Hello is Healthier

 

“A smile is the universal welcome.”  Max Eastman

 
Okay, think about it. Where’s a place that you find that you’re consistently warmly welcomed? And not just a, “I’m doing my job welcome.” About the only business where I find that I am warmly welcomed is at a car dealership. I’m rarely there more than a minute before someone is asking, “Sir, have you been helped?” Of course, a car buyer/customer is potentially worth thousands of dollars in commission, so there are other motivations which is why we have a high index of suspicion at a car dealership.
  Did you know that habitually saying “Hello” to others can make you healthier? It also opens doors for friendships. I know that it did for us.
  Some of our lifelong friends in Burlington are Tim and Rozanne Bird. We’d moved in for just a few days and the only people that we knew in Burlington were those from our church. Shortly after we moved in while I was away at work, Tim came over with a fresh loaf of zucchini bread for our family that Rozanne had made…and we’ve been friends ever since. Their children played and grew up with our children. We’d spend the holidays together. We were there for each other if there was a need or an emergency. There was hardly anything more enjoyable for us than to stop and talk to Tim and Rozanne. And though we moved from that neighborhood years ago, we’re still friends and periodically get together (though not as often as either of us would like).
  Being friendly can help you live longer. Gallup just released a poll that learned that adults in the U.S. who regularly say hello to multiple people in their neighborhood have higher wellbeing than those who greet fewer or no neighbors. Your wellbeing score increases steadily by the number of neighbors greeted, from 51.5 among those saying hello to zero neighbors to 64.1 for those greeting six neighbors.
  Americans report saying hello on a regular basis to five neighbors, on average, with 27% reporting greeting six or more. This varies substantially by age, however. Young adults (those under 30) say hello to an average of 2.9 neighbors, compared with 6.5 among those aged 65 or older. About one in seven among those under 30 (14%) greet six or more neighbors, compared with 41% of those aged 65 and older. Having children under 18 in the household marginally improves the chances of greeting neighbors.
  We are suffering from an epidemic of loneliness in the United States and Western civilization. Lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to an advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General released earlier this year. The physical consequences of poor connection can be devastating, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. The continued rise in suicide rates is connected to this crisis that as a culture we are so disconnected.
  What we so cherish, our radical individualism, is at the same time destroying us. Individualism has engendered unprecedented social isolation and yielded a depth of loneliness unique to 21^st-century American culture.
  God designed us as relational beings. It’s a reality long affirmed by the Bible but now also supported by neuroscience. We must understand that we are social beings before we can regain social connectedness, friendship, and community in our church and in the world. While we can’t change the world, we can make a difference in our world. What can we do?
  Limit your smart phone use. Personal, local conversations have been replaced by furious tapping on glowing screens separated by hundreds of miles. A smart phone is nearly always within reach. It’s there to wake us up in the morning, play our favorite music, capture our lives in pics and video, an ever-present portal to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, but it carries a price. Our digital interactions with one another, which are often necessarily brief and superficial, begin to pattern all our relationships. As we become shallow in our interactions with people, it becomes our habit.
  The barista at the coffee counter gets a DM-like response. When we hang out with friends, we offer a series of Tweet-like responses in a superficial conversation with little spiritual meaning. The way we interact online becomes the norm for how we interact offline and it’s not the way to have a good conversation with someone. A good conversation involves listening and timing. That’s lost with Internet communications because you’re not there with that person. We must not treat another person the way we would if we interact with social media, but we will if we’re not careful.
  The Lord Jesus models perfect being-in-relationship for us. Jesus was never not in relationship. He didn’t enter this world by splitting the heavens but by gently growing in his mother’s womb. He entered a normal family, spent His childhood and early adulthood in obscurity, and then launched His ministry by inviting others to follow Him. Even on the night of his crucifixion, Jesus gathered for a meal with His disciples, then He led them to pray with Him at Gethsemane. With His final breaths, Jesus instructed his disciples to care for his mother. If relationships were essential to Jesus, shouldn’t they be essential for us, too?
  Like Jesus, we exist for relationships. If Jesus was history’s most “fully alive” human, it shouldn’t surprise us that a person can’t become fully human without a community. Simply put, we were created for community.
  Ours is a social gospel. American Christians tend to read Scripture from an exclusively individualistic framework. We’re surprised to find that the Lord’s Prayer contains only plural pronouns (“Our Father…Give us… Forgive us”) and that the Apostle Paul writes “our Lord” 53 times but “my Lord” just once. So, our salvation isn’t less than personal; it’s more than personal. Responding to the loneliness epidemic creates an ideal opportunity for churches to prioritize fostering authentic community.
  Western individualism has sparked unprecedented social isolation. We must work to recover the biblical need of community. It can begin next door by simply saying “hello” to a neighbor. It starts at work as you take time to interact with co-workers. It’s cultivated at church, as we share and care with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Can we help you spiritually? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.