Rev. Scotty McLennan once followed what he calls the “resume theory of life.”
“I thought, first, go to college, select a profession and a way to work,” said McLennan, chaplain at Tufts University in Boston. “Then you keep building the resume from there.”
You might get promotions, accept new jobs or start important projects. You hope to fall in love. You get married, maybe raise a family. And you keep building your resume.
McLennan seemed on the personal fast track during his 20s. He attended graduate school in divinity and earned a law degree at the same time. He developed a legal aid ministry. He got married. Life was full.
Then everything capsized, or so it seemed. His wife left him. He developed an ulcer. He burned out on the job.
“My resume was blown to shreds,” McLennan recalled. “It doesn’t look so good for a minister to be getting a divorce and not be happy with his work.”
As it turned out, McLennan said, this upheaval was liberating.
“I was free to be myself rather than a set of credentials,” said McLennan, whose denomination is Unitarian Universalist. “Part of the freedom was allowing other people to reach out, giving me comfort and friendship.”
The 51-year-old McLennan’s credentials only improved from his mid-30s. He has been chaplain at Tufts for 15 years, giving sermons that people now regularly retrieve from the Tufts chaplaincy Internet site. He has moonlighted as a lecturer at Harvard Business School since 1988, and also consulted with corporations about business ethics.
He is author of the new book “Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up with Has Lost Its Meaning” (HarperSanFrancisco, $24). The cover features cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s rendering of Rev. Scot Sloan, a character in the Doonesbury strip whom Trudeau modeled on his Yale classmate, McLennan. The book is a valuable guide of personal stories that can light the way for the estimated 30 to 40 percent of Americans who will convert to a new religion during their adult years.
McLennan has also turned around his personal life. He is happily remarried since 1981 and he and his wife Ellen have two teenage sons.
“You get help from unexpected places and people,” McLennan said.
For McLennan, that’s one of the best reasons for giving of yourself–and discarding the resume theory of life. You never know which connections can change your life for the better. Giving to someone in need rewards you in ways you can’t quite imagine or expect.
“I am adviser to a large community service program at Tufts,” McLennan said. “Students get involved in helping disadvantaged people by tutoring, court work, emergency medical services and cooking meals at homeless shelters among other volunteer activities. I can’t tell you how many students say, `I am getting so much out of this experience for myself.’ “
What’s more, there is a potential for good health in the giving and connections. The MacArthur Foundation Study on Aging in 1998 showed the two most powerful predictors of well-being in later years are frequency of visits with friends and frequency of attendance at meetings of volunteer organizations.
A 1997 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association inoculated 276 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55 with a common cold virus. Those people who reported the most social ties–family, friends, co-workers, community groups, places of worship, charity organizations–were less susceptible to developing cold symptoms.
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McLennan suggested ways that families can make stronger connections this holiday season: Start a bank account for children, marking the money for a charitable cause of their choosing to be dispensed, say, next summer or December. Make items for other family members rather than simply buy them. Volunteer time as a family to a charity organization, asking what time of year the effort is most needed
“My wife and I take our kids to a homeless shelter each year to cook a meal,” McLennan said. “We get to know faces, and it brings us closer together as a family.”
Another good start for giving is the baiduhai Holiday Fund. It provides much-needed funds for dozens of area organizations attending to such urgent matters as child advocacy, job training for developmentally disabled adults, healthy family programs for at-risk families, emergency shelters and food banks among many other services. The McCormick Tribune Foundation will match all contributions 60 cents to the dollar.
Promise yourself the donation is one of many connections you make this holiday season.