Wellbeing

 

Since 2009/10, The Children’s Society has published an annual, longitudinal report of the wellbeing of children and young people in the UK. They look at:

evaluative wellbeing – thoughts and evaluations about how life is going;

affective wellbeing – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and emotions; and

eudaimonic wellbeing – a sense of meaning in life, such as, do I have a sense of purpose? strong relationships? self-belief?

The latest report, just published and available online, shows that our children and young people have significantly poorer levels of wellbeing than they did fifteen years ago, and that our fifteen-year-olds have lower levels of wellbeing than their peers across 27 European nations.

Jesus was a rabbi, which means master, or, one who had mastered life. One, we might say, who had a high level of wellbeing, and when other people spent time with him their wellbeing levels increased too. Someone you might look at and say, they seem to have their sh*t together. Life isn’t simply happening to them, or around them, but they are living purposefully, a life with meaning. Like most rabbis at the time, he did this in the context of a very ordinary life, in Jesus’ case as a stone mason and carpenter in a small community.

Of course, Jesus wasn’t the only person who was seeking to live life purposefully. It wasn’t an unusual idea. Wellbeing isn’t a new idea; it is an ancient one. In Hebrew it is expressed as shalom. Jesus wasn’t the only person seeking to love God fully and love other people deeply. Many people were.

One such group was the Pharisees. They advocated that the ritual practices by which the priests in the temple at Jerusalem kept themselves oriented towards God, and symbolically remade the world – that gave them a strong eudaimonic wellbeing that in turn strengthened their evaluative wellbeing and affective wellbeing – should be adopted by all Jews in every place.

The biographer Mark records some Pharisees asking Jesus why his disciples didn’t observe such rituals? (See Mark 7.) In particular, why didn’t they ritually wash their hands (note, this is not a matter of hygiene) before eating a meal that involved bread (an extension of the priestly practice of washing their hands before handling grain offerings). For the benefit of his non-Jewish audience, Mark mentions some other examples of ritual practice observed by the Pharisees. The point is not, look how ridiculous these people were, how wrong they had got it! The point is that whatever their own cultural background, the audience might recognise the human tendency to depend on certain rituals – including twenty-first century secular Western societies. It is meant as an a-ha! moment.

Jesus responds by calling people out as hypocrites, that is, actors who present a mask to the world. It is important to note that this is not a dismissal of Judaism (or even a dismissal of Pharisaism). Jesus was a Jew. His disciples were Jews. They observed a kosher diet and played a full part in the ritual world of their culture, including the key events and celebrations that strengthen communal wellbeing. This is an internal debate between people with a shared vested interest in promoting wellbeing (shalom).

Jesus lists several harmful behaviours that result from poor wellbeing, or the absence of shalom – behaviours which the Pharisees would also have been concerned about – as evidence that ritual alone is inadequate and can even be harmful when it allows us to deceive ourselves as to what is going on On The Inside. Certainly, fixating on ritual is unhealthy.

One of the significant things about the findings of The Children’s Society is seeing children and young people brave enough to take off the masks we hide behind to Present a Brave Face, or a toxically positive outlook, as we so often see – and is so damaging to wellbeing – on social media.

If we are to help them grow a healthier evaluative, affective, and eudaimonic wellbeing, ritual will have a part to play. For my part, I love welcoming children to communion, in which I am led by their desire to take part. But it starts – as all love starts – with hearing. Really hearing. (As in, Hear, O Israel...) Not being quick to mould them into our image, bent out of shape as it is, but recognising the likeness of God in them. They are the canary in the mine.