Spirituality and Your Life Story

By Bradley Hanson

Each of us has come to our current life stance through a journey of unique experiencesbeing born at this time, growing up in this particular social setting and culture, experiencing these specific successes and losses, and having these significant relationships. Whether we are in the early, middle, or latter part of our personal faith story, the ending is still ahead of usand reviewing our own faith story helps us chart our course into the future.

Using psychologist Dan McAdamss idea that we make sense of life by composing our own life story, author Bradley Hanson explores how our personal identity and spirituality are influenced by the meaning and values embedded in our childhood family life and major story lines promoted by our culture. In our most basic quest to make sense of life, he considers sharply contrasting answers to five fundamental questions.

With reflection and suggested group discussion questions at the end of each chapter, this study explores the idea that spirituality and ones life story are intimately connected.

Praise for Spirituality and Your Life Story

Real people tell their stories of success, love, friendship, forgiveness, and loss. Brad Hanson helps us ponder our own deepest commitments and the paths we follow to realize them. A fine book for individual reflection or group discussion.
H. George Anderson, former presiding bishop,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Apr 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480806771

Bradley Hanson

Bradley Hanson is professor emeritus of religion and co-director of Grace Institute for Spiritual Formation at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

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Copyright © 2014 Bradley Hanson.

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All scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-0676-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0677-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906620

Archway Publishing rev. date: 4/29/2014

Contents

Introduction

1. Our Spiritual Journey

2. Our Childhood Story and Spirituality

3. The Success Story

4. The Romantic Love Story

5. Friendship Stories

6. Stories of Revenge, Apology, and Forgiveness

7. Spirituality and the Migration Story

8. Stories of Loss

9. A Master Story

A Final Invitation

Bradley Hanson is the author of:

The Call of Silence (1980)

Teach Us To Pray (1990)

Introduction to Christian Theology (1997)

A Graceful Life: Lutheran Spirituality for Today (2000)

Grace That Frees: The Lutheran Tradition (2004)

He is also the editor of Modern Christian Spirituality (1990).

For Marion, my beloved wife,

and our grandson, Bryce

Special thanks to those who shared their story with me and to Mary Lou Mohr and Wilfred Bunge for their careful reading of the manuscript

Introduction

While my personal and academic engagement with the field of spirituality began in 1978, a more recent experience and a discovery have been the impetus for writing this book.

The experience occurred in February, 1997 when I was visiting my long-time friend Shoonie in Arusha, Tanzania as part of my research for a book on Lutheran spirituality. Shoonie was the director of a school and program aimed especially at the education of Tanzanian girls. The two of us were in her rented sandy-colored stucco bungalow. An eight foot wooden wall surrounded the house, her Land Rover, an elevated water tank for bridging gaps in city service, and a shed with shower and toilet for the male guards. The wall and guard service were needed to deter thieves. We had finished the evening meal in the cozy dining nook, put the dishes in the sink, and now were relaxing at the table with our coffee.

I told her that having surgery in late 1994 for colon cancer and a following year of chemotherapy had been a challenge for me not only physically and mentally, but also spiritually. I understood the heart of spirituality to be one’s ultimate commitment or faith and a set of practices done to express and nurture that faith. The center of my faith was in God’s bountiful grace made known centrally in Jesus. My core, daily spiritual practice was the Jesus Prayer, a form of Christian contemplative prayer in which I mentally repeat the words, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. I had been using this prayer daily for almost fifteen years, and it fostered a sense of the immediate presence of God. My sense of God’s presence was very strong just before the surgery and three days later when the doctor told me it was cancer.

This changed when the first weeks of chemotherapy hit me really hard. I felt as though God had drawn back. I did not feel that God had abandoned me. It seemed, rather, that God was watching me from a distance. It was as though my very good friend and strongest supporter was pulling away in my time of greatest need. The comfort and sustaining power of God’s presence was much diminished for me. When I realized this, I altered my practice. Instead of using the Jesus Prayer, I read the Psalms, slowly, meditatively, an ancient practice called lectio divina, divine or spiritual reading. Psalm 6:2, 4 in particular spoke to me.

Be gracious to me, O Lord,

for I am languishing;

O Lord, heal me, for my

bones are shaking with terror…

Turn, O Lord, save my life;

deliver me for the sake of

your steadfast love.

Shouting out the eighth verse especially renewed my sense of God’s presence,

Depart from me, all you

workers of evil [the cancer cells],

for the Lord has heard the

sound of my weeping.

I had yet to deal with my more difficult spiritual challenge. I had to face the real prospect that I might die from this cancer. I told Shoonie that within a few months after the surgery I had felt free to let go of further time to teach, write, and play tennis—all things that I loved to do. What I found very hard to let go of was more time with my wife Marion and our three children, who were all in their twenties and not yet established in life. Whenever I thought of having to give up more time with these dearest ones, my tears told me that I was not ready. But sometime a few months prior to this trip to Tanzania, something inside me had released. If need be, I was now ready to let go of my wife and children. It was not that one day I decided to do this. Rather, I only became aware of this deep inward letting go sometime after it had happened.

Shoonie responded, Death is one experience for the person who dies, but death is a very different experience for those who survive. My identity has been shattered twice in my life, and I’ve had to put it back together again both times.

I knew that her second son, age sixteen, had been killed in a traffic accident, and three years later her husband died suddenly from a heart attack. Shoonie’s words made me realize that spirituality is intimately linked not only with our life events, but also with our personal identity.

The personal discovery giving rise to this book was my chancing upon Dan McAdams’ life story concept of personal identity. Of course, if I had been a psychologist interested in personality theory, I would have known that since the 1990s this Northwestern University psychology professor’s theory of personal identity has received widespread attention along with the classic theories of Freud, Jung, and Erikson. McAdams advances a three level concept of personal identity in which the various elements of the self are integrated through composing and revising our own life story.

Especially helpful to me was the life story interview structure McAdams created for his research. For some years already when I had met a new person, I often said, Tell me about yourself. The answer I received, though, usually dealt only with surface facts. Yet each of us has a rich, emotionally charged narrative in our heart. McAdams has devised a series of questions that draw out much of this inner narrative. His questions about key life events proved most fruitful for me: a peak experience, a low experience, a turning point, and questions about an important event in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. I used a modified version of this life story interview in most of the personal conversations quoted in this book.¹

This personal experience and discovery have led me to probe the interconnections of this book’s three major themes—spirituality, personal identity, and life story. This has caused me to consider different aspects of my own life story and their impact on my own identity and spirituality.

My hope is that as you read this book you too will reflect more deeply on your own life story, personal identity, and spirituality. To aid you in that process, at the end of each chapter there are open-ended reflection questions and suggestions for group discussion.

1

Our Spiritual Journey

E ach of us is on a spiritual journey, a special kind of movement. We do not call our daily commute to work a spiritual journey. Neither do we generally call a cross-country plane flight such a journey. A spiritual journey is more than physical movement from point A to point B; it involves inward as well as outward movement. Our spiritual journey is a movement of mind, heart, and body that has not yet reached its completion point.

At the center of our spiritual journey is our heart’s primary love. We can identify this by asking, What do I care about most of all? To what am I committed above all else? What is my ultimate commitment? Another word for ultimate commitment is faith. Faith is an essential component of spirituality. Of course, there are religious faiths, but faith or ultimate commitment is not necessarily religious. There are grand secular faiths such as Soviet Communism and small scale secular faiths such as ultimate commitment to personal success.

The other core component of spirituality is a set of practices that express and nurture that faith. A religious spirituality may include such practices as prayer, corporate worship, and serving at a homeless shelter, but a completely secular outlook on life also has its sustaining practices. The spirituality of Soviet Communism had its rituals of the May Day parade and visits to Lenin’s Tomb to express and nurture its view of life. If success is my highest goal in life, then I will follow practices that I believe foster success such as attending a motivational business seminar with speakers like former NFL quarterback Joe Montana telling how to create a winning mindset and billionaire Steve Forbes revealing strategies that thriving corporations use to stay in front of the pack and how to get ahead and stay ahead.² All of us are on a spiritual journey and we all have a spirituality, an ultimate commitment and practices that express and nurture that commitment.

In 2008 my friend Shoonie agreed to talk with me about her spiritual journey by responding to the questions in Dan McAdams’ life story interview. While she still had close ties with educational endeavors in Tanzania, she now lived mostly in Minnesota. We sat in the living room of her suburban St. Paul condo, at a right angle to one another, a microphone and recorder on the coffee table before us. She was a trim five foot seven and had close cropped white hair. Her steady blue eyed gaze and erect posture indicated a readiness to engage. She said, As you can see, I’ve got family pictures all over. There’s Karl [son who died]. There’s Jerry [deceased husband]. Jerry just had his birthday, [laugh] and it really makes me mad, because he’s still forty five [laugh]. I have no way of knowing how bald he would be or how crotchety.

After going through several of the initial interview questions, I asked her to describe a low point, maybe the lowest point in your life. Please describe this experience in some detail—what happened, what were you thinking and feeling, and what impact this experience has had on you.

That will be the death of my son [Karl]… And that will be hard to talk about. That was thirty three years yesterday…that was eviscerating…He was sixteen… it was a car accident…That experience was such that I have been irrevocably changed by it in ways that are deep, abiding…and raw. But having said that, I don’t believe I’m defined by it…Three years later Jerry [husband] died and our family was not yet emotionally healed from Karl’s death. Not that you’re ever fully healed. But Jerry’s death coming so soon after Karl’s death meant … I was not ‘walking well’ myself when Jerry died So those two events together—have carved me, not shaped, but carved me. On the outside I may look much the same to others, but inside I am quite different. Yet I don’t believe I got stuck by either death. That has not been my whole identity. I have not wanted to stay there. The deaths together were a turning point in my life.

While the course of our life may be very different from Shoonie’s, we all share with her the reality that our spirituality and our life story are intimately connected. As spiritual beings, we are able to rise above our immediate circumstances, assess our past and present circumstances, and fix our course for the future. We set our heart on what matters most to us and pursue it. Our priorities are embedded in the events of our life and our responses to those events.

The Permeating Power of Spirituality

Spirituality is not like frosting on a cake, an additional and optional layer, but is more like the baking powder that pervades an entire cake with its leavening power. This pervasive power of spirituality is evident in the twists and turns of William’s midlife journey. A confident sixty year old professional man with a full head of gray hair, he talked freely when I asked him to describe a peak experience in his life story.

In my early forties I came to discover I was an alcoholic. I guess I’d have to say one of my peak experiences was finally admitting that and going to Alcoholic Anonymous. I’d been back and forth about trying to quit and stuff. When you’re in the throes of that kind of situation—a major addiction—you’re kind of afraid of the unknown. A friend convinced me that it’s no big deal to go to an AA meeting.

This really leads into what I’m doing at my church now. Actually in AA there’s a big component about turning things over to your Higher Power. I couldn’t quite figure out what that was. At the time, I chose a local group connected with the men’s movement.

I asked, What did you do in this men’s movement group?

This group invited Joseph, a Native American, who came and did our first sweat lodge. Joseph’s goal is to build peace chambers all over the world. I participated in a number of dances and fasts. At the end of last year I’d had seven years as a drummer for dances, and I still drum one dance a year. Working with Joseph I realized I have a keen interest in ceremony.

A keen interest in ceremony, you say.

Yah. I enjoy Native American spirituality very much, but I found that I still hadn’t gone where I needed to go. After my wife and I had been married a couple years, we were talking about having children. My wife had been raised in church, and she said we should join a church; then our children would be raised in a church. Through the men’s movement I had an association with ____________ Church, so I went there, by myself, for a couple months, but it didn’t feel right. Then both of us came to ___________ Church, and after the service we stood around for a while and then decided to leave and were heading back to our car. The pastor in his robe ran after us, engaged us in conversation, and said he’d really like us to join. And we did.

Coming to our church has been a turning point in my life. You know, I’m drawn to ceremony. Now, liturgy is one of the most comforting things in my life. A surprise was my baptism… It lifted a certain burden. I can get emotional about it… So my spirituality is changing.

While spirituality has leavening power in our life, the events of our life story in turn influence our spirituality. The deaths of Shoonie’s son and husband were turning points for her. In William’s case, a friend’s encouragement to attend an AA meeting, his involvement in the men’s movement, and a pastor’s running after him and his wife were events that took on spiritual significance. Our spirituality and our life story are intimately connected. Some elements of our life story are unique—being born to this mother at this specific moment and in this particular place, being the second child of this particular family. But many events are experienced along with others—the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Viet Nam War, or the Great Recession following the 2007 burst of the housing bubble. Yet peculiar to us is how we as individuals respond to these wider events—our particular feelings, our concrete actions.

The link between spirituality and life story is so close, because our life story is not merely the series of events that happen to us. Neither is our life story in the primary sense composed by someone else, something usually reserved to the famous. Rather, we compose our own life story, and we all do it whether famous or obscure. From Northwestern University psychologist Dan McAdams I learned that life story is so important, because life story is the principal means by which we understand our own identity.

McAdams on Personal Identity

Dan McAdams says there are three levels to our personality and identity: traits, concerns and goals, and story. I have found his thought on identity personally helpful, especially what he says about the second level, concerns and goals, and the third level, life story.

Level One: Traits. Many of us today are acquainted with the idea of personality traits, because we’ve taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I recall leading a retreat with about twenty five urban professionals, most of whom said they had been Briggsed. From taking this test myself, I know, for example, that I am right on the borderline between extravert and introvert. The Myers-Briggs identifies sixteen personality types based upon various combinations of four pairs of traits.³

However, McAdams and most psychologists since the 1980s have come to recognize as more comprehensive and more empirically grounded a scheme of traits commonly called the Big Five, which are five bipolar dimensions usually identified by the first term in the pair:

extraversion (vs. introversion)

neuroticism (vs. emotional stability)

agreeableness (vs. antagonism)

conscientiousness (vs. lack of direction)

openness to experience (vs. closed-mindedness).

One popular questionnaire, the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, has two hundred forty items designed to measure each of these five factors in terms of six more specific facets. Especially interesting to me are the moral and spiritual implications of the agreeableness vs. antagonism spectrum. It seems that in the New Testament St. Paul’s ethical admonitions urge me to have qualities similar to these facets of agreeableness: trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, tender-mindedness, and to avoid the antagonistic facets of being fault-finding, quarrelsome, hard hearted, unkind, thankless, and unfriendly. It was sobering for me to learn that research indicates our personality traits, especially among adults, tend to be quite consistent over time, although some people do change significantly.⁴

Our traits are dispositions; that is, they are ways that we are generally inclined to behave. Since we face a variety of situations, though, we sometimes make choices contrary to our usual behavior. While traits are an important window on our personality, there is far more to us. Another aspect of personal identity is what McAdams and many other psychologists call personal concerns and goals.

Level Two: Personal Concerns and Goals. A concern is something that matters to us. We may then set a goal for dealing with that concern. Psychologists commonly identify two broad types of concern or motivation—agency and communion.

Agency has to do with doing, acting. Dan McAdams distinguishes between two kinds of agency concerns—power and achievement.⁵ The power motive is a desire to feel strong, have impact on the world, and increase one’s prestige. It gave me pause when I saw that scoring high on the power motive is correlated with choosing a career such as politician, executive, or teacher in which one directs other people. As a professor have I been power hungry? But I relaxed when I discovered that those very high in power concerns also tend to acquire prestige possessions, take big risks to gain prestige, and are very assertive in small groups; those qualities do not fit me. On a scale measuring power concerns from zero to five, I would probably score a three or three and one half.

Closer to home for me was what I learned about the achievement motive, a concern to feel competent and to do something not only well, but better than others. Those high in achievement motivation also tend to take moderate risks, are very disciplined, plan carefully, and are innovative. I don’t know how innovative I am, but I am disciplined, I plan carefully, and I am comfortable with moderate risk.

The concern for communion is a desire for warm, close relationships with other people. Those high in communion motivation are regarded by others as friendly and supportive. McAdams also distinguishes two kinds of communion concerns—intimacy and love.⁶ Intimacy is the desire to share our inner life with another person; love is more complex and has several different forms. While some forms of love include a high degree of intimacy, other kinds of love do not. We may have compassionate love for someone who is hurting or a strong love for our infant child, yet have no desire to share our deep feelings with that person. Whereas the person high in power motivation seeks to dominate others, those high in intimacy motivation tend to be good listeners and in small groups promote cooperation and amicable relationships.

I found that looking at my own life through this template of personal concerns and goals helped me see what particular motivations have shaped my life and how they have changed over time. While power has not been a major concern for me, achievement has been a major force throughout my life. Although I competed at tennis for many years, winning was not all that important to me; that was a sensible accommodation, since I was not that good anyway. But academics have been a different matter. Since seventh grade I have had a strong desire to excel in academics, and that put me in competition with others. As the competition grew tougher with each advancing stage, I finally settled for being middle of the pack. The communion concerns of intimacy and love have deepened over my lifetime. I have been incredibly blessed by loving relationships with my parents, my wife, and our three children, and my comfort with intimacy has deepened as I have grown older.

Viewing my life through this template of concerns and goals helps me see how I have changed over time. The level of intimacy in my life has deepened as I have grown older; and now as my wife’s health is slowly declining, I am sensing that my achievement motivation will likely be turned toward becoming a better cook and caregiver.

As this suggests, different concerns may dominate our life at various times. For instance, a common communion concern among teenagers and young