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c h a p t e r t e n The Things That Abide When I lately stood with a friend before [the cathedral of ] Amiens, and he beheld with awe and pity that monument of giant strength in towering stone, and of dwarfish patience in minute sculpture, he asked me how it happens that we can no longer build such piles? I replied: “Dear Alphonse, men in those days had convictions , we moderns have opinions, and it requires something more than an opinion to build a Gothic cathedral.” Heinrich Heine, The Salon Duke Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas argues that it is possible to assess where a society invests its faith by observing which buildings are most imposing and impressive.1 For most of human history, places of worship—the Great Temple of Jerusalem, Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Masjid al Haram Mosque in Mecca, the Salt Lake City Tabernacle—dominated city skylines and symbolized humanity’s deepest convictions and highest hopes. In postwar America, a new kind of cathedral began to appear on the landscape—huge, monolithic buildings housing corporate offices and research facilities, representing the faith we invested in technological and economic progress to lead us to the promised land of prosperity. In our own era, Hauerwas suggests, the most impressive “cathedrals” are the sprawling medical centers. The Mayo Clinic has become the new Lourdes, where we invest our faith and our hope of being delivered from suffering and death. Whether or not they understand themselves to be religious, those who journey with a cherished friend or family member who has dementia will have ample reason to ponder life’s deepest themes and questions. How do we place the present experience of that friend in the broader context of a life imbued with meaning and value? What are the deeper resources that can sustain the friend— and us—in times of challenge or the painful reality of suffering? What endures beyond the transience of mortal life? Paul (1 Cor. 13:13) famously spoke of the three things that abide—faith, hope, and love. We consider each of these in turn. 150 Aging Together What Is Faith? Paul Tillich (1957) insisted that “there is hardly a word in the religious language, both theological and popular, which is subject to more misunderstandings, distortions and questionable definitions than the word ‘faith.’” He then offered his own definition of faith as “the state of being ultimately concerned” (1). Tillich was seeking a definition that could lay fair claim to being universal, embracing both those who consider themselves religious and those who do not. All persons have something that they look to for ultimate meaning and purpose in life. It may be the nation-state, the family, or the tribal group. It may be personal power, prestige, or material success. It may be a code of ethics. Or it may be a higher power acknowledged to be God. Whoever or whatever people look to for ultimate meaning is the object of their faith. As Tillich wryly observed, religious groups in particular offer a wide array of definitions of what it means to have or to hold a faith, often associating it with subscribing to a set of beliefs or doctrines—to “have faith” is to believe particular things about God or to believe them in a particular way. Here we speak of faith more broadly, as a relationship with an external source of meaning—an ultimate concern—that commands commitment, loyalty, fidelity, and trust. To be faithful to a spouse, partner, or friend is not merely to believe in that person’s existence. To have faith, whether in a supreme deity or in a friend, is to invest trust, loyalty, and commitment in that ongoing relationship. In an earlier chapter we discussed Martin Buber’s distinction between I-Thou and I-it relationships. I-Thou describes relationships with other beings (whether persons or God) who are complete in themselves, neither reducible nor fully knowable. These are relationships we are not free to manipulate or control. I-it describes relationships with material objects that can be understood and reduced to component parts—items we are free to use to our purposes and pleasures . Objects of faith can be roughly separated into the same two categories. It is certainly possible to invest a kind of faith in an “it.” We speak, for example, of having faith that our car will get us home through...

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