Illuminations From ruthless corporate life to peace as a
Jesuit
By RETTA BLANEY
In the smelly bathroom of a hospice
in Kingston, Jamaica, a man in his late 20s is bathing, shaving and clipping
the toenails of dying old men. Boy, if your friends from Wharton could
see you now, says a friend who has just arrived from the United
States.
With that anecdote, Jesuit Fr. James Martin begins his latest
book, In Good Company: The Fast Track from the Corporate World to Poverty,
Chastity and Obedience (Sheed & Ward, 2000). He tells of a journey from
a Philadelphia childhood in which Catholicism was of only marginal importance,
through a finance degree at the elite Wharton School of Business and six years
climbing the ladder at General Electric Co. Up to that point it didnt
seem likely to anyone, especially Martin, that he would respond to a call to
the priesthood. But, as he has come to realize, nothing is impossible with
God.
Martin was at GE during CEO Jack Welchs relentless
two-decade campaign to reshape GE, pushing managers to become more and more
productive and firing some 100,000 employees as he turned GE from a $13 billion
to a $500 billion company. Welchs highly publicized memoir, Jack:
Straight from the Gut, was recently published to great fanfare.
What readers wont find in Welchs book is an account
from the other side -- what Martin saw as a dehumanizing environment at GE.
Among experiences he describes in his book are his duties in the income margin
department in New York City. The first month, I informed one executive
that our results were coming in low, we probably werent going to
make our numbers, a cardinal sin, he wrote. The executive
told him to reverse a few numbers each month to hit the right numbers.
Just do whatever it takes to make those numbers, Martin was
told.
In Good Company was written nine years ago when Martin,
still in his formation period as a Jesuit, was recuperating from mononucleosis
in Nairobi, Kenya. After returning to work, he stored the 202-page book on a
computer disk. It wasnt until a couple of years ago that he considered
publishing it.
Telling the story
He decided to edit the manuscript as lightly as possible. As he
put it, he preferred to let that younger person -- still fresh with
memories of the first stirrings of a vocation, still carrying the glow of the
Long Retreat, still full of definite opinions about religious life: that is,
still very much a new Jesuit -- tell the story the way he saw it during those
long, idle months in East Africa.
Martin, now 40, said it took him only a couple of weeks to write
the book, and that publishing it wasnt his motivation.
I had so much to write about, he told NCR in a
telephone interview from his office at America, the Jesuit magazine of
which he is an associate editor. I wanted to get it all down before I
forgot it. It was such a clear time for me, from disgruntled executive to happy
Jesuit. The story told itself.
The decision to edit little meant being open about his personal
life, before and after ordination.
Its necessary to include chastity and sexuality if
youre going to discuss religious life with any honesty, he said.
Chastity is what people want to know about.
It also gave Martin a clearer picture of what had happened.
For the first time I really understood how God was at work
in my life, he said. When you write, the order becomes more
evident. Gods graces were more apparent.
Discussing religious life is a fairly new venture for Martin, who
admits his early understanding of Catholicism came mostly from several years of
religion classes outside Catholic schools. But in the driven, often ruthless
world of GE, a world that eventually gave him stomach pains and migraines, he
began to realize he needed more than a successful career.
You were your number
Martins disgust at corporate practices grew even more in
response to Welchs efforts to make GE lean and mean, which
meant laying off thousands of employees. That same month, during
downsizing, Jack Welch decided to renovate the CEOs office in the
building, Martin wrote, explaining that even though corporate
headquarters was in Connecticut, Welch enjoyed having a private office in
New York, which he visited roughly two or three days a month.
Martin didnt find the environment any kinder after he moved
to the GE capital in Stamford, Conn., where many people had been assigned a
number summarizing their potential. Martins responsibilities had him
hiring and placing people in mid-level finance jobs. Many people had been
assigned a number.
It very much reminded me of Brave New World -- you
were your number, he wrote. Managers called up asking for a job
candidate and, after I provided a lengthy explanation of someones
strengths or weaknesses, they would say, Forget it, shes just a
2. Or, Jim, do you have any 1s for me? Like we were playing
Fish. With people.
Martins stress level on biofeedback tests got so high his
psychiatrist tried to calm him with guided meditation. Through talking with the
psychiatrist, Martin, who had first explored the idea of becoming a priest two
years earlier after discovering Thomas Merton on a PBS special, realized that
the priesthood was exactly what he wanted.
Changing his mindset took time. While still at GE, he was asked by
the Jesuits to make an eight-day retreat. He automatically asked the retreat
director to fax him the agenda. And once accepted, while studying
the life of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius Loyola, Martin concluded Ignatius had
a tenacity that made Martin think the saint might have done pretty
well at GE.
Martins own tenacity has served him well, especially at the
hospice in Kingston, his first assignment to the developing world. Much was
hard to take at first, but he came to care about the people and found a peace
he had never known.
He recalls sitting on his porch reading, listening to the
parakeets in the tall pine trees. I heard from the cathedral, which stood
but a few paces from the school, Easter songs drifting about in the warm
Jamaican air, and I thought quite suddenly -- Hey, Im happy! It was
something of a surprise, after the weeks of struggling, and an entirely
pleasant one at that.
He reflected on the various changes in his life and discovered
what has helped him through. It was amazing to realize that, in just two
years, prayer had become a central element of my life, almost as regular as
breathing. If for one day I didnt pray, I felt off-center, out of touch
with the deepest part of myself -- the bond that tied me to God.
Following his two years in Jamaica, Martin studied philosophy for
two years at Loyola University in Chicago, worked in Africa for two years -- an
experience that led to his first book, This Our Exile: A Spiritual Journey
with the Refugees of East Africa (Orbis, 1999) -- studied theology for four
years at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., and served for a
year at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Manhattans Upper East Side.
He was ordained in 1999.
Besides Martins work at America, his present ministry
includes living in community with fellow Jesuits, attending daily Mass, a daily
hour of prayer, giving spiritual direction and continuing to serve at St.
Ignatius Church on weekends.
Its a typical Jesuit working life, he says.
Like so many in Manhattan, his typical life was disrupted by the
extraordinary events of Sept. 11. The evening of the attack on the World Trade
Center, Martin headed to a building on Manhattans West Side where victims
were to have been brought. I thought, This is where the church
needs to be. This is where the Jesuits need to be, he said.
The Spirit among death
Since few victims were found, he went the next day to a hospital
to counsel family members. The following day he asked a police officer if
priests were needed at the site of the attack. The officer flagged down a
police car that took Martin right to what has been called Ground Zero.
Martin went back more than half a dozen times, accompanied by
Jesuit seminarians from Fordham University.
Its very moving down there, he said, especially
seeing various groups -- police, firefighters, rescue workers, the Salvation
Army -- working together. Theres a strong feeling of the Spirit at
work, of people pulling together. Especially in the first few days, it was
amazing to feel the Spirit at work among all that death.
Martin, who didnt know any of the victims, approached the
workers at the site casually, asking them how they were doing, leaving them the
opportunity to open up. Some did, others just needed a friendly conversation.
Some, like the ironworkers, were unprepared for their task. Theyd
say, When I started my career I didnt know Id be pulling out
dead bodies, Martin said.
On the Sunday after the Tuesday attack, Martin said Mass a couple
yards from the ruins. Various signs had been spray painted around the area,
marking different sites such as those for eye washing and for the morgue. At
the space where Martin had said Mass, someone later spray-painted in big orange
letters: Body of Christ.
Retta Blaney is a freelance writer living in New York.
National Catholic Reporter, October 26,
2001
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