It’s Simple, We Need One Another

 When I began thinking about what I would say this morning, one of the lines from the song you just heard, “People”, popped into my head – “People, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world”.   But despite the fact that I own nearly every Barbra Streisand movie, I’m embarrassed to say I only knew the one line.  So I had to Google the lyrics.  I was surprised by how simple yet poignant the words were.  I particularly liked the line “But first be a person who needs people.”  Above all else, it’s saying, be someone who understands the need to connect with other people.  I believe this is the why we are here, the purpose of life, to connect with other human beings.

 

I think it’s a bit difficult for us Americans to admit that we “need” other people.    This country was built on the idea of individual freedom and independence.   Over the past 200 some odd years, the meaning of the word “Independent” has turned into something that encompasses much more than was originally intended.   When I think of someone who is described as being “independent”, I think of someone who is strong, capable, smart, self-aware.  These are the adjectives I’ve used when I’ve proudly commented about my 9 year old daughters independent spirit.   Being independent is something we aspire to.  And, as we age, it’s something we desperately want to maintain.

 

Webster’s, however, defines independent as “not looking to others for one’s opinions or for guidance in conduct”.   It doesn’t say anything about strength or capability, and it doesn’t imply intelligence.  Certainly the ability to seek wise council is often a more intelligent option than asserting ones independence. 

 

Being dependent, or someone in need, “needy”, on the other hand, is defined as “being in want; marked by want of affection, attention, or emotional support.”  Wanting affection, attention or emotional support - doesn’t this describe what we all want?   

 

Yes, we were raised in a culture that reveres independence.  Our cultural icons and hero’s are those who go it alone like the lone cowboy, or, like Superman, can save an entire planet single-handedly.   Our national symbol is the American Bald Eagle, a fierce and solitary predator.  Generation after generation of Americans grew up with the notion that being “independent”, is the thing to aspire too.  As a result, too many families taught their children to keep a “stiff upper lip”, “not to air their dirty laundry in public”,  and consequently to “suffer in silence”.

 

In 1928, Herbert Hoover, in his last presidential campaign speech, coined the term “rugged individualism”.  He said, “through this American system of rugged individualism … our American experiment in human welfare has yielded a degree of well-being unparalleled in the world.”   Really? 

 

At the time this speech was given, African Americans were still not allowed to vote and were living largely below the poverty level.  It was typical to put handicapped individuals into institutions. The duration of their lives spent separated from family.  Insane asylums were in every state, practicing tooth removal, bloodletting, spinning, ice-water baths, and Electroshock therapy on their patients.   And, it was common for young pregnant girls to be sent off, away from their families, to deliver their babies, only to be forced to put them up for adoption whether they wanted to or not, and  then left to live with the guilt and shame.  This was happening in my parent’s generation. 

 

I’m not implying that our country’s desire for independence from England was the cause for these types of injustices, nor am I arguing against teaching our children how to become self-sufficient, but certainly our quest to be “rugged individualists” did not, as Herbert Hoover stated, “yield a degree of well-being unparalleled in the world.”  

 

Fortunately, as Maya Angelou says, “When you know better, you do better.” and we are doing better.   As a country and as a society we’ve come a long way in a relatively short period of time.   

 

 

You’ve probably all heard that Oprah Winfrey recently announced she will end her television show in 2011.   She is someone that certainly has had an impact not only in our country but around the world.  Reporter Sheri Parks in a newspaper article wrote this about Oprah:

 

“[Oprah] helped to transform the public sphere of American life through what some have called the “Oprahfication” of our culture, by making it OK for grown people to be emotional in public, to talk about ourselves in ways that were deemed impolite before. She pulled conversations about our bodies, our private family troubles, our money (or lack of it) into the open. Our parents and grandparents smiled in public and suffered in private, even in times of national despair. The most prominent image of the Great Depression is the photograph Dorothea Lange took of Florence Owens Thompson, her face worn, her eyes weary yet stoically looking into the distance.

Oprah changed that by talking about her own body, her family, her past. She showed us other people’s problems and brought in a parade of experts to help them. But the last words were always hers, the ones that reminded you that healing was always a viable option. Oprah taught America to face its own traumas, yet to know that with time comes the healing; after suffering can come redemption.”

 

What Oprah has been doing the past 25 years is connecting people on a grand scale, letting us all know we are not alone and helping us to heal our emotional wounds.   It’s no wonder she has been such a phenomenon.  

 

Unfortunately, Oprah’s impact on our culture has not been enough.  Despite the shift in our ability to communicate openly about our struggles and needs, individually Americans are not fairing better.  In fact, we are in the midst of a downward trend emotionally.  An article from Everyday Health, The Healing Power of Friendships, states:

“Today, more and more people are facing the challenges of loneliness. According to a 2006 study in the American Sociological Review, on average most Americans feel that they have two close friends, down from three friends two decades ago in 1985. During this same period, the percentage of people reporting no close confidantes rose from 10 percent to almost 25 percent, with 19 percent citing only one close relationship — often with a spouse.”

 

 

 

It’s a well known fact that infants will die without human contact.  It is as necessary to their survival as food, water and shelter.  But saying this is true about infants implies this is a stage we outgrow.  If so, when?   At toddlerhood do we suddenly no longer need human contact?  In the teen years?  I don’t know of a time when the drive for human contact is greater than when we’re teens.  Adulthood then?  Of course we don’t outgrow our need for human contact.  In fact, being socially isolated can be dangerous for the health of adults as well.   That same article goes on to say:

 

“with isolation also comes a greater risk for serious health issues, such as high blood pressure and death from a stroke or heart disease, according to a study done by researchers at the University of Chicago. They also found that links between loneliness and rates of cancer run parallel, as do increases in inflammation and decreases in antibody production.”

 

 

And here’s something I just read in an article published on Friday by CNN.

“New research suggests loneliness can actually travel from person to person, spreading up to three degrees of separation. That means if your neighbor’s cousin’s friend is lonely, you may have a good chance of being lonely, too.  Seriously.

 

The results, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, were also mentioned in the recent book “Connected” by Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

 

John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who has written a book called “Loneliness,” teamed up with Christakis and Fowler to study the effect of this phenomenon in social networks. The authors focused on data from the Framingham Heart Study, which has followed thousands of people in Framingham, Massachusetts, since 1948.

 

If a direct connection in your social network is lonely, you are 52 percent more likely to be lonely, the researchers found. At two degrees of separation — a friend of a friend — it’s 25 percent. At three degrees, someone who knows your friend’s friend, it’s 15 percent.

 

By helping lonely people on the periphery of a social network, “We can create a protective barrier against loneliness that will keep the whole network from unraveling,” Christakis and Fowler wrote in “Connected.”

“This series of studies shows us that we don’t just live in individual worlds, but are influenced often in unconscious ways of which we are not aware,” he said.’

 

 

 

All of the major world religions have some form of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  For example:

Confuscianism says, ““Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” Analects 15:23

 

Islam says, “None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”

 

The Talmud says, “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.”  

 

Why is this “law” supreme to all others?   I believe it’s because we need one another.   If we don’t treat people with respect, kindness, compassion and dignity, we run the risk of cutting off our connection from them.   We need one another.

 

 

When I first came to Journeys, I was at the scariest, most fearful time in my life.  My son had just been diagnosed with autism and a family member, someone I am extremely close to, attempted to commit suicide.   As I had done in the past, whenever I experienced a significant bump in my journey, I would go about searching for a church I could attend, often with a friend.   It was my search “to be in the company of good people” as I described it.  Time and time again, however,  I was unable to get the support that I needed.  This time, however, I found Journeys Community, and I experienced a sense of comfort and acceptance I had never felt before.

 

One of the first people I met was a woman by the name of Jeannie McDermott.   You can only imagine how surprised I was when we met and she told me that she was a special education teaching working with children with autism.   I thought I had  been led to Journeys and to her.   When I told Jeannie that my son had just been diagnosed with autism the first thing she said to me was, “How are you?”   Those three little words were the most powerful healing words in the world in that moment.  No one had asked me this.  My friends and family were supportive, and they all told me how sorry they were, but no one asked “How are you?”  Needless to say the flood gates opened and my own healing had begun. 

 

Not long after that, I learned that Jeannie had found Journeys Community in search of a place where she too could find some comfort and support.  She was struggling with a diagnosis of terminal liver cancer.  At that time we were meeting weekly -I can still see Jeannie - no matter how sick she felt, she would drive herself to our services and always walk in with a smile on her face and comforting words for others.   Sadly, Jeannie died in May of 2003.  She was Journey’s first funeral service.

 

I know for a fact, that many of us that have come to Journeys, have come out of a need to be supported through a difficult time.  Some have stayed and some have not. There is just something about being surrounded by a group of like-minded individuals, who are on a similar spiritual path that buoys us up.  Even without a speaking a word, just sitting together is comforting. 

 

I’ve sung at a handful of funerals in my life.  Jeannie’s was the first and Christina Seufert’s was the last.  This Christmas Eve, will be the 2^nd anniversary of Christina’s death.   Most of you won’t remember her.  She only attended one Journeys service – a healing service.   

 

Christina was 37 when she died, the younger sister of my oldest, dearest friend.   She had a difficult childhood.  She and her sister were raised by a mother who was one of those unfortunate teenage girls who got pregnant by her high school sweetheart and was sent away to deliver her baby and forced to give it up for adoption.   The two high school sweethearts eventually married and had two more children, my friend and Christina.  

 

Unfortunately, their mother was plagued with anger and shame over the baby she was forced to give up and these emotions wreaked havoc on her ability to mother.    My friend took on the role of caretaker and was the adult in the family, while Christina just got lost.  She ended up running away from home at a very young age, became homeless and was addicted to drugs.   

 

Eventually, Christina came home, got clean and found a good job.   She completely turned her life around and committed herself to helping others get sober and also to “being there” for her family.  Perhaps to make up for the all the years she was not “there”. 

 

Unfortunately, as a result of her drug use, Christina contracted Hepatitis C and became very ill.  This time two years ago, she was preparing for what we all hoped would be a life-saving liver transplant.  But before that could happen she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm.  Through some miracle Christina did not die immediately.  She held on for several weeks giving her family time to say their goodbyes, and died on Christmas Eve.

 

I would have loved to have known Christina better.   The things I learned about her far too late, told me that she was someone I would have connected with had I taken the time to really know her.  I believe we would have had more in common than not.  After she passed away I learned about Christina’s philosophy about life.   She said this, “you just show up.”  

 

Whenever a friend or relative passed away, no matter where they lived, or how close they were, Christina went to the funeral, often guilting her sister into joining her by saying,  “You just show up.  That’s what you have to do.  You have to show up.”   Christina understood the importance of being present with people in their time of need and that is a lesson I will always carry with me.

 

I found the following passage by Thich Naht Hanh and I hope Christina is listening.  I think she would have been pleased by the fact that her personal philosophy so closely aligned with that of such a respected religious leader.  

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote this:

 

“To love, in the context of Buddhism, is above all, to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now.  The question that arises is “Do you have time to love?  Do you have enough time to love?  Can you make sure that in your everyday life you have a little time to love?” We do not have much time together; we are too busy. In the morning while eating breakfast, we do not look at the person we love. We eat very quickly while thinking about other things, and sometimes we even hold a newspaper that hides the face of the person we love. In the evening when we come home, we are too tired to be able to look at the person we love. We must bring about a revolution in our way of living our everyday lives, because our happiness, our lives are within ourselves.”

 

 

My husband said to me recently, “Why do you attract so many strays?”  He was really asking, “What is it about you - what is wrong with you - that you invite all these needy people into your life?”  I thought about this for days, at first convinced that indeed something must be wrong with me.  And then I heard a small voice inside me say, “Duh! We need one another.”  We need one another.  I knew then that there was nothing wrong with me.  I feel blessed.  I am grateful to all those needy people (just like me) that have allowed me to be present with them in their suffering and to those that have done the same for me.  

 

So do you have enough time for love?  As we enjoy this holiday season, can we all make sure we have time to love?  Can we do as Christina would have us do and simply “show up”?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 and is filed under Needing One Another. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.