Peter Kreeft, a professor at Boston College, offers wisdom and expressions of love to his children in his book, "Before I Go."
(Boston College Chronicle)
Spiritual Life
What goes unsaid during life stays unsaid when you're dead. That perhaps obvious bit of wisdom compelled Peter Kreeft, a Boston College philosophy professor, to write of his love and offer his best advice for his four 30-something children in his latest book, "Before I Go" (Rowman & Littlefield). The counsel draws heavily on his Roman Catholicism, especially on social teaching, as the book makes clear his opposition to artificial contraception, gay marriage, and abortion.
Kreeft, 70, also lays out life wisdom in chapters such as "Why Honesty is the Most Important Virtue" ("Honesty means the demand for truth, and love needs truth.") and "Lesson From a Great Poet" (Thomas Carlyle, a 19th-century Scot who was too busy to spend much time with his dying wife; after her death, he read her diary, which disclosed how she'd treasured his presence; he went to her grave and wept, "If only I had known").
Excerpts from a recent interview follow.
Q. What made you think of writing this book? Was there a specific incident?
A. There was not a special event. The idea seemed self-evident. Every parent wants to give whatever wisdom he has to his children, and not using the written form seemed to be a lacuna that I wanted to fill in.
Q. Why publish [the book] for a general audience, when these are basically love letters to your kids?
A. Because all children are very similar, and all parents are very similar, and all wisdom is very similar. What's true is true.
Q. You start the book saying you wish you'd been a wiser and more present parent for your children. What regrets do you have as a parent?
A. Like most parents, we had good will but not the expertise we wish we had. Back in Victorian days, the father was the paterfamilias who would lecture at the dinner table and have absolute authority. Nobody wants to return to that, but we don't have an adequate substitute, so we muddle around.
Q. You find much wisdom in your church. Is there any area in which you think the church misses the boat?
A. One of the reasons I became a Catholic when I was in college is my discovery of the astonishing gap between what the church teaches and what she practices. Her practice has been extremely spotty - she hasn't lived up to her ideals very well at all - and yet her ideals have remained the same and consistent and faithful and very high.
Q. Are there ideals the church holds to that you think are wrong?
A. No. The church claims to be the authentic voice of Christ and his apostles on earth. If that claim isn't true, it's arrogant and blasphemous. If it is true, well, you eat all the food that Mother Church puts on your plate. Which does not mean it's a complete meal. The church never claims to give you all the answers.
Q. In the book, you say trusting God is essential to getting to heaven. Do you ever look at the world's tragedies and doubt God?
A. Who doesn't? Doubts are the ants in the pants that keep faith moving. It's similar to our relationship with other human beings. The decision to trust them is a gamble, and we can lose if we're wrong. God doesn't give you a guarantee.
Q. What would have been different in this book if you were not informed by Catholicism?
A. One obvious example is the end, where I say I will see you in heaven. I couldn't be confident of that if I didn't have God's word.
Q. What advice would you give an agnostic seeking to write a similar book?
A. Be absolutely honest. An agnostic is honest enough to confess that he doesn't know. That's embarrassing. We all like to know rather than to be ignorant. Socrates was an agnostic. We get a wonderful example and advice from Socrates. Albert Camus was a great agnostic.
Q. Your kids have had a chance to read the book. What have they said?
A. It's mainly a work of love, so the main reaction was gratitude - "Thanks, Dad."
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