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The Satisfaction of the New and Unusual January 29, 2006 The Reverend Roger Fritts Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church Bethesda, Maryland Much of the time here at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church we focus on calm, peaceful activities. Occasionally I might challenge you in a sermon, but we aim much of the service at renewing your strength so that you can enter the coming week spiritually strong. We light a candle, walk a labyrinth, say a prayer, sing a song, listen to inspiring music, or join a silent retreat. Often I tell a joke or two in the sermon to cheer you up, to lift your spirits. Religion is about harmony and connection. As the Buddhist said when ordering a hotdog: “make me one with everything.” “Make me one with everything.” Religious writers encourage us to have a stress free life. So, on a Sunday afternoon, I sit in front of a cozy fire eating an apple, fully present in the moment, appreciating the fire, the apple, and my own breathing. This serenity is not just a religious goal. Some beer commercials also have this as a theme. We see people resting on white sandy beaches with their cell phones turned off and that bottle of beer within reach. This is what we want out of life. Or is it? Is a stress free life our goal? Recently I read a book called Satisfaction by a man named Gregory Berns. The book presents a new theory on human behavior. Berns is a 41-year-old associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta. For the past ten years he has used MRI scans to study the brains of people. Dr. Berns has come to the conclusion that evolution has designed humans to respond positively to novelty and change. What do we want out of life? Dr. Berns believes we want new experiences. This conclusion hits home for me. I find it hard to sit still and meditate. A few years ago I attended a workshop on meditation at a church in Virginia. When the workshop, which involved much sitting in silence, was over we all walked quietly to our cars to drive home. I turned on the car radio and found the classic rock station, which was playing “Light My Fire” by the Doors. I rolled down the windows as I drove down the interstate at 60 miles an hour. I turned up the volume and sang along with Jim Morrison “come on baby light my fire. Try to set the night on fire.” After sitting still for several hours it felt great. Gregory Berns argues that my hunger for stimulation is typical for human beings. Using MRI scans to study the brains of people, Dr. Berns found that when we experience novelty and change, our bodies secrete the hormone dopamine in the brain. One of the things dopamine does is produce the feelings we call satisfaction. Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment to motivate us to do certain activities. However, our body also releases dopamine during painful experiences, such as during a long distance race. This explains why we are willing to engage in painful activities such as climbing a mountain. In spite of the pain, the dopamine gives us a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. Dr. Burns has discovered that dopamine is released when we actively encounter something new in our lives. He argues that this is what causes people to do painful things, like white water rafting. However, white water rafting over the same river a second time with the same guide is not a novel new experience, and does not produce the same amount of dopamine. Dr. Bern’s work is part of a new discipline called “positive psychology,” which looks at what makes us happy instead of focusing on what makes us unhappy. He points out that many things we do, such as jogging or solving crossword puzzles, can be painful or frustrating. Still we do them because these new challenges release dopamine into our brains. In terms of evolution, the doctor is suggesting that the more passive actives of resting, of calming ourselves by a fireplace or on a beach, are only a part of what helps us survive. Our survival is also dependent on our ability to adapt to a changing world. To survive, our bodies have evolved to feel satisfaction when we struggle with new, novel activities, even when that struggle involves frustration and pain. Dr. Berns wants to say this is true for all people. I think, however, that there may be genetic differences, where some of us get more shots of the hormone dopamine when we encounter change than others. I also wonder if how much dopamine we get in response to change may vary depending on our age. Still, he has documented that at least for many of us, our brains crave challenge and novelty. We are born with a desire to learn and explore new things every day. Even something as simple as staring at a new piece of art or hearing a new word can get the dopamine flowing in our brains. Puzzles can be a new experience, a new intellectual challenge. Dr. Berns focuses in on crossword puzzles as an example, but I have seen the same intensity in card games, board games, and computer games. Physical activity is another example of a new experience. Personally I find hiking, even painful hiking, in canyons and in woods to be endlessly interesting and satisfying. As a minister who is interested in helping people achieve satisfying lives, I have been thinking about how churches try to give people new and novel experiences. Much of the time religioun in our church involves repetition. While the sermon is new each week, we generally stick to the same order of service in the hope that you will find it comforting to have a structure that you can count on most Sundays. We hope that the hymn singing and the other elements will give you a feeling that you are not alone, a feeling that you are connected to each other and to humanity. However, these repetitive elements of worship all subject to what Dr. Berns calls the “Sushi Problem.”
Gregory Berns loves sushi, with a dab of wasabi and a slice of pickled ginger. He savors the taste of each bite of sushi before he swallows it. No doubt eating it increases the dopamine in his brain. He writes that, if he ate sushi every day, it would be grand at first, eating vegetarian rolls, tuna rolls, salmon rolls, and shrimp rolls. However, he knows that boredom would eventually set in. At some point eating sushi would become tedious and wearisome. On the other hand, if he ate sushi only once every ten years, that would be a very long time to go without this food he loves. He would miss it very much. Finding the place between these two extremes, eating sushi every day and eating it once a decade is the Sushi problem, which of course, is not just about Sushi. It is a problem in many areas of life, including worship. For example, we have sung the hymn Spirit of Life almost every Sunday for ten years. Is there a point at which the hymn will no longer work as a way to stimulate in the worshipers a transcendent feeling? How often and how long can we sing a hymn before it losses its power? I know of no way to answer this question except by trial and error. Dr. Burns can eat sushi every day until he loses his desire for it, then cut back to every other day or once a week or once a month, until he starts to enjoy the food again. In the same way, I listen to people in this congregation and in others. When I heard people say that they are tired of Spirit of Life, it will be time to give it a rest. Some churches are trying unusual approaches, to make their worship new and challenging. These are experimental ideas that new young Unitarian Universalist ministers might consider. For example, in Tulsa, Oklahoma there is a Christian minister who sky dives as a hobby. The other jumpers he became friends with said to him “If I ever went to church, I’d go to your church.” But they never came. So one Sunday the minister held a service at the airport about fifteen miles north of Tulsa. The worship service started with the minister parachuting into the service holding a Bible. It attracted many visitors and about forty skydivers, some who have now become regular attendees. To reach the Harley Davidson crowd in Tulsa, the same minister organized a motorcycle poker run—a kind of scavenger hunt on hogs. He invited each biker to ride to five locations to receive a playing card from church members. The final card was presented at the church, along with a prize for the best hand. A party followed, along with a brief message from the minister and an invitation to return to the church Sunday for worship. In New Zealand an organization called “Athletes Church Extreme” has “Extreme baptism.” This involves chaining new believers to a bungee rope and then taking a leap of faith off a bridge. The cord stretches to immerse the convert waist deep in the river below, as onlookers from the church celebrate with shouts and whistles. Baptism by bungee cord! Communion is also an act of faith for New Zealand Athletes Church Extreme. Believers free fall to earth from 10,000 feet while holding hands in a formation known as “the fellowship of the ring.” They pass bread and wine before they deploy parachutes. I imagine that prayer is also important in this congregation. I think Dr. Berns clearly shows that people feel more satisfied when we encounter new and novel experiences. However, he does not directly answer the moral question that his book raises. Is the purpose of human life simply to feel satisfied? Is this all there is? An endless quest for challenge and novelty? My own answer is that the purpose of human life is, first, to survive, to continue the human race. Therefore many activities that are new and challenging, I think we should forgo, because they do not enhance our likelihood of survival. I believe there is an additional purpose to our life. I think we are here to learn, to gain knowledge, to understand the nature of life and the universe and to pass that knowledge onto th the next generation. The information Dr. Berns has discovered supports my view. The fact that evolution has designed our bodies biologically to seek out novel and new experiences is evidence that the purpose of human life is to explore, make new discoveries and pass on these discoveries to our children. Some of you go white water rafting because the new experience raises dopamine in your body, which causes you to feel happy and satisfied. But in white water rafting you also learn about our world, you learn about river and canyon life, about history and about the people with whom you take the journey, lessons that remain with you all your life. A few of you go bungee jumping because the new experience raises dopamine in your bodies, which causes you to feel happy and satisfied. But you also learn about how it feels to fall, how it feels to be stretched on an elastic cord, to rise and to fall again and eventually to come to rest. You also learn about trusting other people. In the experience you not only feel temporary satisfaction, you gain long term learning. And we go to church. I hope the music, the readings, the prayer and the silence helps you feel at one with everything, calm and at peace. I also hope that in the worship service you get a new idea, a new perspective, a new way of thinking and that your level of dopamine goes up a little, and with it you have a feeling of satisfaction. Each year science can tell us more about what goes on in our brains and our bodies when we are at work or at play or at worship. While I am not a scientist, I am excited to be here at this time when we are discovering so much about life and the universe. We live in a wonderful time of human discovery. The more I learn the more the dopamine flows in my body and the more satisfied I feel about being alive at this wonderful time in human history. Sources Information about sky diving ministers and bungee baptisms comes from the Leadership Journal, Winter 2005. Berns, Gregory, Satisfaction, The Science of Finding True Fulfillment, Henry Holt and Co. NY 2005. |
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