Anxious Politicians and Happy Beggars

"I was preparing to deliver a speech in praise of  ___ . I was to tell many lies that would be enjoyed by people who would know full well that they were not the truth. My heart pounded with anxiety..."

Is it quote from a interview conducted on this morning's news? Was he about to speak at a fundraising dinner for a candidate for running for office in the upcoming election? Actually, it is a bit older than that. The speaker was about to make a speech about the Emperor of Rome, in the fourth century. 

All of our technology notwithstanding, not much has changed.

Augustine continued his story.

I noticed a destitute beggar who, I think, was already drunk, because he was joking and laughing...All our efforts...were directed at nothing more than the attainment of a state of carefree pleasure. But the beggar got there first... For what he had gained with a few coins got by begging - namely, the pleasure of temporary happiness - I was striving to find in such distressingly twisted and roundabout ways.

Not that the beggar possessed true joy; but my method of seeking fulfillment through corrupt practices was far more false. Certainly he was cheerful while I was anxious; he was carefree while I was filled with apprehension. If anyone were to ask me whether I would prefer to be cheerful or afraid, I would answer, 'to be cheerful'. But if I were then asked whether I would prefer to be like the beggar or like myself, as I was at the time, I would choose to be myself, though consumed by anxieties and fears. (The Confessions of St. Augustine,"A Beggar's Happiness")

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Beggars and politicians alike, we are still striving after the wrong thing, and looking for it in all the wrong places.

My Happiness Habit: What in the World is Truth?

Whatever is true...think on these things." Phil 4:8
I have been pursuing developing a habit of happiness.

Today I am planning to think more about Paul's assertion that our thought life makes a difference. He says we should choose to think about "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just..."

That got me thinking, if I am going to thing about things that are true, I need to be able to tell the difference between truth and lies.

Truth in Political Ads?
This morning I turned on the TV. I was immediately barraged by ads bashing the candidates running for office. The first ad was so damming that it made me wonder why this guy is running for congress instead of sitting in jail.  The next ad was praising the same guy, making him sound like he should be sainted next week. What is a voter to do? How am I supposed to know what is true?

Truth from the Mexican Police
The news story that came up next was related to the couple who was jet skiing on a lake on the Texas/Mexico border a couple of weeks ago. The husband was shot and killed. A few days ago the lead Mexican investigator announced that they had a couple of suspects, leaders of a drug cartel. The day after that, his bosses announced that contrary to the earlier announcement, there were no suspects. the leaders of the drug cartel had been cleared. A few days later that investigator showed up at an army base, at least his head did.  It was in a suitcase.  Suspicious.  What is the truth?

What is truth?
Philosophers debate truth.
Some people don't believe that anything is ultimately true.
How can I know what is true? 

In the middle of a different type of terrible situation, Jesus was being interrogated by a corrupt, self-serving, high government official. (Hmmm thousands of years pass, yet this seems as familiar as today's news.)

Jesus said, "For this purpose I have come into the world - to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." (John 18:37)

Truth was pretty hard to find on the TV this morning.
If I want to think about the truth, I won't really find it on major news outlets. Once again everything comes around to Jesus. The only place I can find reliable truth is by listening to him.

My Happiness Habit: Uncensored

This happiness habit thing has not been as easy for me as I expected it to be. I characterize myself as a person who is generally happy. But as soon as I started to be intentional about developing a consistent habit of happiness, it seemed to elude my grasp, like trying to capture a bubble in my hand. 

Every time I get close to capturing happiness, some difficulty arises in my life and my fragile soap bubble seems to pop.  I am not giving up though.  Some habits are tougher to develop than others, I guess.

So far, I have thought about intentionally rejoicing in the Lord, recognizing that He is near, not allowing myself to be anxious, but praying about my fears instead.  These are all good things and I stand by them.

I am going to keep practicing until I get things right, but I have not arrived.   I am finding that most of the paths I trudge are simple to communicate, and much more difficult to walk.

Life is messy.  Even good seasons in life are messy.  During other seasons, the word painful doesn't even begin to cover it.  I don't want to sound like true Christians will never feel sad, discouraged or clinically depressed.  Actually, God acknowledges that at times we are going to feel crushed.  He promises to come live with us and bring us back to life (more on this in the next few days on my other blog, http://blogspot.doorinthewilderness.com ).  

During those times when happiness doesn't come easily, one more little key seems to be fighting to maintain perspective.

I tend to lose perspective.  When I am struggling I see only the trouble. I don't seem to be able to contain the joys and the sorrows at the same time.

The Psalms are good guides in this.  David repeatedly rails at his enemies, describes his desperate situation, and asks God to come to his defense.  He even prays that God will "break the teeth in their mouths" and "let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime" (Psalm 58).  And those are mild calls for vengeance! Some Psalms get much bloodier.  I find all the calls for divine violence oddly comforting.  Praying for God dissolve my enemies into slime is further than I am willing to go most of the time, except when I am really angry. I figure the fact that such talk is in holy scripture gives me permission to be real in my own prayers. I can honestly pour out my feelings to God uncensored. 

In almost every one of these Psalms, two other things happen also.  The writer remembers specific aspects of God's character and times that God has been faithful in the past.  He prays honest, emotion filled "dissolve into slime" prayers and then a few breaths later he brings himself back around to the things he knows to be true, and the faithfulness he has experienced in the past.

I love how realistic God is about us.  He knows that to 'rejoice always' is not easy.  He knows that we need to both lay everything out before Him, and force ourselves to remember who He is and what He has done for us. Maybe that is why Philippians 4:6 says that while we are passionately pouring out every anxiety to the Lord in prayer, we are to be mixing the requests with thanksgiving.

"prayer and supplication with thanksgiving"(Philippians 4:6)

"Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully." (1 Peter 5:7, AMP)

My Happiness Habit: How to Avoid Being an Extreme, Raving, Self-centered Lunatic.

I have been thinking about developing a new habit lately.  Admittedly, most of my habits are accidental bad habits.  But, this time I am trying to grow a new, good habit.  I want to be a person who is deep down, on the inside, content.  I want to be someone whose joy can coexist with pain.

My guide is the apostle Paul.  In Philippians 4:4-8 he is closing his letter from a Roman prison with some quick advice.  The fact that Paul wrote this advice while sitting in a damp, stinky prison with rats for company makes me want to listen.  If Paul could be content there, surely I can be content in the midst of my everyday hassles.  Towards the beginning there is a sentence that seems out of place to me.  In my English Standard Version Bible it says, "Let your reasonableness be known to everyone." It is sandwiched between "Rejoice" and "the Lord is at hand; do not be anxious..."  If I was helping Paul edit his letter I would have suggested moving that phrase somewhere else.  What does reasonableness have to do with either rejoicing or anxiety? There must be some reason that it is stuck in this incongruous place.

What is "reasonableness" anyway? I am no Greek scholar, but I can navigate references so I looked it up.  The same word is translated, gentleness, unselfishness, and moderation.  Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, (in my mind I always think Strong's Exhausting Concordance...) says it means appropriate, and by implication, gentle, moderation and patient.  This is starting to make more sense.  Paul is saying don't be unreasonable, harsh, extreme, and impatient.   

I think another key is in the next phrase, "the Lord is at hand." 

The Message says, "Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!"

I am picturing the frightened cry of a small child who has had a bad dream.  The mother dashes in to soothe the child.  She wraps her arms around her.  "Don't worry, Mommy is right here."  Her presence soothes, comforts.  Nothing can frighten the child now.  She can be reasonable instead of afraid because she knows that her Mommy is able to vanquish all the monsters under the bed.

So, like that fearful child I can rejoice.  I can be reasonable and gentle and unselfish.  I can keep from overreacting.  The Lord is at hand.

My Happiness Habit

I want to grow into a person who is characterized by deep contentment, the habit of happiness.

I started last weekend by thinking through the command to "Rejoice ... always"  I decided to focus on the sunny side of things.  About 10 minutes into Friday evening I discovered that rejoicing always was not as easy for me as I thought it would be.  There were little bumps.  It was nothing major.  The kids argued.  My husband and I had slightly different ideas about the best ways to respond to them.  We were all a bit on edge.  I realized that I was not rejoicing.  I hated the turmoil, even though it was minor turmoil.  Ripples in the household put me in turmoil.  I longed to hide for a long time, all weekend even, in a quiet place with a good book and a lot of chocolate.  Clearly, I still have much to learn about contentment.

I have had happiness on my mind for a while now.  I picked up the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  The author decided that she wanted to be happier.  She studied research on what makes people happy and set herself ambitious goals to achieve happiness.  Each month she focused on a different aspect of happiness.  She rated her success and charted her progress.

I was intrigued, maybe she had discovered the keys to happiness.  Does having a clean closet really make a person happier?  I wouldn't know... A short way into the book I started to feel vaguely uncomfortable with its approach.  I realized that I could never follow Gretchen's lead.  For one thing I hate charts.  Her set-a-goal-and-measure-your-progress way of doing things simply doesn't fit me. Besides, being orderly and disciplined about happiness felt wrong somehow. Shouldn't happiness just bubble up from the inside? I knew there was more to my discomfort than personality differences between Gretchen Rubin and myself, but I wasn't sure what the problem was.  I picked up Walking with God by John Eldredge. Something John said triggered an "aha moment" for me.  I suddenly understood my discomfort with The Happiness Project .

You can't possibly master enough principles and disciplines to ensure that your life works out.  You weren't meant to, and God won't let you.  For he knows that if we succeed without him, we will be infinitely further from him.  We will come to believe terrible things about the universe--things like I can make it on my own and If only I try harder, I can succeed. That whole approach to life--trying to figure it out, beat the odds, get on top of your game--it is ...entirely without God.  He is nowhere in those considerations.  That sort of scrambling smacks more of the infamous folks who raised the tower of Babel than it does of those who walked with God in the garden in the cool of the day.  In the end, I'd much rather have God.

Gretchen tried to figure out how to make life work.  She came up with some useful tidbits. But no checklist, even a thoroughly researched checklist, could make a person content at the core.

However,  I don't want to give up.  I still want to be characterized by deep contentment, the habit of being happy.

I decided to go back to Philippians 4:4-9. 

One reason my "sunny side" approach didn't work was that I mentally deleted the key phrase from the passage.  "Rejoice in the Lord always." The fact that the waters of my life are not always as placid as I would like them to be is a gift.  That way I remember that, at root, I am rejoicing in the Lord, and not merely in the gifts he gives me, not even the tremendous gift of a beautiful family.  Sometimes I get things twisted around and I act like God's job is to make me happy. He wants me to be happy, but more than that He knows that what I really long for is love.  I long to experience God's love for me and love him back.  Nothing less than that will be a stable enough foundation.  Nothing less lasts.   

Peaches and Tea

I am sitting in my kitchen with the door open to the fresh morning air and perfect clear blue sky.  The aroma of freshly baked peach crisp is filling the house.  I am full of anticipation for this afternoon when my sister and niece will join my daughter and me for tea. Not tea as in a mug of Lipton, TEA as in small sandwiches and sweets and pot after pot of darjeeling served in china cups.

Years ago a woman told me that one thing she loved about her husband was that he had the "habit of happiness".  That phrase is etched in my brain forever.  I want to be a habitually happy person. I am going to have to be intentional about this.  Being happy is not always easy. 

Instead of thinking about the good and beautiful things, many times I focus on the difficult things.  Today, I could focus  on ongoing frustrations that soiled the atmosphere in our house for a time last evening.  I could focus the anger I felt after my naughty dog escaped out an open gate, and rebelliously looked me straight in the eye, while she ignored my demand that she come.  Many times there are much more significant heartaches robbing me of joy.

Today happens to be a good day to start developing the habit.  It is an ordinary day, a muddle of the wonderful, the awful, and lots of stuff that is neither.  A good starting point is reading Philippians 4:4-8.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.  The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

How will I start?  The same way I develop any good habit.  The process is pretty much the same each time.  At first, I try something deliberately, consciously.  It feels strange and awkward and uncomfortable.  If I keep at it, practicing at absolutely every opportunity, feeling ridiculous, the action gradually feels more comfortable.  Eventually, one day, I catch myself doing what used to seem so unnatural without even realizing it.  It has become a habit. 

I'm going to give developing the habit of happiness a shot. To begin, I am going to consciously choose to rejoice.  I'll let you know how it goes.