Positive Presence
By Charles Rush
October 2, 2011
Rm. 12: 2, 9 and Phil. 2: 14-17
[ Audio
(mp3, 8.1Mb) ]
ter Krieger was sitting in the cardiologists office after a brush with angina, filling out a questionnaire on his lifestyle for the physician. He was asked to describe the incident that landed him in the office, a relatively benign event, yelling at the umpire at the Jets game until he felt this pain in his chest and became dizzy, had to sit down and the Event staff ushered him to a hall with his son, so the EMT people could do their thing and finally release him to go home.
The form asked
if he had experienced any other ‘lightheadedness' and he was thinking to
himself that he would probably not share that the previous Thursday night, he'd
gotten home after everyone was asleep after a business dinner and he was
watching the late night news channels with an interview from one of the real
boneheads in Washington and he'd started off jeering and ridiculing the
television set that broke forth into something of a low-grade tirade that was just about to reach a
full throated vent when he felt a spinning sensation, sat down abruptly,
thought he might faint, waited it out and finally schlepped upstairs to his
bedroom.
The form asked
if he had higher than normal stress at his job? A
series of images flashed through his head of awkward meetings and tense
discussions that had followed the last year and a half of a merger that didn't
fit together nearly as well as predicted. He rolled his eyes not entirely
knowing whether to answer this sarcastically or seriously.
“Are there
stresses at home?” He had images of his teens, one of whom God couldn't
motivate to focus and another perpetually killing someone on the screen. He
rolled his eyes.
Like the
proverbial frog in the slowly warming pan of water, Peter didn't quite notice that
his frustrations had been mounting and so was his anger. And as he vented that
anger, it somehow seemed like there were even more things to be angry with,
crap from the commute, inane government regulations, idiotic bureaucracy. And
then there was, of course, the evening news.
He didn't
realize just how much of his day alternated between sarcastic incredulity,
annoyance, low grade rage, and venting. Not until, he almost had a heart
attack. He is not alone. There are a number of risk factors for heart attack,
smoking, weight, diet but it may well turn out that the number one instigating
cause for heart attack is anger.
Our anger and
fear have to be intentionally managed as it turns out because they originate
from the earliest part of the brain, one step above our autonomic responses
like breathing in your sleep. It serves us well to put us in high alert, but
they trigger aggression, diminish our ability to think clearly, they diminish
our ability to see the bigger picture, and they stimulate hostility.
The good news
is that we over ride them with our higher emotions from the pre-frontal lobe:
compassion, understanding, cooperation, love. You can watch it on a screen now, largely it appears what neurologists have been doing
for the past 15 years.
What really
grabbed their imagination in this first generation of observation was what they
refer to as the ‘plasticity' of the brain. We can actually change the neural
pathways and grow more adept in being emotionally expressive and integrated.
They noticed how much of our daily habits formed for us ‘closed loop feedback
mechanisms', so that if you engage your anger, you find more things to be angry
about and engage your anger again. We tend to re-inforce
what we are already doing and find better reasons to continue in like vein.
Conversely, if you begin and end your day
reflecting out loud on a couple things that you were grateful for that happened
during the day, you will become more attentive to how many blessings make up
your existence. We can actually watch on a screen the way that the brain
pathways for our gratitude become more richly patterned the more we use them.
What it means is that we have substantive spiritual control over a range around
our given disposition.
When I was in college the faculty at Wake Forest used to referring
to the budding discipline of sociology as ‘the science of the obvious'.
In some ways today, I would characterize the budding discipline of neuro-psychology as the ‘science of the anecdote.'
We revered St.
Paul in the early church because every one of his letters speaks about how the
spiritual community focuses us in these ways that transforms us personally and
positively. Regardless of the theological question that he was trying to answer
from abroad, he would always speak to how it translates in the way we live.
What is the fulfillment that God wants for us as we live our lives?
The psychology
department has only started asking that question about our emotional selves for
the past 15 years but their early answers are suggestive and remind us why the
spiritual community does what it does.
The biggest
insight comes as no great surprise to my generation. We've over-valued the
benefits of intelligence. In fact, if you keep telling little Winston that he
is so smart that his stellar report card and test scores will march him into
the top colleges and the doors of opportunity will swing open after that, we
are unwittingly setting our children up for failure.
We've sensed
this to be true for quite some time, which is why the SAT is such a poor
predictor not only of success in life, but success even in college. IQ is
simply not enough. Perhaps you read the
article in the New York Times magazine last Sunday[i]
featured some Middle School educators from New York that were concerned that
their students who had been given top drawer educations were nevertheless a
good deal less than elite on their actual graduation rates from college. They
had been selecting students to this middle school, using IQ as their
overwhelming value which turns out to be way too narrow. But it is easier to
measure IQ than the other two or three dimensions for a rounded life of success
and meaning. Intellect is important, just not enough.
When we
actually started trying to identify the qualities people had who were
academically successful at the top level, we discovered, not surprisingly, that
equal in importance to raw intelligence was the ability to focus. I would
suppose that half the parents of Middle school boys in our country could have
told you that. And I suppose it is no great surprise that when you look at the
lives of people we label genius, like Sir Isaac Newton at Cambridge University
for his Principia Mathematica, they have in common
this extraordinary ability to concentrate and focus. As a result, they execute
unbelievably.
And the good
news is that our attention is largely like a muscle. You can make it much
stronger. All of our spiritual traditions have already discovered this in the
discipline of prayer. As Christian mystics, Sufi Muslims, and Buddhists already
know, meditation is much more effective than alcohol. Like our need for sleep,
we simply perform better if periodically enter into a deeper meditative state.
It doesn't just renew us, it appears that it has more
indirect benefits that are broader and substantive than we have yet been able
to study. We'll come back to this in a couple weeks.
Another
dimension for academic success but for success in our life and our families, is to develop our Emotional Quotient. Unfortunately,
we generally stop grading for this in kindergarten. You remember that section
that began, “Shares toys with others in the sandbox” and your little Mary Beth
got the boxed checked that said, “Needs improvement”.
Nevertheless,
emotional agility turns out to be critical for achieving academically and in
life. How good are you at sensing how people are doing around you? How good are
you at anticipating what it is that they need, so that you can put them in good
space? How good are you at getting your needs met in a way that works for your
loved ones as well? How well can you soothe your spouse when they are upset,
rather than, say, adding to the fire and making a bad situation worse? How good
are you at creating an environment where those around you flourish?
I was humored reading
one study on the very basic notion of creating and sustaining a positive
environment that I first learned from one of my great grand fathers. He was 90
when I first met him and visiting him should have been a bit of a scary
experience but I have only warm memories. On his desk, he kept one of those
wonderful glass containers with a glass lid on it that dotted the general
stores of the South in the 30's. As soon as I walked back to see him, he would
motion me over to that jar and ask me to get out a couple pieces of chocolate.
Before we ever spoke, we'd both stand there eating some chocolate and he would
smile at me. After I left, he would always call me back one more time to take
another piece of chocolate for the road. You know, I have nothing but fond
memories of the man.
They did a
series of studies on the resonance of positive associations. You are far more
likely to get a positive response to your request if you first offer the person
you are requesting something from something sweet. And the effects of positive
resonance are broader and more subtle than you might imagine. When we studied
physicians, we discovered that they will make more accurate diagnoses with just
a piece of chocolate before the exam. The speculation is that a small stimulus of
emotional positivity disposes us to pay deeper attention. We have also shown
that engaging our positive emotions have a heliotropic effect. It means that
our positive emotions dispose us to broader thinking and a disposition of
openness.
This literature
reads like the anecdotal wisdom of the past that we read from St. Paul. He
wrote to the Church at Philippi because the two women who led the church were
having a fight and about to break up the congregation. Never mind that Paul is
writing from Prison where the Romans have wrongfully jailed him, where is
losing his appeal, and is about to die. But just like your children, these
folks are having a fight, irrespective of what you are going through. St. Paul
writes to them and tells them that he has learned, spiritually, to engage his
contentment, his serenity in all situations, even those where our only real
option is to simply suffer through.
He says, be
like the Christ. And what does that look like? It is not argumentative or
angry. No, shine from within. Hold fast to what is good, he says in Romans.
Genuinely release the love with each other in a mutual manner. Bless others and
create a shared harmony. Find a place
for everyone.
Now we just put
statistics to these insights and can show that if you live like this you
generally live longer, love your life more, think more comprehensively, make
more money and have a more fulfilling work life, in general a better romantic
life. And, I'm glad to report, you are much more likely to attend church.
I was listening
to Brian Leher on NPR this week interviewing a woman
that has recently written a paper on cyber-bullying, with some of our school
counselors calling in. What all of them agreed on was the need for some
comprehensive growth among our adolescents to grow into becoming emotionally
attuned people.
They were
speculating on the indirect influence of reality TV shows like ‘the Jersey
Shore' where you lift dysfunctional behavior to a level of celebrity. Sarah
Bunting is undoubtedly right that reality TV is a spiritual junk food you get
addicted to because you love to feel superior to these people. But we know our
children are influenced by celebrity in ways different from adults? One of the
experts wondered if we are inadvertently validating these unbecoming emotional
characters, especially if our children are also witnessing this same dysfunctional
behavior exhibited by their parents or extended family members. Are we creating
a culture of drama? And do we really want that?
What really
struck me in the new research is the fundamental validation of one of the
principal ideas handed down to us from the Bible. Quite the opposite of the catty, narcissism of
reality TV, If you actually want to find a fuller, more meaningful life, start
and end your day, with a spirit of gratitude. Give thanks for what you
appreciate in those right around you. What a great
tradition for couples to do, for parents and children.
And some of the
other attributes of emotionally resonant people? They engage in
joy, which for humans is mostly to be
found in deep and meaningful relationships- our friends, family, our spouses.
Developing amusement and a sense of humor to get through
difficulty and awkward moments…
Being curious and interested…
Having a positive sense of pride, self-respect, self-esteem,
taking yourself seriously.
Having inspiration, looking up to role models, motivating
yourself to actualize your potential and hopefully, becoming a person that
inspires other people.
Developing serenity. Cultivating a meditative space, putting
yourself in places that evoke the deeper calm.
Opening yourself to wonder, the
sense of awe that I had the first time I saw an iceberg or swimming with the
sea turtles off the North shore of Oahu.
Being loving and opening yourself to
receive the love of other people.[ii]
How these
become manifest in your life is highly personalized to you. But I am becoming
more confident that we will develop a consensus set of values, characteristics,
and practices that will help us to develop an emotionally rounded life. This
has certainly always been one of the primary goals of Christianity. We want to
have the most realistic portrait of human nature to understand what God wants
us to do with our lives and what we are to become.
It is true that
in history we Christians
probably got a little over-zealous in our depictions of human sinfulness but
the over-arching goal was to have a realistic understanding of our potential
and our limitations.
Today,
scientists are prone to put the same observation like this. As Barbara
Fredrickson put it in her research at Chapel Hill, the target is to create a
3:1 ratio. For every engagement of your negative emotional side (your anger,
your fear, your sarcasm, your cynical and snide self, the snippy, the selfish),
you need two doses of engaging your positive side.
I love that. I
can see spouses this afternoon. “Okay, Mr. Grumpy, bring me two portions of the
positive side?”
Professor
Fredrickson has a wonderful little summary paragraph. She says we all want to
find happiness, but we Americans have been coaxed by Madison Avenue to look for
it in the wrong places. “We look for happiness in higher salaries, more
possessions, or bigger achievements. Or we fixate on the future, when our
dreams will come true that will make us happy.” It isn't the extra of busyness
at work but connecting with our children. “We unwind with martini's
rather than meditation.” We lift weights rather than walk in nature. We follow
fad diets rather than eat smaller portions. We watch TV or surf the internet
rather than read a book. We write e-mail rather than poetry.”
I'm glad that
you are in church today, resetting the system towards emotional roundedness. We
intend to co-create a community here where we can all become emotionally
attuned, morally substantive, and spiritually richer. We want to expose our
children to this side of ourselves, this side of our family, our friends.
There is a
wonderful little parabolic tale told about Jesus that the disciples were out
fishing all night and couldn't catch a thing. They see Jesus in the morning at
dawn and he tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat and
suddenly their nets are full of fish. We're casting our nets on the other side
of the boat with Jesus on the side of emotional resonance. Spiritually, we are
actually hoping that our nets will become seemingly miraculously full.
My brothers and
sisters, our table this morning is set with bread from all over the world,
remembering that this morning, people in literally every country on earth, in
every single time zone, will be joining with us to partake of God's grace in
the Communion. It is a beautiful reminder of the abundant blessing of God that
surrounds and undergirds us and many of those in your beloved community are
sitting all around you right now.
I'm going to
ask Mark and Danny to play 1 minute of music to give you space to recall to
yourself two things that you are grateful for right now in your life and then
I'll ask you to join us as we gather around the communion table. If you are
visiting with us this morning, I want you to know that if you would rather just
stay in your seat, someone will come to you. What are you grateful for?