“Stories of Redemption”
By Reverend James Kubal-Komoto
Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church
Des Moines, Washington
September 16, 2007

Reading: An Excerpt from The Redemptive Self  by Dan P. McAdams

            When I was a teenager, my favorite pro basketball player was Bob Love. Before Michael Jordan came along, Love was the leading scorer in Chicago Bulls history, with 12,623 career points during his seven seasons as a Bull (1969 – 1976). A three-time National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star, Love was known for his silk-smooth moves and his dead-accurate shooting from the floor. What many fans outside Chicago did not know, however, as that Love was literally unable to speak. He had a stuttering problem so severe that he often could not get a single word out of his mouth. I found out about it one night when Jack Brickhouse, a legendary Chicago sports announcer, interviewed Love on local television after one of the games. In response to Jack’s first question, Love stammered and sputtered for what seemed an eternity of television time and finally spit out one or two unintelligible words. Jack explained to the audience that Love had a speech impediment and that we all needed to be patient. The station terminated the interview, and I slammed off the set, with tears welling up in my eyes.

            A serious back injury ended Love’s basketball career in 1977. Following surgery, doctors told Love that he might never walk normally again. Returning home one evening on crutches, Love found his wife had skipped town with their furniture, jewelry, and bank accounts. She left him only a short note, which read, “I don’t want to be married to a stutterer and a cripple.” Over the next few years, Love moved from one menial job to another. He finally found steady employment as a dishwasher and busboy at Nordstrom’s department store in Seattle, Washington. He made $4.45 and hour. Patrons occasionally recognized him. “Hey, that’s Bob Love,” they would whisper at Nordstrom’s: “I decided that if I was going to be a dishwasher or busboy, I’d be the best one there was.” He never missed a day of work. John Nordstrom, the store’s head, told Love that if could only speak more effectively, he would be promoted. Nordstrom offered to pay for speech therapy. For the next year, Love worked with therapist Susan Hamilton, focusing on breathing, pronouncing consonants, and the basic mechanics of speech. He improved dramatically. Nordstrom promoted him to manager in charge of health and sanitation for the store’s 150 restaurants nationwide. Love eventually became a corporate spokesman.

            Love’s first opportunity for public speaking came in 1986, when he was invited to give an address at a high school sports banquet in Rockford, Illinois. Over 800 people were in attendance. Love told his life story - - growing up poor in rural Louisiana; surviving his earliest years with an abusive stepfather; running away from home at age 8; spending his teenage years with a loving grandmother and 16 relatives in a two-bedroom shanty; being ridiculed in school for stuttering; becoming a football and basketball star in high school and college; enjoying his glory years with the Bulls; enduring his divorce, his menial jobs, and his humiliation; and working out his redemption. The speech “went smoother than I expected, and when I was finished there was a standing ovation,’ he remarked “It made me feel so good. It was the turning point in my life.” Love returned to the Bulls organization in 1992 and since then has served as director of community relations. He gives hundreds of speeches a year. Friends and community leaders recently convinced him to try his luck in politics. At age 59, Bob Love ran for city alderman in Chicago.

Sermon

            There is nothing like a good story, and there are so many different kinds of stories: love stories, adventure stories, horror stories, tragic stories, and so many more kinds of stories, but there is probably no kind of story that Americans like better than a story of redemption.

            What is a story of redemption?

            Very simply put, it’s a story of something good coming out of something bad, a story like Bob Love’s story. It’s often a story about redemption from human suffering.

            Stories of redemption have deep roots in our religious history. The two most well-known stories in the Bible are stories of redemption.

            In Hebrew scripture, we are told that for years the Israelites suffered slavery in Egypt under Pharaoh. Then Moses led his people to freedom, to a new covenant with God, and to the Promised Land. Something good came out of something bad.

            In Christian Scripture, we are told a story about Jesus suffering and dying on the cross, but then rising again after three days, and according to some interpretations of this story, saving all humanity from punishment from sin.  Again, something good came out of something bad.

            Stories of redemption are very much a part of American history too, more so a part of our history than the history of many other Western countries.

            The Puritans who came to this country compared themselves to the Israelites, and told a story of redemption about themselves. They were persecuted in Europe and suffered through living in the Massachusetts’ wilderness before creating a new society, a city on a hill to be an example to the world.

              Other stories of redemption, less religious and more secular, are a part of American history too.

            The story that Benjamin Franklin tells of himself in his Autobiography is a story of redemption - - a story about of a poor, dirty 17-year-old boy becoming a prosperous citizen.

            And how many of you know what a “Horatio Alger story” is? (What most people don’t know is that Horatio Alger was a lapsed Unitarian minister, dismissed from his congregation after being accused of “sexual improprieties with boys.”) After contemplating suicide, Alger went on to write more than 100 books, most of of which were rags-to-riches stories about young men who overcame adversity through hard work and a commitment to moral living. In an ironic twist of fate, the books never sold well during Alger’s lifetime, but became bestsellers after his death.

            Today, we admire people who tell stories of redemption about their own lives. Oprah Winfrey, one of the most admired women in America, tells a story of redemption about her own life. Born dirt-poor in a small Mississippi town, she survived poverty and sexual abuse as a child to become a talk show host, a businesswoman, international celebrity and philanthropist.

            And we like to hear about stories of redemption in the lives of ordinary people, too.

            In September of 2002, one year after the terrorist attacks, People magazine published a special issue telling of how survivors and relatives of those who had died had responded to the tragedy. In that issue we read, “To honor her brother-in-law Terence Manning, who died at the World Trade Center, Carolyn Manning created an organization to help new immigrants to the U.S. Wounded in the attack, Silvion Ramsundar, 31 has become close friends and spends family holidays with Doug Brown, 55, who helped save his life. Katy Soulas, 36, mourns her husband Tim, every day, yet, with help from relatives and neighbors, manages to raise six children with a strength and grace that we all wish we could equal if we were forced by circumstances to become our best selves.”

            That’s a provocative statement, isn’t it - - that only through tragedy and suffering we can become our best selves?

            Many of these stories of redemption I have mentioned come from a book titled The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By written by psychologist Dan McAdams.

            In the book, McAdams makes the claim that not only are stories of redemption part of our history, not only do we like to hear stories of redemption and admire people who tell them, but that many Americans - - not all Americans, but many Americans - - tell stories of redemption about their own lives. More specifically, McAdams says that people who are “highly generative” are most likely to tell stories of redemption about their own lives.

            What does he mean by “highly generative?” “Generativity” is a tem that McAdams borrows from the psychologist Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, and “highly generative” adults are people who are highly engaged in the world, not just for the sake of themselves, but for the sake of others.

            Compared to others, highly generative adults are more involved in their children’s lives. They have more friends. They are more involved in religious, political, and social activities. They show greater interest in political issues and current events. They vote more often. They do more volunteer work and give more money to charities. They, also, are on average happier and more satisfied with their lives than most other people. When highly generative adults tell the story of their lives, they are also much more likely to tell that story as a story of redemption.

            McAdams identifies six types of stories of redemption that people use to talk about their lives.  

            One type is the “atonement” story. This is the classic story of Christian conversion. Most born-again Christians can tell you the story of how they were saved - -  how they discovered they were sinners, asked Jesus for forgiveness, and then had a born-again experience.

            A second type is the “emancipation story.” This is the story that American slaves told about escaping from slavery. It is also the story of anyone escaping from oppression to liberation. Many women told these kinds of stories about themselves during the women’s movement. Many of the “coming out” stories that gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender people tell are also emancipation stories.

            A third type of is the “upward mobility” story. If you saw the movie The Pursuit of Happiness, the story that movie tells is an upward mobility story.

            A fourth type is the story of recovery. This is the story that people tell about recovering from a life-threatening injury or illnesses. It is also the story that many people tell about recovery from addiction.

            A fifth type is the story of enlightenment. It’s the story of moving from ignorance to knowledge through education and science, and learning to look at the world in a new way. I’ve heard many people who come to this church for the first time tell me this kind of story.

            A sixth type of story that people tell is the story of spiritual or psychological growth, a story of moving toward self-actualization.

            Despite there being these different types of stories of redemption, many of them have common elements, McAdams says.

            When highly generative adults tell their life stories, a common element in these stories is that the person enjoyed some early advantage in life and was blessed or special in some way. Perhaps they were a parent or grandparent’s favorite. Perhaps they were given some special opportunity than others did not have. Perhaps they had some special ability or talent.

            A second common element in these stories is an early childhood awareness that others suffer. McAdams says that at an early age highly generative adults have an “awareness that other people suffer pain or sickness, that other people die, are discriminated against, or experience things that are especially negative, and typically much more negative than what the author himself or herself experienced as a child.”

            A third element, and the most important element in these stories, McAdams says, is that when telling the stories of their lives, highly generative adults emphasize themes of redemption.

            They look at bad experiences as experiences that made them stronger, or taught them something about life, or than changed them in some other way. Often, according to these stories, these experiences of suffering were even necessary to making them into the people they are today.

            But as I said, not everybody tells these kind of stories.

            In his book, McAdams contrasts the lives and the stories that highly generative adults tell about their lives with the lives and the stories that adults who are the least generative tell about their lives.

            What are the lives of the least generative adults like?

            In general, adults who are least generative are more focused on their own well-being rather than the well-being of others or of society. McAdams quotes one 60-year-old man who says, “I want to keep doing exactly what I want to do. I want to follow my own interest, or lack of interest. I like to drink coffee. I’d like to spend more time in the coffeehouse. I like to run and workout, maybe take some interesting classes. Maybe  travel. But I don’t really want much responsibility, and I have no [large] aspirations for me. I don’t want to aspire to anything.”

            Despite this focus on their own well being, compared to others, adults who are the least generative usually are more likely to be anxious, depressed, and unsatisfied with their own lives.

            They also tell very different kinds of stories about their own lives. Instead of telling stories of redemption, adults who are the least generative often tell what McAdams calls “contamination stories.”

            In a contamination story, instead of something good coming out of something bad, something bad inevitably turns into something worse.

            In religion, the classic contamination story is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. “In contamination,” McAdams says, “there first exists something that is very, very good. The protagonist of the story tastes the sweetness of life; enjoys the goodness; experiences the beauty, the truth, the excitement, the wonder. And then - - and all quite suddenly - - it is all lost.”

            As an example of a contemporary contamination story, McAdams tells about a 36-year-old man whose parents divorced when he was five. According to the man, this was the turning point of his life.

             “What might have been?” he wonders: “What would have happened if certain things had not happened? If I would have had an actual family unit that would have stayed together, what would I be now? A senator? A doctor? Would I have gotten a college degree? An M.A.? A Ph.D.? I’ve got the brains. I probably would have been a fantastic literature teacher, or sportscaster. What if I had gone ahead and taken a chance with [a woman I loved] and got married? Maybe I would have had some beautiful kids by now…What if?”

            Here’s a question that I’d like to pose for you to consider this morning. What makes the difference between people who turn out to be highly generative adults and those that turn out to be the least generative?

            We all know that life isn’t fair, so is it because some people are just luckier than others. Is it because some people do enjoy special advantages early in life? Is it because some people do suffer special disadvantages early in life and get caught in a downward spiral from which they can never quite escape?

            McAdams suggests this isn’t the case. He says his research suggest that the life events of those people who turn into the most highly generative adults aren’t that much different from the life events of those people who turn into the least generative adults.

            In other words, objectively speaking, one group isn’t luckier than the other.

            The difference, he says, is the stories they have learned to tell about their lives.

            We all know that you can take any set of facts and tell multiple stories about them, stories that turn out in different ways.

            A man gets fired from his job. Is this the worst thing that has ever happened to him or the best thing? Is this the beginning of the end of his career, or is it the event that frees him from job he hated anyway and allows him to discover a calling he truly loves?

            A woman gets divorced. Is this the worst thing that has ever happened to her or the best thing? Is it the event that prevents her from achieving the kind of life of which she had dreamed since childhood, or is this the event that though difficult, teaches her to rely on herself and develop deep relationships with a close circle of friends?

            Do we see our lives as blessed or cursed, as lucky or unlucky as compared to others? Do we see the bad things that inevitably have happened to all of us as the first step on a downward spiral toward unhappiness or as difficult experiences that have actually turned out for the best?

            George Orwell once said, “Who controls the present controls the past: who controls the past controls the future." Orwell was talking about using revisionist history for the sake of political propaganda. Think of President Bush recently and falsely blaming the U.S. pullout of Vietnam for the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. But I think what Orwell said is equally applicable to our personal lives: The stories we tell about what has happened to us in the past affect how we will live in the future.

            If this is true, then the first step toward leading a richer, deeper, fuller more abundant experience of life in our future is learning to tell a new story about our past.

            Let me throw in a word of warning, however. It’s my opinion that Americans tend to overdo everything, even in telling stories of redemption, so I want to try to make a subtle point here.

            To say that we can often benefit from negative experiences in our lives is one thing and, I want to suggest, it’s a good attitude to have. To say that everything always turns out for the better, to say that every cloud always has a silver lining, to say that you can always make lemonade when life hands you turnips, or to say that suffering is always completely redeemed is quite another, and I think false. To say that suffering is necessary to make us into better people borders on being dangerous.

            In his book When Bad Things Things Happen To Good People, the rabbi Harold Kushner, suggests a continuum for talking about bad things that have happened to us in life. At one end of the continuum, we might say, “Well, that was a little difficult, but I’m sure glad that it happened. I’m much better for it.” On the other end, we might say, “No matter what comes of this, I wish it hadn’t happened.”

            Kushner puts the death of his son from a rare childhood disease into this latter category. Having experienced his son’s death probably made him more empathetic and understanding of the suffering of others, he says. It even probably made him a better rabbi. But he still wishes his son hadn’t died.

            I also think of people who are survivors of abuse - - sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, or emotional abuse. Many of these survivors have courageously worked through their experiences and some have become tireless advocates on behalf of others who have suffered or have worked to prevent others from having the same experiences.

            However, to impose a narrative of redemption on their stories seems to draw our attention away from a simple truth: It would have been better if they had never suffered abuse in the first place.

            I believe it’s also unwise to fall into a language of redemption when talking about some larger events. For example, in talking about the Holocaust, to say that anything good came out of the Holocaust seems to be almost monstrous. Six million people died. An entire culture was nearly wiped out.

            I also wonder about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and their relation to the events of September 11, 2001. The events of September 11, 2001, were clearly a tragedy. Nearly 3,000 people died. However, to what degree did our country’s need to give redemptive meaning to these deaths, to makes sure than something good came out of them, lead the American public to support wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

            Israeli psychologists Nahi Alon and Haim Omer suggest that sometimes the best narrative we can use is one of tragedy, and that in a tragic story suffering can be endured, it can be survived, but it cannot be redeemed. Perhaps they are right, and there are some stories for which we shouldn’t try to find a happy, Hollywood ending.

            However, most of the time, I think we can.

            The Unitarian Universalist minister Roy Phillips writes, “In theological kindergarten the discussion is about whether there is a giant in the sky, and if so, how big he is or if he is a she. At the intermediate and advanced levels, theological discussion concerns itself with this possibility of transmuting any and every darkness into a servant of creation, transformation, and renewal.”

            That is the challenge we face, I believe: Sometimes, only to survive, only to endure. But mostly, to believe that we are blessed and not cursed. To see the challenges we face in life and not trivialize them or dismiss them, but also to see them as opportunities for growth, opportunities that will help us to lead lives of greater fullness, richness, and depth, opportunities that might even inspire us to make the world more loving and just.

            So may it be.

            Amen.