The Secret Is Respect
I was quite taken with the interview with
Mathew Boggs and Jason Miller in the New Morning show about
Wonder. These two twentysomething bachelors found
themselves wondering what makes for a good marriage. So they set out on a 15,000-mile journey to interview long-married couples about how they've done
it. Having just passed the 38-year mark in my own marriage, I decided I'd
like to check out the findings of their
Project Everlasting
book and film. Always good to compare notes.
The secret, Boggs and Miller
discovered, is respect. They were very impressed with the way the couples
interacted with each other, all the while demonstrating that they not only loved
each other, they respected each other. I agree. Respect is key.
The same
quality was evident in the friendship of
Annabelle Gurwitch and Tonya Pinkins, who have been friends
for 30 years. They come from very different backgrounds and have learned that
their different perspectives on life can come in very handy, especially when one
is faced with a challenge and needs a new way of looking at it. They respect
each other's viewpoints and have built trust out of that basic attitude.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is often quoted as saying, "My religion is
kindness." But what is kindness? It's having respect for others enough to want
to do good deeds for them.
I was once talking at a lunch table at a
conference about what I thought were the most important spiritual practices. I
mentioned the famous line from the mystic Meister Eckhart, "If the only prayer
you say in your whole life is thank you, that would suffice." Someone at
the table said, "That just sounds like good manners. Are you saying that
spirituality is just good manners?" Yep. I think so.
Many
religious traditions talk about humans as being made in the image of God. And so
when we interact with each other, we should be respectful, we should be kind, we
should have good manners. After all, this is not just some lump across
the room from us. This is the image of God.