2017.08.20 You Won’t like It Here—But You Will Love This Book and This Boy

Why would a book review bear a title that directly contradicts the book’s own title: You’ll Like It Here?

Because when six-year-old Donald Vitkus, an abandoned orphan and rejected foster child, arrived at Belchertown State School, in 1949 he was told a lie: “You’ll like it here.”

Young Donald recognized this deceit because of the rough way he was treated, his desire to “puke”, and because this putative school had bars at the windows and padlocked doors. “School” was a misnomer for Belchertown.

You’ll Like It Here. The Story of Donald Vitkus Belchertown Patient #3394 is Vitkus's biography, written by Ed Orzechowski, a writer and retired high school English teacher in Northampton, Massachusetts. The memoir exposes the painful irony of its title by telling the whole truth: a story of tragedy and triumph.

The tragedy is that Belchertown existed for containment only—not care, not education. It stayed in business under state auspices for seventy years (1922-1992)—even after a 1973 Federal class action lawsuit against the institution’s leadership for cruelty and dehumanization. Children and adults, commonly diagnosed as “idiots”, “imbeciles” or “morons”, lived under inhumane, unstintingly cruel conditions.

The triumph is that some of Belchertown’s designated “retards” proved smart enough to make friends, humor, pranks, and plots. They knew damn well what was happening to them and what terrorism felt like. Vitkus was one such kid. He felt increasingly sure he was not a moron and secretly determined that one day he would prove it. His inner determination eventually taught him the right balance between risk-taking and compliance so that in time he was free from institutional control—
but not before some runaway attempts.

Belchertown took regular photos of all the patients and distributed them to the local police so runaways would always be apprehended and returned. Vitkus’s first runaway attempt happened on August 7, 1953, when he was ten. He had no place to go and no family in sight. Written recurrently on every entry of Vitkus’s case files was this painful sentence:“Does not receive mail or visitors and does not go on vacation.”

One could call runaway behavior desperate, foolhardy or just plain natural chutzpah. Vitkus always was caught of course, yet he never gave up. Once a compassionate policeman took this child for ice cream before he returned him to Belchertown. One ice cream is heaven when you’re in hell.


Life after Belchertown, though less breathtaking, had rough patches but just as many graces for Vitkus, not the least of which was his meeting Ed Orzechowski in 2005 at an event to publicize a book called Crimes Against Humanity and asking Orzechowski if he would be interested in writing his story. Orzechowski agreed to a  conversation. That conversation would turn into eight years and some forty hours of taped interviews, not to mention patience, courage and yes, affection. The men collected official records and documents to prove their book was not a work of fiction. This book is uniquely the product of a relationship of trust between author and subject, a relationship that gives this book its integrity and intimate worth.

Orzechowski listened very closely in order to write the story in Vitkus’s voice. At times he felt as if he were “channeling” Donald. The process wasn’t easy, Orzechowski told me when I contacted him. “I first had to learn to write a book,” he said. “But Donald pushed ahead, because he never wanted ‘to go back to those days.’”  It’s not easy to write someone else’s memoir and make it vibrate with a voice not your own. Orzechowski writes with exceptional craft, skill, and clear-heartedness.

Sometimes a memoir helps a person, not to forget or resolve every painful memory, but to give a lived experience shape, form, and right words outside one’s own mind—contained, shelved and ready for others to read and find empathy and hope. A memoir can be a kind of miracle this way. Vitkus had first to entrust his whole story to a stranger. He wanted others not to feel alone in their truth, and most of all, he wanted to prove he was no moron. Donald Vitkus as an adult in his late sixties is pictured here.

Vitkus lurched clumsily toward happiness as he grew in body, mind, and spirit in spite of having grown up deprived of affection, adequate health care, and most all of life’s most urgent basic lessons from table manners, to language, to pubescent impulses, to the meaning of love—save the inner longing that signals love’s absence. We are not left with the impression that Donald is free of all his scars. He still has a strong aversion to authority. In his efforts to manage life outside he flounders. And he still sleeps with the covers over his head.

What saves this book from being mere reportage of atrocities for the sake of news:   
    -tight structure including compelling chapter titles, often quotes from Donald or his case records;
    -the redemptive quality of the biography-as-memoir genre itself— characters, dialogue, plot—supported by documented facts and photos;
    - a protagonist with exceptional chutzpah who also managed a gentle, respectful touch when he stripped and washed the younger boys for their weekly shower night;
    -a simple pencil posing as a godsend—just one pencil given to each first grade student. Donald had never experienced the thrill of ownership: “mine.” He took excellent care of his pencil;
     -some kind teachers who cared about patients as much as Vitkus did about his very own pencil;
    -transformation of a life nearly sunk by trauma;
    -a writer who never allowed his own emotions, which would have to have been painful, overwhelm the plot or the truth of his subject.

Orzechowski may just have discovered his retirement vocation. He is beginning interviews with another former Belchertown patient who sought him out. Hopefully, some women will come forward as well.  Orzechowski told me: “Since I know the ropes much better now, I expect the process to be considerably shorter this time.”

Today, as Ed Orzechowski promotes his book in readings and presentations, Donald Vitkus attends every single reading. Vitkus, for his part, travels and speaks publicly about his experience. He is Vice-President of Advocacy Network which evolved from Friends of Belchertown.  When he  introduces himself he begins his talks this way: “I’m a human services worker, and a Vietnam vet who can’t own a gun. I am an ex-husband, a husband, father, and grandfather. And a former moron of Belchertown State School.”

Here is Donald Vitkus with his present wife Pat at his graduation from Holyoke Community College in 2005.

Readers of this book will find faith, hope, love, and grace. Darkness and light co-exist, neither overwhelming the other. You’ll Like It Here is ministry—restoring dignity to the innocent and exposing larger social justice issues with universal implications.

Ed Orzechowski, by the way, has also proved he does know how to write a book.

2017.06.18 When Your God-School Dies

What would it be like to have a school from which you graduated close its doors—for good? And what if it was a seminary, your God-school?  I can’t imagine. Maybe it would be like losing a beloved father/dad—too soon, which would be any time really.

My dad died at 71— too soon for the length of our love. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I’m so glad you were there when I graduated from my seminary at Yale, your undergraduate college.

Now I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the  Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) just closed.

A seminary is a particular kind of graduate school. It’s about learning to be who you are through studying who God is. How strange that sounds as I write it. How true it turned out to be… And how sad that many denominational seminaries are closing. Some, like EDS, are moving to affiliate with other thriving schools of theological education where they will maintain a presence, a dean, and some faculty.

The viability of independent denominational seminaries is obviously uncertain, but I wonder what the Spirit might be asking us to consider, besides just how to merge and survive as a kind of half-breed? I wonder if God might be calling us to examine the viability of denominationalism itself as a way of re-presenting Divinity to the world? 

I went to Yale Divinity because I could commute, and loved it, ironically, because it was not  denominational. I got courage there to sacrifice my fear of pushing for new ideas about sacred traditions and sacred language. Godde is bigger than all traditions. I will grieve if it ever closes. That said, I live now in Cambridge and will sorely miss having an Episcopal seminary right in my neighborhood—a presence.

I will sorely miss EDS, but not as much as its graduates, like the Rt. Rev. Alan Gates, Bishop of Massachusetts who wrote with candor about his own grief, memories and blessing.   

 “As a member of the EDS Class of 1987, I was marking my 30th reunion year.  My memories of EDS in the mid-1980s are not without complication.  It was a time of some considerable conflict and challenging community dynamics at the school.  Chapel life in particular was fraught.  And yet it was simultaneously a place of manifold grace and genuine formation for ministry in church and world, a blessing for which I have always been deeply grateful. At last week’s final Alumni Eucharist I found myself offering prayers of deep gratitude for that blessing.

What I had not anticipated was the level of deep grief that I experienced in that moment.  St. John’s Memorial Chapel and its surrounding campus was a place where I had been taught well by so many devoted faculty members; a place where I formed lifelong friendships; a place where our elder son was baptized; a place of altogether singular influence on my identity as a priest.

As we sang and prayed all of this was viscerally real to me, and I could not help but weep.  Momentarily present there in that chapel were all the remarkable, committed and quirky professors from whom I had learned, in both classroom and refectory.  Present with me were classmates and friends with whom I had exegeted Scripture; conjugated Greek verbs; wrestled with process theology; practiced chanting the collects; dreaded the GOEs; and contemplated resolving the campus housing shortage by turning the quad into a KOA campground.  Present also were support staff personalities who oversaw with an eagle eye my operation of the refectory’s Hobart dishwasher, and insisted (unfairly!) that I must have put coffee grounds down the kitchen sink at Kirkland Street housing.

All of those saints and more, living and dead, joined with alumni, faculty and friends as we celebrated the final moments of this final Eucharist of the final school year at EDS in Cambridge.  They were all there!

In coming days we will pray earnestly for the fruitful vocation of EDS at UTS.  On this day we pray with the deepest gratitude for the manifold gifts offered and received at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.  Thanks be to God.

Here is the final blessing which I offered at that closing Eucharist.

Now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
May the God of faith grant you the courage born of the assurance of things not seen;
May the God of hope renew your confidence and preserve you from despair when that arc of the moral universe seems to have bent in the wrong direction;
May the God of love empower you as an agent of that love, having been strengthened in this place to strive relentlessly for the justice which incarnates love;
And the blessing, mercy, and grace of God Almighty, Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit, be upon you and those you love and serve, this day and always.  Amen.”
 

2015.12.27 Vision Interrupted Not Lost

Dick and I first met the Rev. James Keegan, SJ, at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, Massachusetts, perhaps ten years ago. He was then a lively spirited man, full of chutzpah and good humor, with a challenging vision for the future of the retreat house where he was the Executive Director.

Jim is still lively and full of good humor, and he still believes in his vision. Sadly however, the implementation of his vision and his own health were interrupted by the onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Jim had put together a team of people, all of whom were united, not by religious practice or commitment, but by their singular commitment to the need for spiritual retreats for all people and to the ongoing vitality of Eastern Point as a retreat center. Jim’s idea was a good one, and also perhaps threatening to Roman Catholic, not to mention Jesuit, solidarity, read, control over the way of things. Still, I bet Jim and his vision for this magnificent place by the sea will not be lost.

Dick had been invited to serve on the discernment and planning team for the future of the retreat house. He was honored and excited. Jim had more than once attended Mass at St. John’s Episcopal parish where Dick was the rector—possibly recruiting for his dream team.

Very soon after Jim’s diagnosis, however, he left his position as the head of Eastern Point. It was a loss. We agreed. Jim moved on to deal with his own health and develop his ministry as a spiritual director. With his departure his vision vanished. 

Years passed. I often thought of Jim. Occasionally, we would see him at the Campion Center in Weston, MA. where aging Jesuits retired and where we went for Education for Ministry (EfM) trainings. The sight of him still jovial lifted my heart. But then we didn’t see Jim at meals any more. I wondered. I imagined him dead. Inquiries reveled that he was alive and living in The Pierce Pavilion for medical care  a Campion. I could get no information, because of “HPPA regulations, you know.” I kept wondering.

In November, 2015, I attended a day-long conference for spiritual directors, sponsored by Spiritual Directors International (SDI) at Campion, and there was Jim in the front row seated in an elaborate chair that gave him some mobility on his own. I was thrilled, as if I'd seen a resurrection. Jim grinned. We sat together and tried to catch up with each other, snatching time between the many process directions in the day, which we both thought was ineffective at best.  “Come visit me sometime,” Jim said. “Both of you. Call first. I have a cell phone and take messages.” I kissed him goodbye and left with his phone number in my bag.

On December 8, Dick and I visited Jim. The nurse knew we were coming and told us to wait while she ran down the hall calling out, "Father Jim, are you decent? Visitors."  We spent nearly two hours in delightful remembrances and church-only humor.  Jim is alive! Not well, but alive and mentally alert. He sees some 18 spiritual directees and has his signature humor, grin, and vision. “I had a great team,” he said, recalling his vision for Eastern Point.

Daily during Advent and Christmastide, Jim motors out to the central rotunda of the immense building and sits to meditate before the enormous Christmas tree. The big chapel is nearby, but Jim sits with the tree. I imagine him to be contemplating “the blessed sacrament” in arboreal incarnation. 

Jim writes poetry, some of it published. He gave me some of it to read. Without the use of his hands, Jim’s joy in writing and typing is limited, if not gone. He gave me permission to quote some of his poems. I relish it as a gift and as a sign of resurrection hope for his withered body to be made whole and taken home—resurrected into the soul of God.


These Hands

When did these hands become foreign to me?
Skewed like a lobster’s calls: about ten degrees
off at the wrist—and boney? Puffy blue rivers
of blood run north-northwest up their back side.

And when did these hands make enemies of
buttonholes, zippers, clasps, fasteners of
all sorts, screws, safety pins, paper clips or
any kind of knot? Did it happen in my sleep?

My sleep has been visited in recent weeks
by a newborn baby in a crowd. He looks at me and laughs,
stretches out to me ten perfect fingers and
holds my scarred flesh in his divine grasp.

Jim’s favorite poem:

Spring

If you can tell me how the frequent burst
of pheasants from the brush, the swagger
of the moon-struck waves, the dark receding
of the snow and, in the morning sprawl,
the news of robins, all are spring,
can you explain how spring
and you arise so clearly in my mind
together?

Thank you, Jim, friend and brother priest, for yourself and your gifts. Hang in there, spring is a mere 85 days off!!

2013.01.20 Weddings in Cana of Galilee and Massachusetts

When we were in Israel in June, 2012, we went to Cana of Galilee, just north of Nazareth. There is a Byzantine Christian Church in Cana erected in the 6th century.  Cana is the site of the biblical story about  the Wedding at Cana the place where, according to the gospel of John, Jesus performed his first miracle:turning water into wine when the wine ran out at a wedding feast.  If I were going to do a miracle I might have chosen something less dangerous, more dignified. 

Our group of pilgrims went into the convent garden to read the story aloud and to hear our professor tell us about its historical, cultural context.

 Here is what we learned about wedding customs in the Palestine of Jesus.............
     A whole village celebrated a marriage. It would have been a Tuesday, the third day of the week, the day set for marriages. The festivities lasted 2 weeks. So maybe they would need all that wine!
    Many guests at a wedding celebration were not invited. Were they crashers? No. All first-line members of the family were automatic guests. You had to expect your Uncle Oswald at your wedding, whether you liked him or not. AND, each family member brought 15 additional guests with them! 
    Mary, Jesus’ mother, was not an invited guest because she was a family member. Jesus as well, and he would have brought his disciples at least, and maybe a few anonymous women. Today we have problems with wedding costs and guest lists disputes. It can be a real hassle and expense, but in that day the custom of hospitality set the rules.  Y’all come, for days and days.
    But.............women and men had separate parties. Let’s say the women drank too much wine and Mary, a family member, was approached with the news. Since all family members were responsible for the hospitality. Mary would be expected to provide more wine. She would have to go home to get more, or to the store.  Instead she went to Jesus.
    In going to her son, Mary transgressed a social boundary. 
     Jesus was surprised to see Mary on the men’s side. “Woman,” he said, “what are you doing over here?” He isn’t rude, just astounded.  His mother had broken a strong social tabu.The plot thickens. We can begin to see why this is a miracle story, a reversal of expectations.
    Jesus had a choice: come out as who he understood himself to be, or send his mother away in disgrace for breaking a rule which, socially, was like breaking the sound barrier.  He took care of the wine shortage with a miracle. He followed his mom’s sense that now is the hour he should come out, show his true powers. She knew him well.

This story suddenly was no longer about water into wine, or even about the symbology of divine abundance, or the sanctity of marriage, but about daring to defy, to break down the gender barrier completely—far more dangerous, far more costly, and far more holy even than hospitality. Mother and son defied custom. This is radically prophetic they did together, out of mutual respect and love—and their knowledge of the divine hope, not for wine but for social change. 

My jaw dropped open. This old story came alive for me in new ways, just by knowing its culture and custom.  Never heard a Cana sermon with this radical prophetic message.

What Mary started is how social transformation begins.

It reminds me of the transformation that Chief Justice Margaret Marshall started in 2003 when she delivered her landmark court ruling that allowed same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

Mitchell cited higher values: “a public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family.” Marshall’s words are read at many same-sex marriage ceremonies. They are gospel to many, even those who claim not to be religious.

But here it is in our ancient scriptural text and in the 21st century in another setting and culture entirely: God’s bold, ongoing spiritual work of transformation toward oneness.