The newspaper headline was too good to be true. "Experts disagree on how to be happy."
One side says, "Be focused. Organized. Get stuff done."
The other says, "Don't do so much. Stop and smell the roses."
I can picture it. A "my-happiness-is-better-than-your-happiness" bar-room brawl, in the end both sides deciding that happiness comes from kicking the stuffing out of someone else.
This much we know: Like everything else, our culture has turned contentment into some sort of an achievement, a contest, a beauty pageant. And in the end, it kind of defeats the point. It reminds me of the line from John Steinbeck's, East of Eden, "he brought with him his tiny, Irish wife, a tight, hard, little woman, humorless as a chicken. She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do."
Maybe we should opt for the third picture, which comes from a Farside Cartoon. Two cows standing in a field munching grass. One says to the other, "I don't care what they say. I'm not content."
For me, I put my money on Mary Howitt's observation. "He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower."
It boils down to this... simple pleasures.
What Rudolph Otto referred to as, "Mysterium Tremendum." Translated, it means "the bare mystery of simply being."
Or, in the words of CS Lewis, talking about joy, "I was overwhelmed by spine tingling elation."
We seem to lose that early in life, don't we? Or, we wake up one day--our spirit drained--and wonder where the joy went, and why.
It is no surprise that Jesus begins all of his parables this way; with a seed, lilies, a camel, wheat, a pearl, a candle. He obviously wanted us to look closely at this world, not some other one. It is here and now, all around us in the most ordinary things, that we find the Kingdom (which he reminded us, "is here"), and that we are in the divine presence.
And here's the deal: being fully alive is a sensual fiesta. Being alive in this world--squarely in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this day.
Irenaeus got it right a long time ago. "The Glory of God is man (or woman) fully alive."
Why are simple pleasures the source of such joy?
Because simple pleasures are the ones that ground us. They connect us to our humanity, they connect us to the earth, to our senses. Because simple pleasures are extremely sensual. And on a spiritual plane, humans are fully alive when we're most in touch with our senses.
There's a great story about a research project with children. The children were put into a room with new toys. The study was to determine which toys they enjoyed most. After twenty minutes or so, playing with all the new toys, the children spent the remainder of their time enthusiastically playing with... the boxes that the toys came in.
It makes me giggle just thinking about it.
Children are wired to be fully alive. To see. Wired to derive joy from that which is simple. It is a byproduct of engagement. There is no need for stuff to entertain, or occupy, or preoccupy, or distract. To put it another way, someone once said that miracles are simply being in the right place at the right time. And kids see miracles in simple boxes.
Somewhere along the way to adulthood, something gums up the system.
GK Chesterton's story of the teenage boy granted a wish by a genie: to be huge or tiny. We are all swayed by the appeal of being big, strong and powerful. So the boy chose huge. The outcome was predictable: in a few hours the boy was bored. Because of his size, he walked around the world in only a few steps. Scaled the largest mountains. Like any child 30 minutes after the presents are opened, "is that all there is?"
You see, Chesterton goes on to say, only "tiny people" can celebrate and enjoy life. Tiny people have nothing to prove, no score to settle, no one to impress. They approach each day, not from power, or the need to dominate or defeat, but from respect. The freedom to receive.
Tiny people see God incognito in the everyday stuff of life; the simple pleasures.
The sensation of relief from an endless hot shower.
The comfort of an oversized plush cotton towel.
A glass of Bordeaux after a long day.
The rich smell of the earth after a spring-rain.
Tears during a good movie.
The lick of a yellow lab.
Filtered sunlight through the morning bedroom window.
Memories of childhood, bacon frying, lilacs in May, Sunday pot roast, and the aroma from my grandfather's pipe.
Which begs the question. How do we re-train our own eye (or mind) to appreciate simple pleasures? Is there a spiritual practice that we can incorporate into our lives, that opens our eyes to the abundant simple pleasures that surround us? (Granted, it would be easier with a book,
Simple Pleasures for Dummies.) Answer this: Can you tell me a simple pleasure that happened / that you enjoyed, in the past day?
And while we're on the subject, it wouldn't hurt to change the way we talk. We ask, of each other, daily, "What do you do?" Or, "What did you do?" Why not ask, "What surprised you today? What made you smile?" "Where did you see God incognito?"
This we know for certain. There is a connection between simple pleasures and gratitude.
Meister Eckhart says that if you only learn one prayer in your whole life, learn this one: "Thank you."
We can learn the Jewish practice called Shehechiyanu: saying a blessing for new and special experiences. "Thank you God for allowing me to reach this time."
My first cup of coffee this morning.
Dark chocolate
Willie Nelson
Watching my son dance to the Beatles
Reading by the fireplace
Fresh flowers on the dining room table
Barefoot in the summer
Belly laughter
Listening to the dawn
Planting a flower
Learning a new word
Asking a stupid question
Hug from a child
Watching grass grow
Phone call from a friend
Emailing this Sabbath Moment to a friend. (How subtle is that?)
I spent the weekend in Denver, with a group from GGCC. (No, it was not easy to preach to people who wear Denver Bronco jerseys to church. I was tempted to try a little hell-fire and brimstone. But it's a good group of people, many of them now my friends, so I tried to play nice.) We talked about no longer waiting for our real life to begin. Can we embrace the reality that the dance, the perseverance, the abundance, the light, the tenderness, the intimacy, the wholeheartedness is already within us?
You see, it's not really about happiness at all.
It's about being awake. Embracing that connection between simple pleasures and gratitude. When we do (and I love this part), the cracks and crevices and gaps in our lives become the places where grace enters and dwells and fuels joy.
I'm home now, back on Vashon, and I had something else to say. It was going to be really important. But two Western Flickers landed on a tree outside my window. Flickers (a type of woodpecker) are a rare treat around here. Their beauty--they are the color of homemade caramel--is soothing. So, whatever I had to say... it can wait.
Lynne Twist talks about visiting a potter in Mexico. She admired the pottery, and commented on its beauty. She noticed that the potter had many pots and asked, "How many pots have you made?" The potter was surprised by the question. "Here," he answered, "we don't count such things." The Soul of Money
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