Happy Holidays and Holy Days

Last night my wife and I took our 80-year-old Jewish widow neighbor to her daughter’s holiday party. It turned out to be a “Noah’s Ark” gathering of human beings who represented the full spectrum of belief and non-belief. We all had a wonderful time. I would call it a celebration of human holiness.

My spiritual journey has been long and intense. I’ve been a Christian all my life. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools for 12 years. And I have to say I pretty much enjoyed it. I was never physically tortured or browbeat with fear. What formal religion training didn’t prepare me for was that life would be hard, often disappointing, even tragic and that there isn’t a damn thing we can do to avoid much of the worst stuff. Death, illness, accident, divorce, business or job failures often show up like a blitzing line backer driving you into the ground, spitting in your face and taunting you. Our physical experience of life is absurdly uncertain. But, I have learned that it is neither hopeless nor random. In fact, what over five decades of intense “seeking” has taught me is that my spiritual life is my ultimate source of wisdom, judgment, and energy. It is the literal power to swim in a pool of hope and meaning no matter how often sharks attack.

Today, my wife and I attend a gospel-centered community Christian church. We like it because the pastor is a teacher, not a preacher. We never talk about Christian belief as manifesto of an exclusive club. Rather, that followers of Christ are remarkable for their love, service, and inclusiveness. I like it.  The truth is there is much we don’t know. That’s why we seek. I am guided profoundly by my father’s words on his cancer-ridden deathbed. I asked him if he had any “concerns” about his impending death. He replied, “It’s pretty simple son; love God and love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest is just ideas about what the truth might be.”

Seven years after Dad passed away he came to visit me.  I have read a lot of “scientific” literature trying to explain away direct spiritual experience. Let me say it’s a complex area of human experience. And emotional humans can easily deceive themselves when their own brain chemistry creates a moment of “enlightenment.” That, however, does not mean all spiritual experience is delusional any more than flawed scientific experiments mean all experiments are flawed. All I can tell you is that Dad was full of an indescribable love and that he affirmed that my legacy was my character rather than my accomplishments. He encouraged me to “fulfill my unique nature.” And not to worry about anything. At all. That happened ten years ago. That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since.

As for my beliefs, I don’t get caught with what’s wrong with religions. History proves that man’s lust for power, authority, sex and wealth can corrupt any organization. Religion, government, academia, and business are all victims of human weakness. But that doesn’t extinguish the flame of belief.

So why do I celebrate Christmas? For me, the core of Christ’s message is that we are created equal. He upset the thinking-as-usual of his time and culture. He expanded the idea of a “chosen people” with the truth that we are all chosen. He spoke of the supremacy of compassion, peace, and giving. He offered dignity to the poor, sick, and disfigured; to women and people of all races and professions with whom he came in contact. And finally, I believe he gave us the best news of all. That since the dawn of history human beings have done all manner of horrible things to each other. Murder, rape, child abuse, betrayal, war, genocide are but a few. And the suffering caused by flood, famine, death, earthquake, and hurricanes is unimaginable. Christ’s message is that although all of our suffering is real, it isn’t final. It doesn’t matter in the way we think it does. (And I believe if there could be less suffering, there would be.) It’s because what matters is not material or physical because our spiritual identity is immortal. What matters is who we become. What matters is our inner motives. What I understand from Christ is that in an inner-sense, heaven and hell already exist in each of us. If what we really desire is to express love and compassion and to contribute our unique gifts to bless others, we are already in the outskirts of heaven. Or, if our hidden selves seek primarily to simply avoid pain, label unbelievers, and manipulate others to serve ourselves, welcome to hell.

I know I take great risk of angering or disappointing some of you who either don’t believe in any god or those who only believe in a specific version of God. Today, please don’t get sidetracked by that debate. Recently my 25-year-old son, Nick, suggested that God is ultimately very personal. He is what every individual needs him to be. For some, it might be an all-knowing judge, for others, a loving grandfather, or a benign spirit. And for some, God might show up as a scientific order or the energy behind evolution so my beliefs are personal and powerful. But the reason we cannot agree on whom or even what God is is because God is infinite. That doesn’t mean whatever we choose to believe is true. It only suggests that what we call God is much bigger than we know or can know. Beyond our fears that separate us is the quiet assurance of the common thread of transcendent love and we sense that life has a noble purpose. At least that’s my experience.

For believers Christmas represents an infinite God’s ultimate empathy with the human condition. For non-believers Christmas can still be a celebration of a moral and ethical commitment to live for love.

So for me, the message of Christmas is a message of unlimited hope.  A way to see reality through the tinsel of materialism.  A way to celebrate the inborn dignity of life.  Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Will Marre

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

7 comments.

Marriage on Fire

My wife and I were flying back from nine degree Minneapolis this past week when it struck me.  It was a slap to my own forehead moment.  Something I already knew.  I had just given a speech to about 300 businessmen and women for the Masters Forum.  It was Renewal Day, an end-of-year meeting to consider the 2007-year and look forward to 2008.  They asked me to speak on work/life balance.  So I gave them “Lifeology: How to Change the World and Still be Home for Dinner.”  It turns out that the “how to by home for dinner” part of this speech gets a lot of people sitting up in their seats.  Whenever I speak on this topic to business audiences, it’s often the most personal topics that peak the most interest.

The core message of Lifeology is for us to integrate career, lifestyle, and relationships into a seamless life that nurtures all three arenas.  The topic that gets the most comments is relationships, particularly marriage and romance.  That’s because most marriages are “on fire.”  Either they are ignited by constant loving energy or they are burning down consumed by their own toxic smoke.  That’s because many, many marriages are the story of the 3 ways of thinking: analytical (reason), practical (common sense), and intrinsic (intuition).  When we fall in love we are using intrinsic thinking.  It is non-judgmental.  It focuses on the uniqueness of the other.  It idealizes that uniqueness.  A nasty mole is a distinctive “beauty mark.”  A baldhead is sexy.  We simply can’t imagine anything undesirable about the other.  If this blind euphoria of intrinsic thinking is surrounded by planned positive experiences found in courtship, this “unreal” way of thinking lasts about two years.  This is about as long as a “Hollywood” marriage.  It seems that the romantic feelings caused by our intrinsic thinking about the unique value of the person we love causes positive brain chemicals to host a three-ring circus in our brains.  Every day is a good day.  Every look, touch, and kiss is a high.

When this feeling dies it’s because practical thinking takes over.  When we use practical thinking we ask, “Am I getting what I want?”  Feelings of “we” give way to the feeling of “me.”  When practical thinking dominates, we begin to focus on our own needs.  Things we once delighted in doing for the other, like running errands or cooking a meal, become resented drudgery.  We start to negotiate.  We demand our relationship be “fair”.  Conflict becomes more frequent.  Often couples fall into roles of dominance or peacemaking.  The person who cares the least has all the power.  Bullying, manipulating, guilt tripping become practical (although damaging) strategies to get what we want.  When couples’ relationships are ruled by practical thinking, romance evaporates.  Loyalty, duty, and habit keep it together.  But it’s work.  When people say marriages are work, this is what they mean.  It doesn’t have to be work.  It only is because of how we are choosing to think.

Marriages get really troubled when analytical, black and white thinking becomes the voice that narrates our experience.  We cling to rigid definitions of what a husband or wife should be or do.  We’ve picked up these definitions from our parents, our religions, or worst, our popular culture.  Our judgments become sever.  Our spouses are either fair or unfair, mean or kind, strong or weak, pretty or ugly, good or bad.  These either/or judgments justify our contempt, our whining, our separation, and our emotional intimacy with others. Marriage becomes a prison we endure.  No relationship can thrive when people are primarily using judgmental thinking toward the other.  All of us are flawed.  When we fall in love, the flaws contribute to our uniqueness.  They make us interesting.  Using analytical thinking, our flaws make us intolerable.

Today about 10% of existing marriages are mutually viewed as “highly fulfilling.”  Intrinsic thinking plays a large part in these marriages.  It turns out that romance and even positive brain chemistry can be rekindled in a nearly constant healthy fire when two mature people remain focused and even idealistic about the most positive aspects of the other.  There is little effort to fix each other’s flaws because the flaws are viewed as irrelevant.  In these marriages, courtship never totally ends.  There are plenty of planned positive experiences: thoughtful dates, fun trips, and regular authentic communication.  Turns out that for highly satisfying love to thrive there is no substitute for time spent focused on each other.  The exact thing we did when we fell in love in the first place.

If all this seems “impractical” that’s exactly what it is.  It’s intrinsic.

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

2 comments.

Hold on to Your Wallet

Wall Street is not Main Street.  Not any more.  Have you noticed the stock market has malaria?  Its temperature is constantly rising and falling causing economists to hallucinate about what tomorrow will bring.  Well it’s going to be very different for some than others.  You see, the fortunes of large multinational corporations and banks are now driven by very different forces than what drives smaller American business, which employs over 90% of U.S. workers.  The U.S. economy can be like an ever-growing snowball hurtling off a cliff while big corporations are sitting in the ski lodge sipping martinis in front of the fireplace.

No, I am not saying that all large company leaders are evil wizards who don’t care what happens to the rest of our economy.  I am only stating the obvious.  These relatively few big global companies and financial institutions have their own economy.  When the dollar plunges in value, these companies are exporting faster than tourists fleeing a Tsunami.  This enables them to earn bigger profits in Euros or other currencies.  As our economy slows down, they’re expanding.  Not in the U.S. but in China or India where the consumer economics are just getting started.

None of this is secret.  Nor is it a conspiracy.  It’s simply the new economic logic of globalism.  Capital, investment, jobs all flow to countries where the greatest economic rewards will be earned.  Economics is rational, self-interested, and mostly short-term.  This wasn’t so bad when the interests of Wall Street and Main Street were aligned.  This meant economic bad news was bad for all of us.  So we could all row in the same direction to get back up river.  But it could be very bad now that our fortunes are disconnected.  Since our biggest economic institutions can be hugely profitable even when our economy is sinking, they can safely row their stockholders to the “bank.”  As for many of us, we’re speeding down river toward the falls.

Today, anyone who can face the truth looks at our true inflation rate of food, oil, education, healthcare, and housing running at over 10% and gag.  They look at our zero savings rates, our individual and national debt, the growing epidemic of foreclosures.  Gulp.  The days of using our home equity to buy Hummers like they were Tonka Trucks are gone.  According to the Economist, the ratio of household debt to income is 130%.  15 years ago it was only 80%. We are over spent.

The waterfall we’re heading for is called stagflation.  Rising prices, rising unemployment, high interest rates, and sagging pessimism.  The difference between this version of stagflation and Jimmy Carter’s in 1977-80 is that it may not matter that much to America’s biggest companies.  They’ll keep right on making money in foreign economies.  Am I overstating the case?  Well, perhaps, but consider a vivid example.  If you or I make a catastrophic investment, we go broke.  If Citibank does, they get $7.5 billion from Saudi Arabia.  This is courtesy of the $3.00 a gallon gas we buy every day.  Let’s see, we buy gas on Citibank credit cards at 17% interest sending billions to the Middle East so they can buy Citibank.  No wonder we’re hallucinating!

No, Wall Street is less like Main Street than it’s ever been.  If you have a business you better get busy with your export strategy.  For the rest of us, we need to hold on to our wallets. We’re going to need whatever’s in there.

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