absence of pain. We have Augustine, caritas, love, charity. And now we have Aristotle, flourishing through excellence.

What I’d like to do now is to assess these theories. I want to see if any one of these theories can really provide us with an answer to what the good life is, and then I want to convince you that I know what the good life is.

So, criteria. When we use the word criteria in philosophy, we mean it the way it’s always used in everyday language. You go to class, you get

a syllabus. Your professor says, okay, the criteria for success in this class are the following: you must show up, you must be on time, you must have done the reading, you must do all of the assignments, and you must contribute to class discussion. Those are criteria.

They’re standards that you have to meet. So these are going to be the standards that our theories of the good life are going to have to meet.

So here’s our first criterion: the good life must be positive. Now, this doesn’t mean that it must be happy. This doesn’t mean that it must be optimistic. When philosophers talk about negative and positive concepts or negative and positive definitions, we mean this: a negative definition or a negative concept tells us what something is not. If you say freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, you’ve given me a negative definition of freedom, a negative concept. You told me what freedom is not. Freedom is the lack of tyranny, or freedom is not spending the night in jail.

You’ve told me what freedom is not. It’s a negative definition, a negative concept.

These virtues fall into two categories... virtues of character, things like courage, generosity and modesty, and ... virtues of intellect, truthfulness, fair -mindedness, good judgment, wisdom... for Aristotle ... these virtues of the intellect ... are the highest virtues ... [and] the only way to be truly virtuous ... to live a happy life is to possess all of these virtues.

Now, if you say to me freedom is being among one’s peers and, through respectful disagreement and discussion, shaping the course of destiny and the future of your society, you’ve given me a positive definition of freedom.

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So how do you acquire these virtues? We’re not born with them.

We don’t just develop them naturally.

We acquire them through education and through other shared practices...

They require a lot of work ... [and] always ... happen in the midst of community ... where we have duties and obligations, where there are certain expectations for us, where we have standards of excellence.

Marriage. If you say marriage is just the absence of dating and the absence of solitude, you haven’t actually told me what marriage is.

A positive definition of marriage would be two people committing to spend their lives together, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and health. That’s a positive definition.

So our definition of the good life must also be positive. We must be able to say what it is. So let’s run through each of those theories.

Epicurus. Positive definition or not? What do you think? Let’s put it to a vote. Yes, Epicurus gives a negative definition. Epicurus only tells us what the good life is not. The good life is not painful.

The good life is not filled with anxiety. But he never actually tells us what the good life is. So by this criterion, Epicurus fails.

How about Augustine? Does he give us a definition of what the good life is as a positive concept?

What do you think? Caritas, love, charity, serving your neighbors, doing good in accordance with God’s will? Yes, Augustine gives a very positive definition of what the good life is. Augustine has a very robust definition of what the good life is.

How about Aristotle? Positive?

Negative? To flourish through excellence. What do you think?

Yes, positive definition. So according to this criterion, we

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have two philosophers who are able to give us a positive definition of the good life—Augustine and Aristotle. Poor Epicurus is left out in the cold here. He only has a negative definition of the good life, so he fails here. But he’s not voted off the island just yet.

Criterion two: the good life must be social. We are social beings.

Aristotle calls us bios politikos.

That means political beings. That means that we cooperate, we work in cooperation with others. We exist in families, communities, societies, among friends, coworkers and fellow citizens. We have a variety of different types of relationships with different types of people.

And any theory of the good life, I want to convince you, has to take into account a variety of social relationships. It has to take into account the various social dimensions of our lives. It has to be able to say, well, this is what the good life looks like when we’re in a family, this is what the good life looks like when we’re with our community, this is what the good life looks like when we’re with our friends.

So our question then is going to be, are these theories of the good life social or are they solo?

So Epicurus. What do you think?

Is he a social philosopher or is he a solo philosopher?

Solo, exactly. It’s tranquility, it’s serenity, it’s going off and studying and meditating. In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus does say, ah, it’s good to have a friend, but he doesn’t say it’s necessary to have a friend. And it’s not clear to me how you could ever build any kind of relationship on the basis of tranquility or serenity. I like to kick back as much as anybody. I like to ease up and relax, but that’s not a basis for any kind of relationship.

Relationships might include feelings.

We care about our friends, we love our significant others, we love our parents, we feel respect for our fellow citizens.

Those are all good feelings to have, but they’re not actually the basis for a relationship. The basis for a relationship of any kind is having common practices, common interests, shared activities, plans, and goals that you formulate together. Epicurus doesn’t have any of that, so he’s solo. He fails on criterion two.

Augustine. You’re thinking oh, Augustine, he’s social, right, he talks about our neighbors and stuff, loving our neighbors. Yes, he’s definitely more social in his theory of the good life than Epicurus.

But I’m not entirely satisfied with Augustine on this count, and here’s why. Because Augustine talks about loving everyone equally in this way. And I think that that’s a wonderful ideal, but I also think

that it’s important to love your child more than your neighbor, for instance.

So I think that Augustine doesn’t quite give us a variety of social relationships. He only really gives us one kind of social relationship.

An important one, one I admire very much, but I think his philosophy doesn’t really give us the means to think about the other types of social relationships that are important for us.

And in fact, to bolster my claim here, I will simply note that in The Confessions, in one chapter Augustine tells us of the death of both his son and his mother, and he refuses to mourn. He doesn’t mourn their deaths at all. They don’t have a special place for him.

In fact, Augustine never even tells us the name of his mother or of his son. So Augustine tends to reduce all relationships to just one level.

We are social beings.

Aristotle calls us bios politikos ...

That means that we cooperate ... with others. We exist in families, communities, societies, among friends, coworkers and fellow citizens ... any theory of the good life ... has to take into account a variety of social relationships.

Another problem with Augustine on the social question, for which other Christian thinkers have criticized him, is that he sometimes reduces other people to opportunities. You’re my neighbor, you’re an opportunity to get closer to God—rather than seeing them as true individuals.

Okay. Aristotle. I’m making him mostly social because he does give us a variety of virtues. He gives us a variety of situations in which we can acquire those virtues and

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[A] problem with Augustine for which other Christian thinkers have criticized him, is that he sometimes reduces other people to opportunities. You’re my neighbor, you’re an opportunity to get closer to God—rather than seeing them as true individuals.

in which we can practice those virtues. I don’t think Aristotle is quite perfect, though, because he delivered these lectures in ancient Greece among people who were very much like him. They shared his values, they shared his ideas, they shared his opinion. They were all men, and they all owned property. They left their wives and the slaves at home.

And I think it can be very difficult to apply the types of ethics that Aristotle talks about in that sort of small community to a vast and diverse society like the United States. I think that’s why Aristotle’s philosophy works very well as a way of understanding education, but not very well as a way of understanding society as a whole.

So Epicurus fails. Augustine and Aristotle do a little better, but they’re not great on this criterion.

Criterion three: the good life must be varied. So not only are we all different from one another, but the circumstances of our lives will change over time. So the good life can’t be that you’re 25, you have a Maserati and you’re independently wealthy, because eventually you’re going to turn 26 and the Maserati is going to break down and the stock market is going to crash and that’s going to be the end of your being independently wealthy. So in life we know joy and sorrow, we know prosperity, and want. We’ve all known youth. Hopefully, we’ll

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all know old age. So the good life has to take into account a variety of circumstances that we live throughout our lives.

So what do you think? Epicurus, varied life or not? The answer is not. For Epicurus it’s just tranquility, serenity. He doesn’t really give us any variation.

How about Augustine? Varied life? What do you think? Yes, I think it’s pretty varied. With these three, Augustine is up there.

Augustine does imagine loving our neighbors in a variety of situations and contexts.

How about Aristotle? Varied life or not? I think a pretty varied life, actually, with different virtues that we apply to very different circumstances in our lives.

So on this criterion, again, poor Epicurus. He’s such a slacker.

He fails again. Augustine and Aristotle do better. So we have positive, social, varied. Those are our first three criteria.

Criterion four: the good life must be sustainable. You might really love to work out at the gym. It’s a great experience. It’s a lot of fun. It makes you feel really good. It can’t be your life, though, because you can’t work out all the time; right?

You’re at the club, you’re looking great, you’re wearing your favorite outfit, it’s your birthday, your jam is playing, everybody loves your

dance moves, everybody’s smiling at you, everything you do is right.

That’s a happy moment. It’s not the good life, though, because eventually you’re going to get tired of the song, you’re going to want to turn the music down, you’re going to want to be alone, you’re going to want to experience some solitude, you’re going to want to be able to actually have a conversation, not just have the loud music.

So the good life has to be sustainable. It can’t just be a good moment or the same good moment again and again—a kind of reverse of Groundhog Day. And by sustainable, I mean you have to take into account human needs and limitations as well. So Epicurus. What do you think, sustainable or not sustainable?

Yeah, totally unsustainable. So he gets six surfers doing a headstand.

It’s totally unsustainable. There’s no way you can live a whole life of tranquility and serenity, being free of pain and anxiety. I think it would get really boring if you did, quite honestly.

How about Augustine?

Sustainable? What do you think?

I’m of two minds here, so I’m going to split the difference and say he’s partly sustainable. But I think for some people he most certainly is, and I’ve known people who have lived this kind of life. I think for most people, probably not. I think

that it’s good to have moments of charity and love the way Augustine describes them, but I don’t know that most people can really live that way all the time.

How about Aristotle—sustainable or unsustainable? I think he’s mostly sustainable. I think so because he talks about several different virtues and he talks about enjoyment. I think for the most part what Aristotle describes is sustainable.

So there are our four criteria.

We’ve had positive, social, varied, and sustainable.

But now, the phrase pursuits of happiness. And you all know the line. It is the line that is probably best known from our Declaration of Independence—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Beautiful, beautiful statement, and a statement that’s been echoed, by the way, in almost every state constitution as well, that we have the right to pursue happiness.

Unfortunately, when Thomas Jefferson was writing that beautiful line he didn’t add a little footnote— Oh, and by the way, by the pursuit of happiness, I mean the following ... . So what on Earth did he mean?

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The Declaration of Independence involved a group of people ... who said we have a right not only to determine the course of our own lives as individuals, but together to work to create a new society ... to shape the future of our world.

What is the pursuit of happiness, and why is it a right that cannot be taken away from us?

Well, we know that something strange happened there. We know that Thomas Jefferson was familiar with all of these philosophers. In one of his letters from 1819, he actually says “I’m an Epicurean.

I consider Epicurus’ philosophy to contain everything rational in the world of philosophy.” So there you have it. Jefferson must have been an Epicurean. The pursuit of happiness is simply the right to have serenity and tranquility in life. There we go.

Yet, in 1813, in another one of his letters, Jefferson wrote that he considered the teachings of Jesus to be the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which have ever been offered to man.

And listen to what he says about those teachings. Listen to how he describes them. I find this really exciting: they are more pure and perfect than the most correct of the philosophers.

I’m going to suggest something which is contrary to Jefferson’s claims ... that there was nothing original in The Declaration of Independence.

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So the teachings of Jesus are even better than Epicurus. And here’s why—because they teach us about universal philanthropy.

Now, what’s philanthropy a word for?

For charity, for giving, for loving your fellow man; right? And it’s not just philanthropy or love or charity for our friends and neighbors and countrymen, but all mankind, gathering all into one family in the

bonds of love and charity.

So there you have it. Thomas Jefferson thought that the good life is caritas and that the pursuit of happiness should be the right to serve others, to care for others, to love others.

Maybe not, because in another letter, here’s Jefferson actually talking about the Declaration of Independence. And he says there’s nothing original in the Declaration of Independence, and that all he did was pull together all the ideas in circulation at the time— everything that everybody was talking about—and put it down on paper. And if there is any real authority to the Declaration of Independence, any reason to believe in it, it’s simply because of the ideas of these philosophers, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke and Sidney.

So, here he is referring to the Declaration of Independence itself and about Aristotle. Clearly, the pursuit of happiness must be about flourishing, it must be about virtue.

Well, I’m going to suggest something which is contrary to what Jefferson claims—that there was nothing original in the Declaration of Independence.

I want to say that there was something very original in the Declaration of Independence.

There was something very original simply by virtue of its existence.

The Declaration of Independence involved a group of people who got together and said we have a right not only to determine the course of our own lives as individuals, but together to work to create a new society. So it’s the power to determine the course of our lives and to bring something new into the world, not just as individuals, but together as a society, and not just out of a sense of duty, but out of actual enjoyment.

That’s why Jefferson calls it the pursuit of happiness. This is what I think he means. It’s the happy, enjoyable experience of being able to shape the future of our world. And that’s the element that I think is missing from all of our philosophers, something that we only find here.

Now, Hannah Arendt—she is probably my very favorite philosopher.

A 20th century philosopher who lived in New York City, she was originally from Germany. And Hannah, as I like to call her—as if I’m on a first-name basis—Hannah is probably the great philosopher of human freedom. And that’s really what we’re talking about. The pursuit of happiness is freedom. And it’s freedom among your peers, freedom to disagree with people, freedom to shape the course of your world, your life, and your society. And it seems to me that is what Jefferson meant by the

pursuit of happiness and this is a fundamental, essential component in any good life.

So let’s go back over our definition of the good life now. The good life is flourishing, doing well in a community. It is having opportunities for tranquility and serenity and peace, and also opportunities to serve others. But on top of that, it’s also having the power and the right to change the course of your society, to actually engage in the public business of your nation.

The good life is ... also having the power and the right to change the course of your society, to actually engage in the public business of your nation... without that element, we can’t really seriously talk about the good life.

And I think that without that element, we can’t really seriously talk about the good life. And that’s what people through the centuries have struggled for, because they knew that without the power to change their world and their society, they couldn’t live the good life.

And here’s one last quote from Jefferson. This is just to finally really prove that I’m right about human freedom and what Jefferson meant when he talked about the pursuit of happiness. At the end of his life, Jefferson was writing letters. He was corresponding with John Adams. Jefferson and Adams hated each other at one time. They were bitter, bitter rivals.

But towards the end of their lives there was a bit of a thaw. And in one of the great coincidences of history—Jefferson and Adams died

»» Hannah Arendt.

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on exactly the same day. They died on the 4th of July, 1826; exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence. And Adams actually said right before he died, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

So they’re exchanging letters towards the end of their lives, and they start to imagine what the afterlife might be like. And John Adams has some things to say about it, and Jefferson says, “No, no, no, I think that’s wrong.” And here’s what Jefferson proposes for the afterlife. The afterlife, heaven, it’s Philadelphia in 1776.

May we meet there again, in Congress, with our antient, our old colleagues, and receive with them the seal of approval, well-done, good and faithful servants. So the greatest happiness that Jefferson can imagine is the happiness of actually transforming society. It’s the happiness of freedom. It’s the happiness of democracy.

Thank you very much.

»» John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

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Perspectives on The Good Life, Ms. Ann Benzel

I do not come from the world of academia. I come from the other side of this mountain...

My father was a coal miner. Life was a struggle financially for my family. As a young child, I often found my milk money under couch cushions.

»» Miners in the Pennsylvania coal region.

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When Dr. Foley asked me to join you this evening, I felt quite honored and then, I must confess, the panic set in as I asked myself what would I speak about? The only subject I speak of frequently and hopefully with some authority relates to the arts and I am quite sure that is not what you want to hear about this evening.

I am well aware that this is a very special evening. You are about to embark on an incredible journey, the journey of the rest of your life.

You deserve something special, so I am going to talk a lot about you and a few significant others and very little about me or the arts, and hopefully I can hold your attention and share with you something you will deem worthwhile and fitting for the occasion.

I do not come from the world of academia. Actually, I come from the other side of this mountain, Northern Cambria or Barnesboro as it was called when I was growing up. My father was a coal miner.

Life was a struggle financially for my family. As a young child, I often found my milk money under couch cushions. The aspiring goal for most of my neighbors was to find a way to get on “comp.” Not many of us took the SATs and we never heard a word about

or understood the meaning of community service.

Paul Ryan states, “the condition of your birth doesn’t determine the outcome of your life.” I must admit that today I am often reminded of how much of my life seems like a dream. But I can assure you a lot of hard work and unshakable determination went into achieving that dream. Perhaps I should say, achieving the good life or the life as I now know it, one that pleases and satisfies me immensely, that allows me to practice the art of giving back and that in so many ways outwitted what could have been my fate. And this good life is what I wish for each and every one of you.

You have just spent a good number of years studying. You have had some of the area’s finest professors at your disposal. You are leaving a college whose mission and values have instilled in you all the tools you require to go forth and succeed at a higher level.

You have volunteered. You have sacrificed. You have made incredible strides academically and intellectually. Now, most of you will begin navigating the world by yourself in a different way, with no coaching from faculty or counselors. Hopefully many of you have or will have a job to go to which will prove rich and satisfying, or you will be moving on to continue your studies. But, I

can assure you this is not enough, not enough to insure that you will live and experience the good life—a life which will fill you with tranquility and bestow upon you inner peace.

That is what I hope to share with you this evening, some well-learned tips or a simple “to do” list to ease you on your way to attaining or retaining the good life upon graduation this evening.

When we last gathered together at Convocation in September, President Foley and our speaker Fr. Byron elaborated a definition of the good life. Afterwards, I could not resist taking the opportunity to ask a number of people around me for their definition of the good life. The responses reminded me a lot of my time working in an elementary school system many years ago, when I was heavily involved with the Great Books program. I found that it is all a matter of interpretation, and while Fr. Byron’s definition “a life lived generously in the service of others” sums it up, I was intrigued by what I learned from others on how one goes about finding and then keeping the good life front and center. I would like to share some of those responses with you.

As we age we better appreciate both the well-timed and the inopportune nature of things— so says my next door neighbor. I find him to be an amazing man,

89 years old, still quite a physical specimen, great build, thick grey hair and still sharp as a tack. You probably would have referred to him as a hunk in his earlier days, I am sure. I know he has lived a long and healthy life—he tells me it is the Mediterranean diet he follows—but I was curious to know if he believed he had lived a good life and, if so, how did he achieve this?

For my neighbor, it was and still is all about working hard, doing anything he sets his mind to. He grew up in some very demanding times, cutting wood, picking coal along the railroad tracks for cooking and for warmth, often going home to little or no food. His focus was on finding and maintaining daily work.

He shared with me that while it was a very hard life early on, it was nonetheless a good life, a life enriched by working hard, achieving goals, a happy marriage and realizing one’s dreams. And today, it’s an even better life as he has the time to reflect upon sharing what little he had with others who were in the same predicament.

I asked him for some specifics to share with you and he responded “that you should be patient and persevere, that you should be thinking I can, rather than, I cannot, that you should understand that obstacles are part of the game and there is great joy to be found in overcoming them. You should

Many of you have or will have a job... which will prove rich and satisfying ... but ... this is not enough to insure that you will live the good life, a life which will fill you with tranquility and bestow upon you inner peace.

That is what I hope to share with you this evening, some well-learned tips ... [for] attaining or retaining the good life.

»» Collecting coal along the railroad tracks.

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Be patient and persevere... you should be thinking “I can,” rather than “I cannot”...

Understand that obstacles are part of the game and there is great joy to be found in overcoming them.

believe in yourself, learn to relax and learn to accept failure. You do not live the good life overnight, nor do you lose sight of it with one major setback.”

I tried to summarize all of this for you and came up with something I really believe in: Hard work is the magic potion which almost inevitably leads to the good life.

My next outreach was to my sister, and I knew I risked being chastised for even bringing up the subject of the good life to her.

She has undergone three kidney transplants and struggles each day with getting out of bed, as her bones have become brittle and have deteriorated from years of strong drugs and medication. I thought I knew my sister well until we had this conversation. I know she is strong with all she has endured. I also know her to be angry for all she has endured. However, she shared with me that each day, though tiring and challenging, is fulfilling to her. She has fully come to terms with her unfortunate life and accepts that she does not have a very good handle on her future, but she likes what she sees when she looks in the mirror. The scars on her mid-section or wrinkles on her face are not considered character defects in her eyes. She is truly kind, generous and spiritual, although I might add the word “sometimes” to that statement. I

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asked her, too, to share something I might share with you and she suggests that you take into consideration that while life may not be easy at times, it is important to understand who we are. It is important to take some time for self-examination and reflection. It is important to have compassion for others. It is important to remain a work in progress, never compromising your principles, and to remember that your life’s course is up to you. Never take a day for granted and never, ever think of dumping this responsibility or blame on to someone else. I could probably argue this point with her as well but instead I condensed her thoughts and came up with: The good life is your responsibility and yours alone.

Several weeks ago I came across the obituary for Ben Bradlee. Many of you may be too young to remember him, but Bradlee was the editor of The Washington Post, one of the most celebrated newspaper editors of our time. I decided to seek out a copy of his memoirs. I found the book was aptly titled, A Good Life.

I found much of what I gathered fascinating and insightful, and I would like to share some of those thoughts with you, along with my personal thoughts and reflections as you begin to engage your new-found responsibilities.

Much about life today often

seems out of control. There are a lot of unsolved problems in this world—be it ebola, ISIS, poverty, ignorance or prejudice, as well as finding employment, caring for one’s family or managing one’s finances. How we handle these and other challenges weighs heavily in our hands. I urge you to take a deep breath and confront your challenges head on. Be willing to try again and again.

Work overtime and learn from past mistakes. Always be ready to learn and make your way forward to achieving your goals. I have found that lifelong learning is like having your very own magic wand.

In other words, to live the good life, you must learn to plan and respond accordingly when those plans go awry.

Don’t be afraid to demand a lot from yourself.

Continue to surprise yourself.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said it is important to do something every day that scares you. I admit I have scared the hell out of myself on numerous occasions and I hope you do, too.

Continue to challenge yourself.

Create your own legacies. Define your success. Ride that roller coaster of life with all the gusto you can muster and by all means step outside your comfort zone as often as possible as you seek out new and exciting experiences.

Remember, the good life is living a life that fascinates even you.

You don’t want to have to alter what you see when you look in the mirror. Learn to love what you see and be who and what you love. Come to fully understand the things that matter like friendship, support, and loyalty. Be generous in sharing. Visit your inner self.

Seek out your strengths, your weaknesses and your desires.

Come to know them intimately and act upon each accordingly. A long long time ago, I had a teacher who told me to pick out, not the person I most admired, but the person I most did not want to be like; and to keep this person in mind as I moved forward with my life. This is the reverse of what we are accustomed to hearing but a powerful tool nonetheless.

Hard work is the magic potion which almost inevitably leads to the good life.

The good life is being true to one’s self.

I spoke with a number of others (including a few of this evening’s graduates) and several freshman students I had the pleasure of meeting recently.

I had only one major disappointment in all of my conversations and I am sad to share with you that it came from my 17-year-old grandson. He was the only person I spoke with who placed a dollar sign in front of his interpretation of the good life. He did, however, redeem himself slightly when he explained that money would allow him to reach out and help others. I will most definitely deal with him

It is important to understand who we are ... to take some time for self-examination and reflection... to remain a work in progress, never compromising your principles, and to remember that your life’s course is up to you.

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Don’t be afraid to ... challenge yourself ... step outside your comfort zone ... [and] seek out new and exciting experiences.

Remember, the good life is living a life that fascinates even you.

You don’t want to have to alter what you see when you look in the mirror. Learn to love what you see in the mirror and be who and what you love.

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further right after the holidays or perhaps, better yet, just remove that dollar sign altogether from his holidays.

Perhaps the message here is: Being stupid can be very expensive.

I could go on and on but I recognize that in doing so, what I hope you consider a good speech could easily turn into a bad speech. I know that what I have shared with you has been said before. What I am hoping, however, is that should you encounter stumbling blocks moving forward, you will recall something which was said this evening and that that something will aid you in your journey.

I have been blessed in so many ways. I haphazardly found a career that also allows me to focus on extracurricular activities that are very important to me. I have my health, abundant energy, a wonderful family and treasured friends. I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Mount Aloysius College, working with Dr. Foley, the board, and the staff and I have had the wonderful experience of sharing this evening with you.

While I may not know each of you personally, I do know you. I know what the Mount Aloysius student stands for and I have the greatest respect for you. You have made my good life an even richer life and I thank you for this.

In closing, it is my wish that the good life will endow you with inner peace, good health, prosperity and happiness. As we approach the holiday season, let your good deeds be your most cherished adornment.

Thank you for allowing me to join you on this momentous occasion.

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Fully Alive, Discovering What Matters Most, Dr. Timothy Shriver Thank you. And thank you all for coming tonight. I want to thank President Foley. Maybe you all know that we once played rugby together. And he played a very competitive game of rugby. And I still miss it.

The moral life might need a shift in focus from ought to want... the moral life, the good life, is not so much about duty but about real desire, the deepest desire, the part of desire that animates our lives...

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On the way over, someone said, “You know, you can’t not look like a Kennedy. You know, you just couldn’t get away with it.” And I was reminded of a story my Uncle Ted told. He said he was down for the dedication of the first Bush Library in Texas. And he got in the hotel elevator to go up to the ballroom for a speaking program.

Well, a guy gets in the elevator with a big Texan 10-gallon hat, and a big silver belt buckle on his blue jeans.

And he pushes the 18th floor and my Uncle Teddy is going up to three. And the guy looks over at him and he says, “Anybody ever tell you you look like a Kennedy?”

And my uncle said, “Well, you know, as a matter of fact, they have.” And the big Texan said, “that must piss you off, doesn’t it?”

But it doesn’t upset me. I’m happy to be here representing a family.

A lot of people say, “You’re one of them. Which one are you? Which one are you related to?” And that used to upset me when I was in my teens and 20s, wanting my

individuality. But at this stage of my life, I’m very proud to be part of a team and part of a family.

So, I want to try to share a few thoughts on The Good Life.

The title of this lecture series includes Moral Choices. In an age of distraction, in an age of stress, in the age of selfies, what can we say about the moral life, about moral choices?

When I was a kid, moral choices were all about what you ought to do. Right from wrong, good from bad. Things that you wanted to do, you were not supposed to do. The moral choice was almost always considered to be the thing you ought to do—the thing that you would be punished for not doing, either now or, God forbid, in the afterlife. There were a few sisters who would remind us of the ought of the moral life and of the risk we ran—both to our present happiness as well as to our eternal happiness—were we to not choose the moral life, the moral choice, the right thing.

I want to share a different perspective. I want to invite us to consider that the moral life might need a shift in focus, from ought to want. Isn’t it possible that the moral life, the good life, happiness is just as much about what we really want as what we ought to want? Isn’t it possible that the moral life is not so much about duty but about desire,

real desire, the deepest desire, the part of desire that animates our lives?

The great Jesuit Pedro Arrupe, has a beautiful prayer which I’m going to read a few lines from. He writes: Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and love will decide everything.

What Arrupe describes is the moral life animated by what seizes your imagination, what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Another way of framing this is asking yourself the question— what makes you feel fully alive?

I have asked many people— because it’s the title of my book— what makes you feel fully alive?

When were you last fully alive?

What do you think would help you to be more fully alive?

And I’m sorry to say, many people don’t know. They pause, they take a deep breath, and very often they say, I’ll need to think about that.

What brings it to mind tonight

for each of you? Maybe you have a quick answer. Maybe you remember it was a time in your childhood. Maybe you remember it was a time recently. Maybe you are fully alive right now because of someone you’re sitting next to, because of someone you hope to see, or because of who you’ve become. Maybe fully alive is something you anticipate when you graduate, when you find the next prize in your life.

I have asked many people — because it’s the title of my book— what makes you feel fully alive? When were you last fully alive? What do you think would help you to be more fully alive?

But it seems to me that if we want to answer questions about goodness, about morality, we ought to know deep down what makes us feel fully alive. A friend of mine, a priest, once gave a homily asking a similar version of the question, and he remembered that in 1969, Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell —many of you are too young to remember either — but they were great singers of the 60s and 70s, and to some extent the 80s. They went out for coffee one morning in Santa Monica and returning to their house, wrote a very famous song of that era. And it goes, “Our house is a very, very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy ‘cause of you.”

For some people, maybe an image of that fine house, that beautiful gathering, that sense of peace and domestic bliss—maybe that’s part of what would animate feeling fully alive.

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Meister Eckhart ... wrote, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me...”

[This] totally knocked [me] off my horse.

Never had I imagined that in the pursuit of silence, in the pursuit of unknowing, in the pursuit of self-emptying, I would not earn my way to finding what mattered most. Instead, I would discover that I already had it.

Or maybe it’s the quote I saw up on a wall here. It says, “Dance as if no one is watching and sing as if no one is listening.” Maybe you all have seen it. And perhaps it is saying something like, if I could only be myself and not worry about everybody seeing me. If I could only dance... . That’s why people sing in the shower, right?

They want to sing, but they want to sing where no one’s listening, so they’re not embarrassed. Maybe that feeling is part of what would make you feel fully alive.

But I hope it’s not guilt and I hope it’s not morality in the old sense.

I hope it’s more imagination and love and amazement and joy. My own journey from ought to want, from duty to desire took turns that I could never have expected.

I was a little boy when my mother started a camp. Children, about 100 of them, coming onto a big farm-type property. They came mostly from institutions, where they would have been labeled with words that are painful today.

Many orphaned in the neonatal ward, where their mothers were told, their fathers were told, give us this child. Move on with your life. Don’t worry, don’t look back.

Pretend this never happened.

These were children that the world had seen and labeled invalid, moron, retard.

Those very children that had been pushed away were, all of a sudden,

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in my back yard. And as far as I was concerned, I had 100 new friends.

We had kickball games every day.

We had swimming races every day we had pony rides, all in my backyard. It was a bonanza.

It wasn’t duty. It wasn’t responsibility. It wasn’t guilt. It was fun. Confusing, a little bit. Some people I was playing with didn’t necessarily speak the same way I was expecting people to speak.

Some people had helmets on their heads. Some people’s bodies moved in ways that were different.

But we had a good time.

Later on in my life, the journey took a different turn. In my 20s, searching still for that sense of being fully alive, I found myself confronting silence and being told, well, you’re looking in the wrong places. You keep looking out there, the books told me, the centering prayer tradition told me.

I discovered people like Meister Eckhart, who wrote, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” And I was totally knocked off my horse.

Never had I imagined that in the pursuit of silence, in the pursuit of unknowing, in the pursuit of self-emptying, I would not earn my way to finding what mattered most. Instead, I would discover that I already had it.

That set me off on this question that Eckhart implies. If, “the eye

with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me,” I thought to myself, then how do I see like that? What would it take for me to tap, to realize, to use, to sharpen, to get the kind of glasses I would need to see the same way God sees? My goodness, what an invitation.

And in some way, that led me back to the athletes of Special Olympics; and one of my favorites stories from our movement, one that moved and changed me. It took place at one of our larger events.

We have four million athletes.

Last year 80,000 Special Olympics games were held all over the world.

In India, in China and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, places like Syria and all over Latin America— 80,000 local games. But every four years we have the big one. And this particular year, 1995, we were up at the Yale Bowl, the old stadium, filled with 80,000 people, including President Clinton who became the first President to attend a Special Olympics Opening Ceremony.

But the security was porous at the Yale Bowl, so the Secret Service had him stay at the top row of the stadium where he was to give his speech.

So, the President is up in the top row. Down on the field, you’ve got 6,000 athletes from all over the world. They’ve just paraded in.

They’ve all been given goodie-bags and single-use cameras, the old

kind. Some of you may remember, you used to get them at the drug store. Anyway, down on the field, you’ve got 6,000 athletes. They’ve got their cameras. The President is in the top row and he begins his speech.

One of the professional photographers who’s volunteering looks over and he sees a delegation from one of the African nations.

He can tell because of the very colorful outfits. And he looks at them and they’re all trying to get a picture of the President. And he looks closer, and he sees they’ve all got their cameras up, but they’re all aimed backwards.

So he realizes they’ve never used a camera before. They’ve come from a country where they’ve never used these devices before. So he goes over and he says to one of them, “You’re trying to get a picture of the President way up high.” And the athlete kind of gestures. And the photographer says, “You have to turn the camera around, and then you push this button and you look through this little hole.” And the athlete says, “Thank you, but if you look through the viewfinder backwards it works like binoculars, and you can see the President perfectly clearly.”

»» Eunice Shriver playing touch football at Camp Shriver.

»» More fun at Camp Shriver.

Now, I love that story for many reasons. But the most powerful part of it for me, is that the photographer, like so many of us, got it wrong. How many times do

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THE GOOD LIFE

we look at one another and we just get it wrong? We miss each other.

We miss who we are. We miss what’s going on.

»» President Bill Clinton at the Special Olympics.

The experience of trying to learn about the moral choice, the good life, happiness, has come from people who have said to me over and over, “You’ve got to change your lens. You’re not looking properly.”

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He’s a good man, the photographer.

He’s not a malicious person. He’s not a bigot and he’s not racist. He’s a volunteer. As far as we know, he’s a good guy. But he thought he saw a disabled person. He assumed incompetence. He didn’t assume creative use of a viewfinder. He didn’t look beyond the surface. He couldn’t see clearly. And you think to yourself, he came to volunteer, to serve those athletes. But who received and who gave? Who was seeing clearly and whose lens needed a change? He couldn’t yet see without judging, as so many of us can’t see without judging.

In so many ways, the experience of trying to learn about the moral choice, the good life, happiness, has come to me from people who have said to me over and over again, “You’ve got to change your lens. You’re not looking properly.”

Think of the athletes in Chicago at Soldier Field for the first formal Special Olympics event. Over 1,000 people, from 20-some states and Canada, came. Most, again, from institutions.

In 1968, three months after the death of Dr. King, only less than two months after the death of my uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, and there in Chicago’s Soldier Field

comes the first Special Olympics event. Just as a point of reference, by 1968 the population of people with intellectual differences being put into institutions was growing.

Getting bigger.

More people were moving their children into institutions at this stage in our history.

So, we were not on the decline. We were not at deinstitutionalization.

Institutions were growing across the country—1,000-, 2,000-, 4,000-, 6,000-, 8,000-person institutions, growing. Fifteen, 20, 30 people to a room. People in chains, tied, bound, medicated.

Growing. And in Soldier Field we have 1,000 of these human beings, and they’re told they’re Olympic.

And you have to assume a lot of people would have said—come on.

That’s a sweet line, but they’re not.

Let’s be honest. Maybe that’s a nice way of putting it. But Olympic is higher, faster, stronger, the biggest, the toughest, the most powerful.

Rafer Johnson was on the field, fresh from having won the decathlon—the greatest athlete in the world. That’s Olympic. These bedraggled children who nobody wanted? Come on.

The first day, a 400-meter race, six or seven runners—unfortunately, the names are lost now—go down the backstretch of Soldier Field and they’re running around the full-length of the track and there are volunteers from different

organizations—the Lions Clubs and the Jaycees and the Civitan, and people like that are down on the field volunteering. Sisters down on the field volunteering.

And they come into the homestretch, and the athlete in first place is headed towards the finish line when he stumbles and falls. Wipes out. The other six athletes continue on, except the runner in second place. He continues on but then stops, turns around and goes back to pick up, as it turns out, his best friend, and puts his arm around his shoulder.

Now just stop for a moment and imagine that’s you. Never having been seen anywhere in life, never having been appreciated, never having had a chance to run your race. Never seeing the finish line, never being able to cross it, never being cheered. And that runner in second place sees that finish line.

He’s in the stadium. He’s ready to cross it and he stops. He goes back.

And he crosses the finish line in what place? Last place.

Last place? Or first place?

All of a sudden we begin to understand and hear the voice, see the experience, and feel the power of people who see the world slightly differently. Who see that winning can also be looking out for your friend, even if it means you don’t come in first.

Healing a friendship, believing in a friendship, is another way of winning. And before you know it, all around the world, people with intellectual differences—diff-abilities—all of a sudden reveal that there is a way of winning without defeating anybody.

Fast forward a few years. My wife, Linda and I, we have five kids.

The kids are playing in what we call unified sports. I hope some day there’ll be a unified sports team that will wear the colors and the mascot of Mount Aloysius, and compete in interscholastic competition just like other teams.

At this point in life, my children are playing on our local unified team, and we’re driving home one morning after practice. I’ve got my two sons in the car and I’m thinking to myself, these boys, 12 and 14 years old, they’re volunteering every Saturday morning. Why would they like this? I mean, the kids they’re playing with, they’re double dribbling and carrying the ball, and missing the basket.

And I’m thinking to myself, what am I setting my sons up for? Are they really getting something out of this? Or, God forbid, are they doing it out of guilt or duty?

So I turned to the boys as we’re driving the highway and I say to them, “What do you guys think of how this whole thing is going?”

The radio is blaring and they’re like—yeah, it’s fine, Dad, it’s fine.

»» Special Olympics Global Messanger Steven Boysza introduced Dr. Shriver.

The athlete in first-place ... stumbles and falls ... The other six athletes continue on, except the runner in second place. He ... goes back to pick up, as it turns out, his best friend, and puts his arm around his shoulder ... he crosses the finish line in what place? Last place.

Last place? Or first place?

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Healing a friendship, believing in a friendship, is another way of winning. And before you know it, all around the world, people with intellectual differences ... reveal that there is a way of winning without defeating anybody.

You know, three men in a car, how much conversation can you hope for?

And I say, “No, no. I’m serious.

I really want to know—what do you think about this whole Special Olympics thing, unified sports?

Are you getting anything out of it?” They say, “Yeah, it’s fine, Dad.” And I was looking at them, and they’re completely zoned out. So I turned off the radio and they said, “Dad, why are you turning off the radio?” I said, “Because I’m asking you a serious question. I want to know what you think about this whole experience, this Special Olympics stuff.”

And so my son, Sam says to me, “Dad, you’re so annoying; but I’ll explain it to you this way. If you told me right now we’re going to Disney World, I’d be the happiest person in the world. We’d go down there. It would be warm. We’d go on roller coasters. We’d have so much fun. We’d go on all the rides. But,” he said, “there’s only one problem.” I have no idea what he’s talking about at this point.

“There’s only one problem,” he says. “When it’s over, it would be horrible. I’d have to come home.

I’d have to go back to school. And I would be more depressed than before.”

So, yeah, I get that ... .

“Well,” he says, “when we go to Special Olympics, it’s different. It’s

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the kind of fun that lasts,” he says.

“Now turn the radio back on, Dad.” The fun that lasts. What had he seen in that gym—with double dribbling and people carrying the ball and shooting at the wrong basket, no fans, just a bunch of 10-, 12-, 14-, 16-year-old kids playing together—that had already awakened his eye to the understanding that there is one kind of fun that you get at Disney World that is temporary. And there’s another kind of fun that lasts?

What had he seen in that place, being around others without any judgment, no bias? I think he thought to himself, wow ... that’s a different kind of fun ... that fun doesn’t have to stop. You could take it with you wherever you go.

You could have it right here. You could look to your left and your right, and say, I’m having the kind of fun that lasts—if you felt that way.

My final story in these lessons.

So, if Chicago showed that there’s a way of winning that’s about friendship, if Sam’s lesson was there’s a way of having fun that can last, Donal Page’s lesson was still more powerful for me.

Donal was a little boy born into a family in Ireland—Dad is a dairy farmer; Mom is a mom. Eight children. A healthy little boy until

he’s about 18 months old, when he got a very serious disease which resulted in a powerful fever that spiked on Good Friday afternoon.

His parents took him to the doctor. The doctor sent him to the hospital and within two hours, he was being administered the Last Rites of the Church. He survived that night, only to have the same attack of fever and sepsis overtake his body—his little, less-thantwo-year-old body—the next day.

And again, he was administered the Last Rites, but again survived.

And his mother took him home to raise him. He became unable to move, unable to control his hygiene, unable to eat. And she dedicated her every day to Donal, her little boy.

In 2003, we had our big celebration in Dublin at Croke Park. The PSNI, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, marched in to Croke Park for the first time in history together with the Garda, the police force of the Republic of Ireland.

Historic moment. Bono sang.

Mandela spoke. Muhammad Ali entertained the crowd. Pierce Brosnan paraded in and so did the Riverdancers.

And three days later, I get a call from the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, saying she’d like to go out and look at some of the competition. Would I escort her?

And I thought, my God, what a huge honor. I’d be thrilled and

honored. Let’s go to the track. We have terrific athletes in track. In fact, we have athletes in track who could compete in the Olympics.

Most people don’t realize that.

And I thought, I am going to take her there and she’s going to see these sprinters doing 100s in 10.5 and 11 seconds. She’s going to see people running the mile in under four minutes. I mean, we’re going to blow her away.

And the assistant says, she’s decided she’d like to go to the motor activities, which is close to her office. Motor activities, I thought—that’s the competition for people with the most severe challenges. Almost everyone in a wheelchair. Almost everyone nonverbal. Almost everyone unable to walk. And so the activities are the most simple tasks possible; pushing a ball off a ramp, lifting a foam ball, moving a beanbag. I pushed back—I thought that’s not going to work.

I want to impress her with our athletes. I want her to see people who can do extraordinary things.

But they insisted; she’ll meet you at 10:00 at the motor activities.

What had he seen in that gym—with double dribbling and people carrying the ball and shooting at the wrong basket ... that ... awakened his eye to the understanding that there is one kind of fun that ... is temporary ... and ... another kind of fun that lasts.

Now, the motor activities event in Dublin was held in a room almost exactly this size. I met the President at the door at 9:00 and escorted her to our seats right up front.

The first person to come out was Donal Page. He was, at that

»» Athletes on a unified soccer team.

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time, 18 years old. He’d left on a wheelchair van at about 5:00 in the morning from his house in the south-central part of Ireland. His parents left in their separate car to give him a chance to go with his teammates to Dublin where he would compete in the beanbag lift.

And the miracle of the moment, as I could discern it, was that the place was packed. Many of our venues are not packed. But this particular venue, through the grace of God and the goodness of the people of Dublin, was swarming with people. Don’t ask me how they came, but they were all there to watch motor activities. And Donal was wheeled out. His coach was with him, and watching her you could see an energy field. If you had one of those Star Trek sensors, you would have seen a huge tube of positive energy flowing from this woman to this young man, Donal, who now has a tray in front of him.

A beanbag is placed on the right side of the tray—the side where I’m sitting. And the announcer says, “Off you go.”

And Donal Page takes in the room.

He looks around and he sort of has a little bit of a smile on his face. And then he goes to lift this bag. And the room is silent, like it is now. And you can watch him trying to move his arm and it won’t go. His body moves, but his hand won’t go. And I’m sitting there thinking, oh, my gosh. And there’s

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not even a pin-drop sound. This goes on for a minute and a half.

And then slowly the fingers start to move just a little. At about four minutes his hand finally falls onto that bag. And a cheer comes out of the crowd. “There you go, lad,” someone says in the back. And Donal Page gets his hand on that beanbag.

Over the course of the next 12 minutes, his hand comes across.

Now the crowd starts to go crazy.

And later I interviewed his dad.

And his dad said to me, “You know, every time I took Donal to a doctor they would always be telling me what Donal couldn’t do. Donal won’t do this and Donal won’t do that. And I always was after them, saying to the doctors, just give him a bit of time. He can do more than you think.” And his dad said to me, “I just knew if those people in Dublin would give him a bit of time, he could do it.”

Donal Page puts that beanbag down at the 18-minute mark.

And the crowd explodes. I mean, Final Four on steroids. Screaming.

I’m standing, screaming. The President is standing, screaming.

I look over at her. There are tears streaming down her face. I have tears streaming down my face.

And I thought to myself, I still got it wrong.

You know, I had thought it would

be better to take her to the track.

I thought it would be better to see someone who runs the 100 in 10.5 than to see Donal. I had it wrong.

I had never seen and still haven’t seen, an athletic performance that comes close to matching the courage, the strength, and the power of Donal Page.

You remember that line—you’re singing and nobody’s listening, you’re dancing and no one’s watching? Not Donal. He was dancing and everybody was watching. But he succeeded in trusting all those people enough to think they wouldn’t judge him, that they wouldn’t call him a name, that they wouldn’t say what he couldn’t do, that they’d just give him a bit of time.

And with a bit of time, he could show the world what excellence really is. You know, excellence isn’t me beating you or you beating me, or me getting an A and you getting a B, or me getting ahead of you. It’s not. That’s a ridiculous definition.

We bought into it as a culture. We think it’s better morally to beat the other person. Many people would say it. Even educators might say it.

Excellence is only doing your best.

That’s the only definition that makes any sense. And yet, how many of us—if tomorrow found you in a wheelchair, if tomorrow found your losing your ability to speak, if tomorrow found you unable to move your arms, if

tomorrow found you unable to measure up in school—how many would say, put me in front of the room? I’m ready. I’m still ready to do what I can do, the best I can.

How many people believe that it’s okay to just do your best? How many of us understand that? I don’t think the moral life, the good life, is defined so much by our house is a very, very, very fine house. The walls are up. The domestic situation is bliss. We all love those moments. Yes, we do.

You know, excellence isn’t me beating you or you beating me ... or me getting ahead of you ... That’s a ridiculous definition.

We bought into it as a culture. We think it’s better morally to beat the other person.

But as my priest friend said in his homily, a better definition is found in a different song that came out that same year, Born to Be Wild.

We live in an age where selfies and distraction, where competition and loneliness are epidemic. We want people to get more and more information but the moral life is about transformation.

We want people to achieve and get to places that will make them happier. The moral life is about understanding that the place where you are, already has everything you need.

We want people to do all of these things to earn value. The moral life is about accepting that you’ve already got it. It’s a complete reversal in many ways, of what the world tells us. Maybe that’s why they call it conversion. You don’t earn anything of lasting value.

You’ve already got it, and until we

Excellence is only doing your best. That’s the only definition that makes sense.

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actually believe that, we will never feel, in my view, fully alive.

»» Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

... The moral life is about transformation ... about understanding that the place where you already are has everything it needs.

The great Special Olympics athlete, Frank Stevens, from the state of Virginia, is an articulate self-advocate. He was challenged two years ago when political commentator, Ann Coulter, referred to the President of the United States in the last election as a “retard.” Frank wrote an Op-Ed piece asking her to understand that the use of that language, regardless of one’s political persuasion, is hurtful to people and painful in that it carries a very ugly past with it and was often used to humiliate.

Frank’s Op-Ed did not garner a response. She refused to take his call or even to discuss it with him.

But he became a huge sensation on social media. And so one night Piers Morgan, the former CNN host, invited Frank on to talk about his fight, if you will, with Ann Coulter. She refused to join the show.

And at the end of the show, Piers Morgan looked at Frank and said, “Frank, if you could say anything to Ann Coulter, what would you say?” Frank has Down syndrome.

He’s 4’11 and one-half inches, which he will remind you, if you say 4’11. He has a beautifully happy countenance. And Frank looked up at Piers and he said, “I would say, thank you for giving me three million friends on Facebook.”

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Later that same year, we were up on Capitol Hill lobbying for support for people with intellectual differences, including higher eduction support. It had been a tough day. We didn’t get very far, we didn’t get very many good meetings. But we had a little reception at the end of the day. And a few senators and congressmen came by, Steny Hoyer and Roy Blunt. Republicans and Democrats came by to congratulate the Special Olympics athletes who had spent the day knocking on doors on Capitol Hill.

And one of the people who came by was my cousin Patrick, a congressman at that point.

And Patrick got up and got very animated. He said, “You know, we have a big problem. The NIH is putting all of its money into the identification of genetic syndromes and early detection, but nothing on treatment and care.” And the message wasn’t so subtle. The medical establishment, Patrick was saying, is pushing towards eliminating these disorders and the implications of that are quite terrifying, if you have one.

So Patrick finished and toward the end of the night I asked would anyone else like to speak. Frank raised his hand and came up. And the podium looked almost just like this, and Frank’s head was just over the top of it. And he said, “I want to thank my mother and my father.

I want to thank my coaches. I want to thank all of the congressmen and the senators.” And then he said, “I heard what Patrick said, and I want to say one other thing.”

And he looked up and his glasses are down towards the bottom of his nose. But he looked strong. He looked straight ahead. “My life is worth living,” he said.

My life is worth living. My life is worth living.

To me, that’s the secret of the moral life. Arrupe said fall in love with God. Fall in love in an unconditional way. Not just fall in love with someone or something, but actually, as crazy at it sounds, fall in love with all things, all people, unconditionally. Recognize the spirit in each of us and let that animate your every choice. Let that animate your every decision from a place of depth, from a place of silence, from a place of humility, from a place of simplicity.

You will choose the moral choice.

You don’t need to be told, you don’t need duty, and you don’t need another lecture. But thank you all for listening to this one. Thank you, Mount Aloysius.

The moral life is ... a complete reversal of what the world tells us. Maybe that’s why they call it conversion.

You don’t earn anything of lasting value. You’ve already got it, and until we believe that, we will never feel ... fully alive.

That’s the secret of the moral life ... Fall in love ... Not just fall in love with someone or something, but as crazy at it sounds, fall in love with all things, all people, unconditionally.

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THE GOOD LIFE

Good Life Lessons, The Honorable Judge Guido Calabresi It’s an extraordinary joy and honor to be here at Mount Aloysius for many reasons. I’ll just mention two.

One is that this school— in its background and in its development—is strikingly similar to a school in New Haven also founded by sisters, called Albertus Magnus College.

My mother taught there for many years—she was one of the first lay teachers.

And so, it’s wonderful to come to another place like it, to see it flourishing, and to think of her.

To live a good life ... involves two things.

First, find something to do—work—which is fun and useful ... If it is just fun, over the years it starts to jade. If it is just useful, it will wear you down ...

Second, ... find somebody to spend your life with ... That is essential, also.

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The second reason is because your President, Tom Foley, is one of my kids. I call all of these characters who’ve studied with me, kids. Even some who became President. And it’s a delight today to get a degree here and become one of his kids, like you. This was described in the sublime by Dante, when he spoke of the Virgin Mary as, Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio—Virgin Mother, daughter of your son.

From the sublime to the trivial, but I am your son, my son. Kids.

So thank you for making me a member of the Class of 2015.

You’ve been talking all year about The Good Life. And that’s too big a topic to talk about seriously

at Commencement, when any time I take detracts from the core event, and that is you and your graduation. So I’ll say just a few words about a happy life. And then, being a storyteller, tell a couple of stories that may link a happy life to a good life.

It’s hard to live a good life if you are not happy. And the story of being happy, of a happy life, is actually quite easily described. It involves two things. First, find something to do—work—which is fun and useful. Fun and useful. If it is just fun, over the years it starts to jade.

If it is just useful, it will wear you down.

I have never done a day’s work in my life. I love to teach. I love to judge. I’d pay to do it. You have been trained in this place, given the opportunity to do something which is fun and useful. Don’t settle for anything less. Find something that gives you pleasure when you’re doing it and allows you to do something useful.

The second part is to find somebody to spend your life with.

I’ve been married—in a week and a half it will be—54 years. That is essential, also.

For some people, finding the thing to do is easy and finding one’s life-partner takes more time. For others, it’s the other way around.

But you need to do both. And you need to give the time, the

compromises, and the giving of yourself to find both. Don’t cheat yourself out of either. Look to do both, and then you will lead a happy life.

Okay. But a happy life on this basis is only the grounding, the beginning of a good life. So how do you make your joyous work into a good life? Well, the main thing is to give. To give. We all know that.

Every faith, every religion, says “give.”

But what is it that you give? You know, most of the time, when people talk about giving, they talk about giving money. And that’s important. But sometimes, giving money is nothing. If you have a lot of money, giving some money isn’t doing anything at all. What you must give is that which you find scarce, that which you don’t have much of, that which you would rather keep to yourself.

If you are wealthy, giving money is easy. If you are poor, giving money is enormous. If you are busy or if you are old and you don’t know how much time you have left, then giving time, giving of yourself, is what is hard. Give that which you don’t have much of and which you would like to keep. Like everything else, it’s in the Gospel.

Jesus walks into the synagogue and sees wealthy people putting gold coins in the plate. And he sees a widow putting in a copper coin and He says, she has given much

more, because she has given from her poverty; they have given from their excess.

Take the goodness, the happiness of your life, the work you do, which is fun and useful, and your partnership, and together give that which you don’t have much of and which you would like to keep; give that to the service of others. Then, this happy life will remain happy but will also be good.

So how do you make your joyous work into a good life? Well, the main thing is to give.

To give. We all know that. Every faith, every religion, says “give.”

And then you will fail. You know?

You won’t do it. They’ll be plenty of times when you don’t. You won’t. I didn’t. It’s inevitable.

And when that happens, that is the interesting question. And here I tell a story.

Many years ago in Italy, in 1943, some cousins of mine had to go into hiding because they are of Jewish ancestry. And in 1943, the Germans, the Nazis, moved in and were looking for anyone who had Jewish blood, to take away and send to Auschwitz.

These cousins of mine went into hiding with assumed names in the villa of my cousin’s wife, who was of an old, old Catholic family.

And while they were hiding there, living under assumed names, the Germans took over the villa to make into their headquarters.

What an extraordinary situation.

The Germans there in their

»» The Widow’s Mite.

What is it that you give? ... you must give ... that which you find scarce. That which you don’t have much of, [and] ... would rather keep to yourself ... give that ... and ... then, this happy life will ... also be good.

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THE GOOD LIFE

headquarters, and these people who were being looked for, hiding with assumed names.

»» Japanese-American interment.

And the captain in charge of that outfit, of that villa, was a dreadful man. He would get drunk, try to steal things, break down the room of my cousin’s sister-in-law to attack her. And they managed to keep that from happening. He was awful. Just awful.

One day, my cousin’s son, who was then five years old, was playing in the garden. And the captain called him by his assumed last name. He said, “Come here ...” adding his last name. And the little boy forgot his name. Forgot his false name.

And the German captain called him again by that name. And the little boy still didn’t answer. And the captain went up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder and said, “That is not your name.” And the little boy said, “No.” And the captain said, “That is not your name, because you’re Jewish!”

And the little boy said, “Yes,” and ran off.

And the family waited to be taken away. Taken away. But nothing happened. Nothing happened at all.

»» Associate Justice Hugo Black.

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This awful captain, at that point, did something transcendentally good. He risked his life, because if any of the other soldiers heard the exchange and saw that he didn’t turn these people in, he was dead.

But that was something evil that he could not do. And that event changed him, made him another person. Saved him.

I doubt if when you fail, you will be put in as dramatic a situation as that captain. But what I do know is that no matter how often you fail and how awful you feel about yourself when you do fail, you will be given a chance—less dramatic than that of the captain, perhaps— to do something that is good and that will allow you to overcome whatever failures you have had.

Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be wiped out by your failures. Take the chance that will be given to you and make it good.

But be careful. Because you may think that you won’t fail. That you are so good that you will do nothing wrong.

And here is my second story. My story is about one of the worst things that this country—that took me in and that I love so much—did.

During the Second World War, America put people, Americans born in America, of Japanese ancestry, in concentration camps.

They put them away in terrible conditions. The people who did that, some of them, were people we’d call nasty. But three people who allowed it to happen are people whom many of us, I in particular, would say were very

good.

The person who okayed it first was Earl Warren, who was Attorney General of California, and who became a great and wonderful Chief Justice. The person who allowed it to happen from Washington was Franklin Roosevelt, a fantastically good President. And the person who wrote the opinion that upheld it was Justice Hugo Black, who gave his life for integration and desegregation. So much so, that his home state said he couldn’t be buried in Alabama soil, they were so angry with him for doing what he did for integration. This was a person for whom I clerked.

And yet, he wrote the opinion upholding that action.

Now, it would be easy to say they weren’t really good people. That would be an easy cop-out for you.

You’d say, oh well, it won’t happen to me, because I’m clean. But the answer is, of course, that they were good people, but they made a terrible, terrible set of decisions.

You know, if you are so clean that you don’t think you need to wash, after a while you start to smell.

And no matter how good you think you are, you will, if you’re not very careful, do some things which are deeply wrong.

But when that happens, remember the Nazi captain and remember that there are always ways, always times to come back and to be the

good person that you want to be and can be. If you do that, if you don’t get discouraged when you fail, if you know that you may fail and still look for chances to do the right thing, if you give of what is scarce and if you live the happy life by choosing something to do which is fun and useful together with a partner who helps you in your failures and your strengths— you will not only lead a good life, but you will make this place, your teachers here, your parents and friends, immensely proud of you, as they should be.

And then you will fail ... when that happens... Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be wiped out by your failures. Take the chance that will be given to you and make it good.

Thank you very much.

... there are always ways ... to come back and to be the good person that you want to be and can be ... if you don’t get discouraged ... if you ... look for chances to do the right thing ... you will ... lead a good life ...

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THE GOOD LIFE

Distinguished Speakers REV. WILLIAM BYRON, S.J., Ph.D., former President of the University of Scranton, Catholic University and Loyola University-New Orleans; past Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Ethics at Georgetown University; Founding Director and past Chair of Bread for the World; founding Board Member of the Corporation for National Service; author of 14 books; and nationally syndicated columnist.

SR. SHEILA CARNEY, R.S.M., Special Assistant to the President for Mercy Heritage and Service at Carlow University; Chair of the McAuley Ministries; Vice Postulator for the Cause of the Canonization of Catherine McAuley; co-author of Praying with Catherine McAuley; past President of the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy; and past Chair of the Conference for Mercy Higher Education.

LARRY JACKSON, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and Director of Global Academic Planning at New York University; past lecturer at City University of New York, John Jay College, and the New School; author; essayist; panelist; and member of the Advisory Board of the review Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies, University of Ottawa.

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ANN BENZEL, philanthropist and civic leader; CEO, Benzel’s Bakery, Inc.; named to Pennsylvania’s Top 50 Women in Business; past Chair of the Governor’s Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council; and recipient of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Distinguished Service in Humanities Award, the Pennsylvania State Library Association’s Trustee of the Year Award, the Central Pennsylvania Community Foundation’s Philanthropy Award, and the WQED Volunteers in the Arts Award.

TIMOTHY SHRIVER, Ph.D., Chair of the Special Olympics; founder and Chair of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) at the University of Illinois, Chicago; member of the board of HealthCorps and the Council on Foreign Relations; author of Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most; religion columnist for The Washington Post; educator; justice advocate and film producer.

HON. GUIDO CALABRESI, Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; former Dean of Yale School of Law, and current Sterling Professor of Law; Rhodes Scholar; former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black; author of five books and over 100 legal articles; father of the influential “Law and Economics” school in legal scholarship; and recipient of over 50 honorary degrees.

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Mount Aloysius College was founded in 1853 by Sisters of Mercy who emigrated from Dublin, Ireland. The College encourages students “to synthesize faith with learning, to develop competence with compassion, to put talents and gifts at the service of others and to assume leadership in the world community.”

Today at Mount Aloysius, students can choose from over 70 programs of study and develop their skills to a state-of-the-art level. Sixty percent of Mount Aloysius students represent the first generation in their families to attend college.

Our beautiful and historic campus is located on 193 acres at the Cresson Summit of the Southern Allegheny Mountains.

MOUNT ALOYSIUS COLLEGE 7373 Admiral Peary Highway, Cresson PA 16630 • mtaloy.edu • 814-886-4131