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Roots

By Charles Rush

May 16, 2010

[ Audio (mp3, 6.0Mb) ]

en my children were toddlers, my wife would take them to an ice cream store that was owned by an immigrant from Russia. He would make a big production out of serving ice cream. They would always part by saying, “Have a good day”. It was a little ritual they went through.

The ice cream store didn't do well. One day we went to get some ice cream, a big deal was made, and my children all said, “Have a good day”.

The owner looked at my wife with some wistfulness. He said, “I have to close the business and I will not see you again. My friends, not only a good day, have a good life.”

My daughter Lauren, aged 3, said, “Have a good life” and she blew a kiss.

It was a poignant moment and I was reflecting on how casual we say those things when we are young. You graduate from High School and you wave goodbye to everyone, really anxious for the adventure to begin, and to leave that all behind.

Turn around, you are graduating from college. Group picture and you say farewell thinking that your paths will all cross somehow, someway in the future.

You travel in college or right after. You meet the most interesting people from Australia in the middle of the Congo, spend three intense days together, and depart south and north, probably for good with a simple hug and a “Ta Ta”…

You get older and it is not the same thing. On the one hand, you are vaguely aware with each significant goodbye of the not too far distant day when you say the big goodbye. And, if you have been lucky, you are really saying thank you for being loved. It is not so easy to replace that.

It turns out that our researchers started doing some serious study on what brings us humans genuine fulfillment, a good deal of it is what we already knew to be true in the beloved community. We are fulfilled when we feel ourselves to be connected in a community. These relationships are what make us really contented. That is why it is called beloved.

Better, we are happy when we can identify and practice our signature strengths, things we are really good at, what it is that we do well, what we bring to the table- if we can practice those skills day in and day out, especially with the people that we love. If the people that we love can appreciate our what we bring to the game and give us positive feedback, that is really fulfilling. This we fundamentally value.

Another way that our researchers put it, if we can love and be loved, we are really lucky. It turns out that letting yourself ‘be loved' is important. We often think of men who are reticent about allowing themselves to be loved, as men are socialized to become independent and have an under-developed ability to receive but the early research suggests that it is a challenge in both genders. The challenge to allowing ourselves to be loved is actually probably more related to our capacity to trusting and intimate. The whole area anticipates better understanding in the near future. We are just now beginning to look into it.

There is good news. You are more likely to live longer and you are more likely to find your life fulfilling if you go to Church. And you are more likely to have a fulfilling romantic life if you are in church. So, congratulations. You are already probably doing better than you thought you were. We don't know why these correlate but it is probably related to another finding.

The single greatest correlate between those people that describe themselves as ‘most happy', by which we mean they describe their life is one of deep and fulfilling contentment- the single greatest correlate is a great marriage. And if you look at the literature, it is not just married people exclusively. This is the way Professor David Meyers put it…”There are few stronger predictors of happiness than a close, nurturing, equitable, intimate, lifelong companionship with one's best friend.”

That is pretty much what the Church has been saying about love for 2000 years… “close, nurturing-build each other up, give one another confidence and inspiration, equitable- and reciprocal; we change roles but everyone feels like they are in this together and meeting each other's needs; over time- that is a plus, profound friendship and camaraderie.[i]

It turns out that this foundation is actually a real key to being able to withstand quite a lot of real hardship and get through it okay: financial problems, disease, acts of nature, wars, anarchy in the wider world. You can absorb quite a great deal of distress and hardship and still describe your life as happy and fulfilling if you have a deep sense of loving others and being loved.

And the converse is also true. When we actually poll people that describe themselves as not happy or not fulfilled, the single most significant cause of unhappiness is a divorce, a death, a break up, a significant interruption of a pivotal relationship that you are in.

I love scientists describing these things. They say things like ‘humans have developed the evolutionary adaptation for pair-bonding to educate offspring during their long process of maturity.' Translate- We need our people because with the love that we have known from our people, we have the skill and the confidence to try all kinds of things and endure all kinds of things together- and sometimes parenting adolescents can only be described as endurance. We can get through a lot.

It is a funny thing about us humans. We are prone to overvalue what we already have irrationally. Professor Van Boven did an experiment at the University of British Columbia. He gave his students a beer mug with the college logo on the front. It was worth 5 dollar and you could buy it at the Bookstore.

A while later, he gave them an option. They could keep the mug or they could trade it on auction for other items of similar value that were sold at the Bookstore.

Here is what he discovered. The students generally wouldn't sell their $5 beers mugs on auction for less than $7 but they wouldn't pay more than $4 for someone else's beer mug. We are not straight forward rational creatures. Our rationality values what we have more and we have more commitment to it. My people, right and wrong… This is where blood is thicker than water. The good news is that we are largely hard wired to give it a good shot- our relationships, our families, our lives- we are hard wired to really try and make it work.

And we are all on a process of maturation from either being anxious or avoidant to becoming secure in love. Much of this is shaped from childhood.

Avoidant people aren't naturally comfortable being close to other people. They don't like to depend on others. It makes them nervous when they have to trust. They report that their spouse or their close friend wants to be closer to them than they want to be much of the time.

Anxious people are worried that they are going to swamp their spouse or their good friends. They report that they would like to merge with their spouse. They worry that they will drive other people away. They worry that their spouse doesn't really love them. They expect too much and want to be too close.

Secure people strive for intimacy and pay attention to a balance between dependence and independence. They develop healthy self-esteem and have few self-doubts. They regard others as trustworthy until proven otherwise. They are reliable, good-hearted, helpful, and well regarded by those around them. They are communicative when they are upset and use distress to move towards reconciliation and constructive ends. (As opposed to tantrums)

As you might imagine, secure people are much more likely to remember their parents as “available warm, and affectionate.”[ii]

This is what we want to become with each other and for each other. As it turns out, as you mature into being secure people, it has beneficial effects: You are a better care giver, you have a more fulfilling romantic life, and you are better at coping with bad events.[iii]

What really strikes me about this is that the same qualities of maturation that make you a good marriage partner, also make you a good family person, and a solid community developer. As you develop a solid marriage around you, a solid family around you, a substantial community, you are much more likely to find the resources to actualize a meaningful life.

It is the same spiritual demeanor. That is what is relatively profound about the character of Ruth in the bible. She is not a Jew. She married a Jewish boy. He dies. Ruth's Jewish Mother-in-Law tells her that she can return to her people.

It is a gracious gesture. Go home to your people. Find another husband, reclaim your family. You don't need to worry about me in my old age.

But the Mother-in-Law underestimates the love of her daughter-in-law. And what a beautiful thing that is because in-laws are like adopting children as adults. You are never quite sure what the relationship will be like and you worry about it quite a bit. You are so dependent on your children making wise choices in mates. And Ruth says the most endearing, kind of model line if you could hear one from a daughter-in-law. She says, “Where you go, I will go… your people shall be my people”. It means, I love you and that love will endure.

And perhaps that is why St. Paul, when he describes the nature of love, he doesn't really draw a distinction between marriage, family, or the church. He just addresses us as one beloved community because the spiritual disposition that brings fulfillment in one arena brings maturity in all of arenas.

Spiritually speaking, manifesting love and maturing in love is an end in itself. Our communal life is important. This is principally what we are to be about.

At the end of the day, we don't get to stay together forever but it is very important that we establish a beloved community together, a place where we can mature in love and friendship. And if we really do our job, when we say ‘goodbye' it is really sad because we actualized fulfilling love.

We want people to grow onto the next stage of their life and to move when they need to. But my hope for our Congregation is that we make it hard for you to move because this is a secure and stable place for you, for your family.

And my hope for all of you is that you will open yourselves, that you will invest yourselves and your families in making a stable community here, so that many years from now, if you should move on, this would be a pillar in your life, in your family's life, that would be hardest to leave. Then, we will know that we have succeeded.

Bill and Mary, we send you out as ambassadors of the beloved community.

We don't exactly say goodbye because we will always be connected through prayer. And with technology, some of us stay literally connected. There are weeks, I talk to people in London as much as people in Summit.

But we send you out as Ambassadors of Christ Church. What you have experienced here is still not experienced enough. Not enough churches are the real deal. And so we hope that you are able to take these roots and re-plant a shoot or two of some of what we have known and shared together in Massachusetts. The most common note I get from former Christ Church people whether they move to Dallas, San Francisco, London or Toronto is that there aren't enough congregations like ours. We want you to plant some of this somewhere else.

We will stay connected even though we are apart. Love is like that. It has been a privilege to know you and to share our lives together. We want to bless you as you go, so why don't you all come forward at this time.

[i] This is a summary of the chapter from Martin Seligman's book “Authentic Happiness”(New York: Free Press, 2002). See p. 187 for the quote. David Myers book is American Paradox. I haven't read it but Seligman thinks it is excellent. Professor Seligman teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and has done some break through research on happiness. What follows is simply a condensation of his chapter on Love.

[ii] See Seligman, pps. 190-193… The preceding four paragraphs were simply a condensation of the chapter.

[iii] pp. 194-195.