"…Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…" There’s good news on the happiness front, or, as the social scientists call it, ‘subjective well-being’. I recently noticed a difference in the subjective well-being quotients in the office: on foggy days I, who was born on a foggy day in a fog-belt neighborhood of San Francisco, was at the top of the subjective scale, but the staff was happy when the warm sun came out, but I was cranking up the air conditioner, tipping the blinds against the glaring sun, and anxiously watching for fingers of fog cresting the Sausalito headlands. Happiness is both subjective and relative.

A large-scale study of subjective well-being –‘happiness’- has had interesting results. For example, it proved that the stereotype of grouchy old people complaining about everything from taxes to denture cream is inaccurate! Life satisfaction holds with old age in spite of lower income, changes in job, health, and marriage status. Elders are happy–live with it!

Wealthy people are not much happier than poor people, but in democracies with a high and stable GNP people are happier across the board. Happily, married people are happy, and happily, so are single people who have strong friendships or close community ties. Happy at work and happy in life correlate, but people who are happy in life are happier at work. One study concludes that good health is the most important factor in subjective well-being.

People who have strong faith, pray regularly, meditate, feel close to God, participate in a church community, and give of themselves and their money are happier. Leisure is important to happiness, particularly challenging physical activities that increase skills. The most popular form of leisure, watching television, produces people who are markedly less happy than the general population.

People who get outside of themselves and relate to others and to the world are happier than those who are always worried about something, have frequent complaints, and see the glass half-empty. Generally speaking, happiness or subjective well-being, is key to lowering stress, increasing productivity, and living longer.
 

EXERCISE

Quiet your mind and soul as you recall a person, circumstance, situation, or relationship that made you happy. Hold that happiness in deep appreciation for a few moments – quiet, happy, grateful!

Happiness is pretty much circumstantial and predictable: a happy marriage, a fun vacation, a fulfilling job, good friends, nice kids, the car works, the fog’s in or the sun’s out. Let’s move from the pursuit of happiness and pleasure, both of which are fundamentally important in life, to the experience of joy, which is absolutely essential in life. Joy does not seem to have piqued the curiosity of sociology and I was unsuccessful when I ‘googled’ scientific studies of "subjective ecstatic bliss."

It is like this for most Christians: on Christmas Eve we do not sing, "Happiness to the world! the Lord is come: Let earth receive her subjective well-being…." No! For Christians, joy is a central, grounding experience that is not at all circumstantial, situational, controllable, or predictable. In the Gospel of John, Jesus about says it all in his farewell teaching, set in the context of the last supper, "I have taught you these things that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:11).

Each of us naturally live in and move between three states of existence: first is the primal, satisfying our needs and attaining what pleasures us; the second is the rational, thinking and problem solving; and finally, the spiritual wherein we seek Divine Presence and holy living. In the extreme, the issues with the primal are easily evidenced in the thievery at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and in the dishonesty of Martha Stewart, or in the doping and steroid scandals in professional sports and, sadly, with Olympians. This is the struggle of the ‘self’ dealing with the primal impulses of greed, envy, pride, and power.

The rational also relates to the self as it tries to balance morality, common good, personal gain, and closing the distance between the head and the heart. Spiritual existence seeks to place and keep us in the presence of God day-by-day, and helps us transcend primal urges on the one hand and reliance on purely rational motivation (which may not be particularly charitable) on the other hand.

Spiritual joy is NOT just about rare mountain top experiences or moments of ecstasy. It is about a joy that permeates and sanctifies your daily life as you dedicate who you are and everything you do to Jesus. In the spiritual state of existence we live consciously and find holy joy in such things as family relationships, friendship, a caring word or deed, an ethical decision or deal, a comfort offered, prayers uttered from the heart; healing acts of forgiveness, repentance, or atonement; and meditations in which the soul dives deep and surfaces with refreshing insights, impenetrable calm, and quiet resolve.

Joy, deep inner spiritual joy, is the most certain sign of God’s presence. When we choose to be fully conscious of God’s presence we know such joy as:
 

• open-heartedness,

• a sense of awe and thankfulness, and

• calm serenity, particularly in hard times.

A question: how can we be joyful when the world is beset by war, poverty, famine, terrorism, AIDs – or when we, or someone we love, is very sick, greatly challenged, or struggling with life?
 

EXERCISE

Think back to a time when you were acutely aware of the world’s troubles or going through something yourself that was or is very challenging. What did the sense of spiritual joy bring to you in that circumstance: calm, focus, strength, peace…?

What did that experience teach you about your spiritual life?

How can we be joyful in this world or with the challenges we face in our own lives? Personally, if I do not carefully and consciously nurture deep spiritual joy I can be quickly overcome by my own challenges and the world’s daily dish of bad news. My worst enemies in this regard are depression when I cannot find hope beyond my personal challenges, and cynicism when I deluged by the plagues of the world. If the spirituals of African slaves taught us anything, it is that holding deep inner spiritual joy in the worst of times has the power to consume evil and overcome wrongdoing. Their joy was to consciously live in the presence of God – a way of living that no master could control or eliminate.
Joy comes most easily when we are mindful, spiritually conscious:

Thankful for the unimaginable gift of living and being,

Thankful for the sense of awe and wonder creation inspires,

Thankful for the simplicity of existence, detached from
things, craving, and acquiring,

Thankful for the joy that mysteriously wells up when, with
deep appreciation, we are in the presence of God,

Thankful when the heart is open and we feel loved and
embrace that we are love.

EXERCISE

St. Augustine wrote that, "Our hearts are restless until they find their home in God."

St. Paul invited the Christians in Galatia to let their lives be directed by the Spirit because, "The Spirit brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Sit quietly with the invitation to such a life. To what is the invitation calling you?

Pray, Lord, let your Spirit fill me this day with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control!
 
 

Text for the Week: Galatians 5:19-25b

"When the self-indulgence of human nature is at work the results are sexual immorality and irresponsibility; idolatry and sorcery; jealousy and anger; feuding and conniving; disagreements, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and similar things.

"I warn you as I warned you before: those who behave like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
 
 

"What the Spirit brings is very different:

love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
trustfulness,
gentleness, and
self-control.

"There can be no law against such as this.
"You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you put to death the base qualities of human nature.
"Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit."
 
 

Abraham Heschel, "Humanity will not die for lack of information but may perish for a lack of appreciation."

Brother Roger, Founder and leader of the Taize Community in France, "Perfect joy is the laying aside of the self in peaceful love; to burst forth, this joy needs all your being."

•What regular practices might you take on to help you be

mindful of spiritual joy day-by-day?

•What things do you need to stop doing that get the way

of joy?

The Christian Mystic, Meister Eckhart, wrote, "O my heart, whence comes this love and grace, whence comes this gentleness and beauty, this joy and sweetness of the heart? Does not all of this flow forth from the Godhead, as from its origin?"

Write what comes to your quieted mind and soul in these words, "O my heart, whence comes this love and grace, whence comes this gentleness and beauty, this joy and sweetness of the heart?

From St. Catherine of Genoa, "When a person reaches the desirable haven of pure Love, even if they wished tried their best not to, they can do nothing but love and be joyful."

Lord, I pray that day-by-day your Spirit will pour joy into my soul. May the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control of the Spirit guide my every word, action, decision, thought, and relationship. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen!

Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."