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(published on Science and Theology News website, March, 2005)

Spiritual equilibrium keeps body well, helps humanity

By KURT SENSKE

Is it narcissistic to look out for number one?

It depends on your motivation. If your goal is to accumulate personal wealth or power, the answer may be yes. However, if your ultimate goal is to serve others and care for your family, the answer may be no.

If you’ve chosen the latter course, then you should have a plan that permits you to enhance your physical, emotional and spiritual health and to make sense of your life.

However, as Robert Bellah and others proposed in the landmark book, Habits of the Heart , most Americans don’t have a framework to make sense of life. Bellah said our shared vocabulary of individualism makes it difficult to find meaning and a desire to serve others if you, like most Americans, believe that “in the end you’re really alone, and you only have to answer to yourself.”

Since 1996, when Habits of the Heart was published, numerous cultural changes have transpired that reinforce that belief. Our increasing dependence on computers, the Internet, cell phones, instant messaging, video conferencing¸ just-in-time manufacturing and 24-hour-a-day markets force us to live at warp speed in order to survive. Combining such culturally based hyperindividualism with a never-before-imagined frenetic pace has the potential to kill us — physically, emotionally and spiritually.

The consequences of this hyperindividualism are profound. We have seen failures in moral leadership in organizations as diverse as Enron and the Catholic Church. Both within and beyond our borders we witness horrific acts of brutality and the inevitable tit-for-tat retaliation. Closer to home, we watch families struggle with sickness, alcohol abuse, neglect, stress and despair. Madison Avenue piles on, bombarding us with less-than-useful role models.

My research explores whether it is in our self-interest to collectively embrace a values-based framework in living our lives. My focus has been on identifying and developing a framework that allows us to find meaning and significance in our organizational lives and our personal lives.

In my first book, Executive Values: A Christian Approach To Organizational Leadership , I describe the cause-and-effect relationship between adhering to one’s values and achieving organizational success. By following what I call “the golden rule of leadership,” organizations and their leaders can do well by doing good.

There are two underlying principles to the golden rule of leadership. First, when making decisions, the organization must always come first. What makes this seemingly harsh rule palatable is that leaders who make these decisions must follow the golden rule in each of the following categories: leadership style, values-based strategic planning, implementation of difficult decisions, mentorship to others, and the balancing of family and professional lives.

The concept of the golden rule is not limited to Christianity. Every major religion has a similar verse in its holy texts, including the Torah, the Quran and Native American writings. It is a fundamental moral principle that crosses faith traditions and a principle that every employee will relate to and understand.

As I traveled across the country speaking about this topic, I heard many stories from people about their own lives. We talked about how difficult it is to find balance in our personal and professional lives.

We discussed whether the guidelines that lead to organizational success could also be used as a framework for our personal lives at home, in our communities and at our jobs.

These conversations led me to explore biblically, empirically and medically the relationship between one’s ethical behavior and one’s health. As I describe in Personal Values: God’s Game Plan For Life , the research verifies that it is, in fact, our values that lead to a life of significance.

We intuitively understand that living in the 21st century is difficult. Paradoxically, we live in a time of abundance but never feel that we have enough.
We enjoy all the modern necessities of life, but die far too young of stress-related diseases such as heart attacks, strokes and cancer. We have virtually all the world’s information at our fingertips, but don’t know how to apply these megabytes of information to enhance our personal lives.

We have forgotten that we are, in fact, whole people consisting of mind, body and soul. Over time, we have lost sight of this relationship. The physician focuses on our physical health, the religious leader on our soul and the therapist on our emotional well-being.

This lack of interconnectedness means that even though Americans spend billions on health care every year, we fail miserably at our quest to be healthy. More than half of us are overweight. We have some of the highest incidence levels of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes in the world. More than 45 million Americans suffer from mental disorders. Although America is the wealthiest nation in the world, its citizens rank 22nd in longevity.

The result: Spiritually, we long for meaning, but we don’t know how to talk to God. We must reconnect our physical, mental and spiritual beings to live as God wants us to.

My quest to find a framework for how to live kept leading me back to the Old Testament and the concept of shalom , which translates into “peace or wholeness.” Under God’s covenant of shalom , we are bound not only to him, but also to each other.

What is fascinating is the overwhelming and incredibly wide range of data that corroborates this framework for life. The Handbook of Religion and Health , by Science & Theology News’ editor-in-chief Harold G. Koenig, Michael McCullough and David Larson, documents more than 1,200 research studies that explore the connection between religious belief and activities with positive emotional, social and physical health outcomes. These and other studies demonstrate that we are healthier when we develop strong relationships with God; engage in regular prayer; serve others through our time, talents and treasures; demonstrate a genuine concern for others; develop lifestyles that minimize stress; and are willing to count our blessings.

We are blessed to live in a unique time of history. We are rediscovering that our physical, mental and spiritual healths are indeed interconnected. We are rediscovering that by serving others we serve ourselves. This truth has the potential to impact our world in significant ways.

Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn calls the time in which we live “the first generation.” Unlike the Middle Ages, we in the postmodern era are blessed with good physical health. And, unlike the modern era, we are reawakening to the fact that our spiritual lives are our most prized possessions.
Solzhenitsyn asserts that, for the first time in history, we possess the technology, the evidence and the opportunity to use our minds, bodies and spirits in active service.

Choosing to live our lives via a framework of wholeness results in lives filled with paradox. In giving love away, we receive love. In living out values-based lives, we narcissistically serve ourselves by serving others.

In other words, by looking out for “number one,” we are doing the right thing.

Kurt Senske is chief executive officer of the Austin-based Lutheran Social Services of the South, which serves more than 25,000 children, elderly and poor throughout Texas and Louisiana. The group's Web site is www.lsss.org.

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