Column
Business trumps spirit; heart and soul is lost
By JEANNETTE BATZ
The church is a business,”
insists Tom, talking about a recent vestry meeting in which he shocked his
fellow Episcopalians by treating it so. “You can’t pretend the
money’s just going to appear by miracle. As for dipping into the endowment
… ”
Our friends are nodding agreement, shoring up his pragmatism.
I’m thinking about loaves and fishes and sweet honey from a rock, seas
parting and water fermenting to a fine wine.
Once I asked, at the annual meeting of an idealistic nonprofit,
whether we were practicing socially conscious investment. The pink faded
instantly from the crumpled cheeks of the accountant who’d managed the
portfolio for decades. “It’s just not wise, honey,” she told me,
and finished with asperity: “We’d lose money that way.”
In America, business trumps spirit every time. We’ve even
managed to commodify Sept. 11, starting with the New York investment
consultants who immediately produced a commercial of white candles, lit one by
one with quiet reverence, to restore our faith in capital. Now stores of every
kind sell red-white-and-blue memorabilia, and shopping itself has been
pronounced a declaration of patriotism.
I’m old enough to -- well, I’m old enough to start a
sentence that way. I’m 40, which isn’t ancient, yet I remember when
churches, hospitals and schools weren’t businesses. Getting sick
felt a whole lot more comfortable when you could cherish at least the illusion
that decisions would be made on the basis of your health, and not their bottom
line.
After grad school I worked seven years at St. Louis University,
catching the end of that golden period before universities took on
corporate-style management. Fr. Edward J. Drummond, a kindly, wizened Jesuit
who’d once been university president, had suffered a series of strokes,
losing the ability to speak logically. He’d wander around the familiar
campus, stopping in each office, and as soon as Fr. Drummie appeared in the
doorway, secretaries set aside their typing to chat with him. My editor once
sat patiently for an hour and a half while Father regaled him. After he left,
beaming and waving, Rich burst into my office waving his notebook. “I
think I’ve got it!” he said. “If you take every third word
… ”
We laughed, but it was gentle laughter, the kind you reserve for a
beloved uncle. Nobody ever came round to ask why Rich was spending so much time
chatting when he had a paper to put out. And the paper always got out. We did
an immense amount of work in those days, none of it grudging. Yet we found time
to adopt a young Jesuit’s dog after he got kicked out of the dorm, and we
played tennis ball with the pup several times a day. We kept a futon in the
storage room in case anybody had cramps or needed a nap. We kept the priorities
human.
Now, this university, like all others, is self-consciously
corporate. It’s still a decent place, filled with dedicated people. But
the air is different, and so is the management structure, layered with
overseers and plagued by budgetary “measures.” Recently there was a
spate of downsizing.
My editor had worked at St. Louis University for years, too. In
the end, plagued by scleroderma and a wife with severe mental illness, he
slowed to a standstill, unable to meet the daily grind of deadlines. He
didn’t get downsized, or demeaned. Instead, they found him a project --
write a book about the history of the university -- and let him set the pace.
It wasn’t a businesslike arrangement at all; he should have been let go.
They could have found a young person with twice the energy for half the money.
Rich could have gotten a job running a carwash or something, used the
family’s savings to pay the medical bills, chalked it up to business as
usual.
Except, he’d given his life to the place.
It’s a funny thing: The more our churches and hospitals and
universities run like businesses, the less inclined anybody is to pour out
their time, heart and sweat to help them continue.
Business can’t measure the human heart and soul.
Jeannette Batz is a staff writer for The Riverfront Times,
an alternative newspaper in St. Louis. Her e-mail address is
jeannette.batz@riverfronttimes.com
National Catholic Reporter, January 10,
2003
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