Seven Up!

I’ve started watching The Up Series films, which track a group of men and women in England, starting out at the age of seven, and checking in with them again every seven years. So far, I’ve seen the films from when the group is seven years old, fourteen years old, and twenty-one years old.

The film makers have an obvious agenda, which is to show the socio-economic stratification of English society. While their point is well-taken, I think the real intrigue in the films is how the participants develop over time. It’s amazing how little some of them have changed so far. One man in particular seems absolutely stolid in character from age seven to twenty-one, and unfortunately he’s the one that my husband and I refer to as “the jerk.”

Other participants have changed dramatically, just in the time between fourteen and twenty-one. Some of these changes are simply the product of age. But others are more dramatic. One of the participants in these films is a boy who lived in a group home at age seven, then moved to Australia as a teenager. By age twenty-one, he enthusiastically tells viewers that he has gone from being a shy boy to someone who “loves people” and “loves life,” and he appears sincere.

A Unitarian Universalist friend of mine once told me about a sermon he preached titled “Can People Change?” In the several years since, that title has been stuck in my mind. What a great idea for a sermon!

The possibility of personal change, of transforming through faith, is for me is religious idea. And the fear I sometimes have that I won’t be able to grow in the ways that I need or want to is a form of spiritual anxiety. I look to my faith tradition to help me adapt to life’s changes and to my own changing understanding of who I am called to be.

I do believe, and have seen from my own experience, that engagement in religious life can help a person change. This happens through three means: practice, belief and community.

Practice is what every person does on a day-to-day basis. Our practices are the repeated actions that reinforce who we are, and make us into our future selves.

Often, the things about ourselves that we need or want to change are being bolstered by our own bad habits. These bad habits can be small, like criticizing ourselves too harshly for minor mistakes, or watching television for an hour when we should be doing work. Or they can be large bad habits, like abusing drugs and alcohol, or self-mutilating.

Bad habits, whether seemingly “small” or “large,” reinforce negative ideas about who we are and what we are capable of achieving, and in serious cases can hinder our relationships, health and economic prospects.

Religion should help us to examine how our actions are shaping us, to reduce our harmful habits, and to engage in new, healthier practices. For me, spiritual practices such as worship, prayer, and small group discussion are an important part of my ongoing spiritual formation.

But spiritual practices need to be accompanied by beliefs that reinforce the possibility of change. When I say “beliefs” are needed, I don’t necessarily mean beliefs in or about God. I mean any guiding philosophy or way of understanding the world that affirms the potential of human beings to be their best selves. For me, my beliefs in a loving God and in my own inherent worth and dignity have given me courage to try to change my life at times that it would otherwise have seemed hopeless.

Both practice and belief are much easier to develop within a community of people who are committed to one’s wellbeing, and who support one’s making the changes needed for a full life.

It has been very meaningful to me when church members have remarked positively upon my professional and spiritual development, have prayed for my ability to weather major transitions, and have shown me through their words and deeds that they believe in, and appreciate, me. And I don’t think this is unique to me, or that it happened because I was more especially deserving of encouragement. In a healthy religious community, people meet one another where they are, and help each other along the way to living more fully.

Now, let me add one caveat before I close. While many of us need and want to be in an ongoing process of spiritual growth, that does not mean we need to change everything about ourselves. Religion should not be offering plastic surgery for the soul, a program that will utterly eliminate all of our personal traits. It is very harmful when religion is promoted as a means of making women submissive, changing the sexual orientation of LGBT people (as in the “ex-gay” movement) or otherwise obliterating one’s God-given gifts.

The kind of change I believe religious life should offer is change that allows us to accept and deal with our failings, and nurture and celebrate our personal gifts.