7.20.08 The Road to Happiness #2 "Dare to be Yourself"
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
July 20, 2008 The Road to Happiness #2: “Dare to be Yourself”
Text: Though the will to do what is good is in me, the performance is not, with the result that instead of doing the good things I want to do I carry out the sinful things I do not want. When I act against my will, then it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me…What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death? Thanks be to God…Jesus Christ St. Paul
I was watching public television the other night. I happened to see two people struggling with each other in the roles they were asking themselves to play. Gwen Eiffel was interviewing Barack Obama, trying to ask some tough questions. I thought the questions were tough and I thought the answers were well given. However, it was evident that these two were not having a good time with each other. I then thought of Tim Russert as an interviewer and asked myself what was his magic? Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press was always giving himself an enjoyable experience. Yes he asked tough questions but he was always courteous and polite. And it was so evident that he was having fun. What was his secret? That first shortcut to happiness that Barry Neil Kaufman taught us: Make happiness THE highest priority.
That was what was missing in the Gwen Eiffel, Barack Obama interview. Neither of them were having a good time and so we never got to see their highest best selves. How sad!
Kaufman argues that as children we don’t censure ourselves. We are authentic. Our feelings are genuine and we are in touch with them. Children have a certain innocence about them. We see this week by week in our children’s story time. Young children have not yet developed masks to protect themselves. Jesus said: “Except you become as little children you cannot inherit the Kingdom of heaven.” In this saying, he is talking about being our authentic selves.
But as we age we tend to develop masks. We are asked to play roles: Father, mother, child, brother, big sister, big brother, boss, teacher, financial advisor, paid musician, pastor, principal, doctor, lawyer, nurse, health care worker, social worker, secretary, administrator etc.
Where does the role playing begin or end? I once knew a very capable pastor. But his problem was that he was always playing the pastor role. We never got to know him as a person. And with his success there developed an unfortunate paranoia. He was always looking over his shoulder both metaphorically and physically for some unnamed threat. How sad!
Did you know that the highest paid profession in these United States is that of our lawyers? But did you know this profession also has the highest levels of drug abuse and depression? These folks that have these problems are not “happy campers”. They have the material possessions and all that wealth can buy everything except happiness.
What happens to us when we are unhappy in our roles? Out of many factors, this one stands out as primary: We have not learned the art of being authentically ourselves in the roles. C. S. Lewis in his delightful little book The Great Divorce has an illustration of this problem in the characters of the tragedian and the Dwarf. Actually the Dwarf, the authentic self and the tragedian are but one person. The tragedian is the false constructed self. They are attached to each other by a chain. When the dwarf pulls the chain the tragedian speaks and gets larger. An angel accosts them but the angel will only speak to the dwarf. At first there is some good happening, because the dwarf grows a little but then he makes a decision and the tragedian personality he has constructed takes over and we have left only the tragedian. The dwarf, chain and all, is sucked up into the tragedian and is no more. The authentic self is lost.
This is the problem St. Paul deals with in Romans—a false self and a true self. The choice to be false, to be so protected that we lose our authenticity and become divorced from our feelings, is a choice for unhappiness.
Have you ever lost a friend? Did you have something in common with that friend? Then did you discover that what you had in common was making you unhappy? Some of us have friendships based on our mutual wounds. You know how the friendship began. You shared your wounds with another person. They were sympathetic and understanding. Then they shared a similar wound with you. You gave them sympathy and understanding and that was how you mutually built the friendship. But let’s suppose that after awhile you decide that you have had enough talking about your old wounds and you want to go on and choose happier subjects to talk about. But your friend does not want to move on and senses in your desire to change these dynamics, a betrayal.
Barry Neil Kaufman tells the story of a friendship lost. He describes how his style of operating changed after he decided to make a decision for his personal happiness. Before, he used to negotiate with anxiety and anger, but then he did some self examination and discovered that many of the beliefs he had been taught were anxiety producing and self defeating. He then did an about face and came to value happiness and love before all else. He decided that he no longer needed to be a victim of his past and so he consciously laid his past to rest. He decided to become a co-creator with God.
One of his very close friends did not like this change in Kaufman. He found his personal changes to be appalling. In the past they had carried banners for civil rights through the streets. They both had wanted to eliminate famine from the earth. They both supported self-help programs in other nations. Several times each week they would discuss religion, politics etc. in long phone conversations. They socialized almost every weekend with their wives. Throughout those years they poured out their feelings to one another of anger, anguish, self righteous indignation, and sadness. They never questioned these emotions because they presumed they reflected the sincerity of their commitments.
But when Kaufman really began to love himself and respect himself he became happier and had less and less need to vent. He could now hold up a poster of dissent without screaming. He could help bring about racial equality without condemning the prejudiced. He wanted to understand rather than condemn.
His friend found his revised positions alarming. So first he accused Kaufman of not caring. But seeing Kaufman still extending his support, he dropped that charge and accused Kaufman of being emotionally numb, since Kaufman no longer greeted injustice with what his friend considered appropriate- UNHAPPINESS.
One Sunday, the last of the friendship, Kaufman’s friend was over for Sunday brunch. His friend raged as usual over the stupidity of the legislators. At one point he banged the table with his fist. He believed that he had right on his side.
Kaufman said softly. “Why are you getting yourself angry?” “Because I want to! Is that alright with you?” He barked. “Sure!” said Kaufman, “but I was wondering, why you want to feel that way here and now?” His friend replied “Listen if you ask me one more damn question I’m leaving and I won’t ever come back.”
Kaufman says that he paused and thought what his friend was really asking of him. He had valued and loved this friend a lot. What was his friend really asking of him? It was this. His friend wanted back the old Kaufman.
Kaufman knew that he was able to accept his friend’s fuming. But he also knew his friend did not want to accept the new evolving Kaufman. Bottom line he wanted Kaufman to be the person he wanted him to be rather than the one he had become. So Kaufman asked himself this question. Did he want to go on censoring himself on behalf of this friendship in order to placate this man’s anger? Kaufman wanted authenticity in both of them. Did his friend want that? He thought he would find out and so he chose to ask another question:
“Why would you leave here and never come back if I asked you one more question?” The friend never replied. He grabbed his wife’s hand and left abruptly. His friend kept his word. He never saw or spoke to Kaufman again.
Kaufman was deeply saddened but soon discovered that a whole new group of friends developed. These new friendships were based on acceptance, respect and love. They cherished each other as they were, not as they wanted the other person to be.
Jesus was a truly authentic person. He had no mask, but a common face in every situation. He was always recognizable whether he was with the leadership of society or the “down and outs”. His story of the prodigal son, His most famous parable because of its power, has a very important sub theme. The two sons have developed false selves. The prodigal follows his urges to his own peril and comes close to losing his life before he turns back to seek his true self. The elder brother is the good person. He knows his role and he is good in it. But he has lost his child like spontaneity. He has become judgmental and very critical. He is into the role of elder brother who knows best and he plays it to the hilt.
The father of these two sons is however absolutely himself in the role of father. His enthusiasm is still child like. He does not deny his feelings or box them up in grim unhappy containers marked “should” or “ought” or “must”.
He is into celebrating the return of his son. He is into unconditional love and full acceptance, regardless of what the prodigal had done. He loves both sons and wants to bring them together, but he is unable to do that. The elder brother makes a choice for unhappiness because he is filled with self-righteous indignation. His sense of social justice is inflamed. He does not go in to the party. He stays alone out in the field and nurses his wounds. “You never killed the fatted calf for me. You never put your ring of authority on my finger. I never wasted all your substance in wild parties with riotous living. Oh no I am angry and I have every right to be angry.” And so he makes the choice for unhappiness. Is it possible to be both right and happy? He doesn’t think so. Right is more important.
What kind of a friend would the elder brother want at this point? Kaufman’s lost friend would have been perfect. They could have a great friendship together don’t you think? But happy? I don’t think so. They would have their truth though, but would it be the whole truth or a partiality?
The father is happy though isn’t he? And is he not perhaps strangely right as well? Can you see him bouncing around celebrating the returned son? Can you see the prodigal’s face when he sees his father’s reaction to him? I see the prodigal first, with his jaw dropped. Then I see a coming animation that only comes from unconditional acceptance and love. And I see the prodigal LEARNING FROM HIS FATHER Happiness, for the first time! It’s all about grace, acceptance, reconciliation, love and a deep nurturing caring.
Why is authenticity this second shortcut to happiness? The father is happy because he allows himself to be his true self. He doesn’t go into the tragedian role and lose himself. He chooses to be like God who operates by GRACE, not merit points, and thus he is able to be himself and happy!
The elder brother might argue that he is being authentic with his unhappy commentary on life and his wounds. But as Kaufman argues “Unhappy commentaries are not signs of authenticity; they are signs of unhappiness.”
What would happen if we all dropped our masks that we keep in our roles and instead we replaced them with innocence, spontaneity, curiosity, respect and love and humor? Wouldn’t we as parents become open, honest, strong, vulnerable, sometimes right and sometimes wrong? Wouldn’t we have more fun?
Wouldn’t we as business people talk honestly, openly using the truth to build a client base of trust, rather than a phony person who uses people? As students could we not be open to sharing who we really are with our teachers and fearlessly express our concerns in a loving way? As patients would we not be open and honest with our doctors giving them the feedback they need to treat us respectfully as we treat them respectfully? Does not respect generate respect? Does not authenticity generate authenticity? Isn’t that what we want from our health care professional? Our false selves do not serve us or them.
Speak the truth in love the Bible says. Why not do that? Why don’t we allow ourselves full positive self expression? Why do we let the role dictate as to who we are to become? Why cannot we be utterly ourselves in the roles we play and why cannot we seek out our own highest, happiest selves?
St. Paul dealing with this question gives us a very important clue how to become our best selves. We need help to do this. We need deliverance: He says that Jesus Christ is able to deliver us from our false selves.
That is one of the reasons I follow Jesus. His gift to us, rightly understood, is our own self respect and our own true self love. When we are authentic we are able to love our selves. When we are able to truly love ourselves, we don’t need to censor ourselves all the time, because we have a delightful self confidence that grows endearingly upon us like an aura. Then we can learn the mightiest of all lessons: To, “Love the lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your strength and your neighbor as yourself”.
If we are authentically ourselves, then our love for others and for God is profoundly authentic and satisfying. And we discover by daring to be our true selves, that we are happy!!
Thanks be to God!
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