Mark Dawes,
Staff Reporter
Cathleen Falsani, author of 'The God Factor'. - Photo
by Paul Natkin © 2005
SOMETIMES PUBLIC persons are not known to be religious. But
up close they exude awesome spiritual perspectives, which to the
discerning, will serve to broaden one's horizons and appreciation
of the sacred and transcendent. Cathleen Falsani has provided
glimpses of the spirituality of well-known figures in American
life in her newly-published book, The God Factor.
The American writer was among the specially invited authors
who spoke at last month's Calabash Literary Festival, held in
St. Elizabeth.
Her book started in December 2002 as articles she wrote while
conducting a series of interviews with rock singer Bono of the
group U2 as he conducted a tour throughout the United States to
raise the social conscience of Americans.
As she filed her stories, they sparked lots of public responses
for and against the rock star. Not long afterwards, those Bono
stories became a launchpad to pursue a series of interviews where
she got a glimpse into the interior lives of 32 public figures.
These included publisher of Playboy Magazine, Hugh Hefner;
forensic scientist Henry Lee; rock stars Melissa Etheridge, Bono
and Billy Corgan; and attorney Barry Scheck; speech writer and
policy adviser to President Bush, Michael Gerson; holocaust survivor
and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Elie Wiesel.
SAFE PLACE
She explained, "I wanted to ask them questions and to give them
a safe place where I was not going to judge them or confront them
about disconnects or confront them about whether they were right
or wrong ... I just really asked them to honestly tell me what
they believe.
Ms. Falsani, 35, who is married to Chicago Tribune crime
reporter, Maurice Possley, holds graduate degrees in theology
and journalism. She does the religion beat for the Chicago
Sun-Times.
The religion beat, she said, is becoming a popular beat in many
U.S. newsrooms. "At the major newspapers in the United States,
most of them have at least one religion reporter. And of those,
maybe more than half of us have an advanced degree in something
and that is a sea of change to say seven or eight years ago. So
yes, it (religion) has moved from the beat nobody wanted, to the
beat everybody wants, because it is front page news. People have
discovered what a great beat it is because if you do it right,
you get to cover everything else, politics, education, sports,
music, art, culture, books, everything. It is a hot beat now,
there is a lot of competition for it."
For the book, her first question, was usually, "How would you
describe yourself spiritually?"
This predictably produced a range of answers. She explained,
"Some persons offered a one-word answer. Others spoke for up to
25 minutes. She said, "The more latitude I gave people, the more
interesting their answers to all of the questions were." The U.S.
reporter said she chose her interviewees on the basis of who she
thought were intriguing, interesting. But sometimes, she was simply
their fan.
Entertainment mogul, Russell Simmons was one of her interviewees.
Simmons, who gave the world the hip-hop label Def Jam; clothing
line, Phat Farm; and comedy cable show, Def Comedy Jam told
her it was not enough for people to be nominal about their faith.
Rather Simmons, she said, stressed the importance of practising
one's faith.
Falsani: "Russell Simmons says, 'If you are going to call yourself
a Christian, be a practising Christian. If you are going to be
a Muslim, be a practising Muslim. If you are going to be Jew,
be a practising Jew. Do it and get better at it.
COMMON THEME
A common theme among her interviewees most of whom were
wealthy she said was a sense of being blessed and an eagerness
to give something back to society. "They are grateful and are
trying to live in a grateful way," she said.
Singer Annie Lennox, too, was someone she sat down with to get
a glimpse into her soul. "She is a beautiful person. A stunningly
beautiful woman. She was brutally honest. She is a classic seeker.
She is trying to figure it out and she hasn't figured it to yet.
And she would really like to. She has tried lots of different
things. She has an aversion to organised religion that is kind
of part of how she is made. She has always considered herself
an outsider that is part of her identity. She was not raised
religiously'. Annie believes that since she isn't getting any
younger, it would be great to have some answers," Falsani said.
"She has this fierce spirit and she is wide-eyed, just taking
in everything. She told me about the stillbirth of her first child
and how that affected her. The fleetingness of life, and mortality.
I walked out of there and said thank you God, that was an incredibly
sacred moment.
Civil rights leader, Rev. Al Sharpton, she said was quick to
agree to the interview. "I told him 'I don't want to talk to you
about politics and I don't want to talk to you about activism
... And he agreed to do that. And I had a vastly different conversation
than 98 per cent of journalists have ever had with him. When I
got him talking about Jesus, it was a different man. I think I
got the real Al. I think I captured the real Al. And that's all
I cared about."
Among those featured in her book, is Hugh Hefner, publisher of
Playboy Magazine. She interviewed him at his home, the
Playboy Mansion. "Hef has written a lot on religion over the years
and the place of religion in culture. He is not traditionally
religious. But he has given a lot of thought to issues of faith,
morals, and values and religion and has constructed for himself
a kind of moral universe where he honestly believes he is a moral
man, Ms. Falsani said.
NO FAN OF BIBLICAL EPICS
My impression was that he thought he knew what I wanted to hear.
But that was not what I was coming for. He was giving me very
thoughtful answers, but I could sense that they were things he
had said before and which he had practised. I was trying to get
to the real guy in there. He showed me his (movies) screening
room on his way in. He is a very huge film buff, so am I."
Falsani: "Hef, what's the most spiritual film you have ever seen?
"He tried to answer it in the way he thought I was asking all
of the questions. He said, 'Well I was not really a big fan of
the biblical epics so I don't really know.' Then I interrupted
him, which I rarely ever do in an interview. I said, 'Let me tell
you what mine is. Harold and Maude ( a 1971 movie of humour
and satire)'.
"It was like this invisible wall just disappeared between us.
I had no idea that the stars of the movie Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon
and her husband, who is a director, were also dear friends of
his and that it is also one of his favourite films.
"He said, 'Well oh, if that's what you mean by spiritual then
it's a whole different thing. And then we had this conversation
which was so much real and so much candid and telling about him
as a person than what we would have had otherwise.
What surprised her most in the interview with Hefner, she said,
was "How he talks about treating other people; how respectful
he tries to be. I mean this is completely counterintuitive to
the man that people consider a pornographer that exploits women.
I was not there to judge him, I wanted him to feel safe and to
tell me what he really thought.
"He talked about his mother and his parents, how he was raised.
He literally came from Puritan stock. His ancestors came over
on the Mayflower. He is from the Midwest and mainline and Protestant
... His parents were not particularly affectionate and loving.
They took good care of him, provided for him, made sure he and
his brothers had all kinds of experiences. He tells me he can't
remember ever being hugged or kissed by his parents. "He said,
'And I realised that is a huge motivating factor for why I have
done what I have done with my life.'
"He said his mother apologised to him before she died, for having
not been more affectionate. He said, 'Mom don't. I am fine. And
because of the way I was raised, I have changed the world.'"
Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com.
