[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Friday, July 26, 2013

[Paul]

Hello and good day to all my readers once again.  Well, it's that time of day, time for another Daily Thought message that I hope the Lord can use in your lives, whether individually or collectively.  If not immediately, maybe something written here will strike a chord with you down the road of time, so to speak.

David Miller is senior pastor of St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Naperville, Illinois, and he wrote an article several years ago with what I consider an intriguing article.  It's called "Relational Happiness" and is rendered as follows:

A couple of years ago, a journalist published a book that lived on my daughter's shelf until she gave it to me, knowing I was intrigued by the title:  "The Geography of Bliss." The book is a funny and illuminating read.

The author traveled to a dozen countries to learn why those who live there are so happy--or not.  The countries were not picked at random.  He chose his destinations after visiting the World Happiness Database (I'm not making this up) in Amsterdam.

The WHD compiles and compares studies from social scientists across the world, who examine the age-old mystery of what makes for happy, contented lives.  Countries even receive scores on a 1-10 scale, based on extensive surveying.

In case you're wondering, the United States is not among the 20 happiest places on earth.  It ranks below places like Costa Rica, Malta, Malaysia, Bhutan, and Iceland--way below Iceland.

No surprise there.  During my lifetime, Americans have become many times richer, but the divorce rate has tripled, violent crime has quadrupled, the prison population quintupled, and mental health disorders like anxiety and depression are much more common.

This leads to the obvious conclusion that money matters less than we imagine.  After having enough to satisfy basic human needs, happiness plateaus and having more money makes little difference.

What matters are social and family connections, belonging to a people, a history and a culture that transcends oneself.  Trusting others--your neighbors and fellow citizens--is essential.  Envy is toxic, as are unrealistic expectations for personal success and accomplishment.

Happy places allow people to try and fail without shame, providing them freedom to reinvent themselves.  They have space for idleness beyond the daily rush.  They also inspire an expansive consciousness, the awareness that life is bigger than me and my personal needs.  Summing up his view--and much of this happy, thoughtful book--a public official in the tiny nation of Bhutan said, "Happiness is 100% relational." We are created from and fore each other, to complete each other.  We are fashioned for harmony with the earth and those with whom we share it.  Recognize it or not, we are deeply connected, and we find our joy and purpose in the community of those connections.

Little wonder that human happiness is 100 percent relational.  We can't deny our communal nature or hide it under the myth of the "Self-made man" or beneath foolish ideas that suggest that we can live separate lives.  We are intimately connected with every other human family with whom we share this planet.

Occasionally, the narcissistic walls that keep us from seeing these connections crumble.  Earthquakes do this.  Pictures from Haiti move us in ways we can neither understand nor deny, as we witness faces of suffering and recognize those faces as our own.  So we care, we act, we give, becoming more human and, dare I say it, happier, having fulfilled in our bodies the humanity and communal connection God fashioned in our depths.

This is why two funerals I recently led were happier places than the American political marketplace.  At the funerals, we remembered, cried and laughed together.  We felt the sinews of love, struggle and history that bind us together.  Amid sorrow, there was joy as we experienced those connections--and our connection with God.

This is so different from American politics where the reality that we are all in this together is daily ripped apart.

Different, too, were the circles of conversation that continued longer than normal in the narthex last Sunday.  Serious exchanges and laughter spiced the air.  People shared news of illnesses and treatment, of family visits and children's activities, of hopes and anxieties for the coming week.

Connections were savored and nurtured, and we were happier and more human for it.  In some not-so-hidden way, the kingdom of God's delight was real.

And there you have Pastor Miller's article which I hope you enjoyed reading and pondering.

One observation I'd like to make here.  To quote a sentence from the article:  "What matters are social and family connections, belonging to a people, a history and a history that transcends oneself." I would add that belonging to a group of believers, called a "Church" could also be inserted here, although Pastor Miller didn't say that in so many words.

Some of my neighbors ask me why I'm on my computer and the Internet so much of the time.  I tell them that this is one way that community for me can be sustained.  Years ago before such things as the Internet or even phone chat lines came into being, neighbors were truly neighbors, at least in my experience, but now today things are totally the opposite.  Why this is, I don't really know.  Matthew 24:12B comes to mind when Jesus said that, in the last days, "the love of many will grow cold." Do I have a witness here?

And now until tomorrow when, Lord willing another daily thought message will be presented, may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul