February 6, 2005
Rev. Dr. Frank Carpenter,
D.Min.
St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church, Cincinnati, OH
In the stillness of this hour, let us consider the many gifts we have been given: a new morning, brightly light, the sun with a hint of spring to it; a new week, to begin again some project we held in doubt; the simple breathing of air in and out; Friends gathered about us. A list of simple gifts.
We’re thankful for those who remind us of the deeper dimension of the human drama. Joy and woe are woven fine. Friends share the pain of their family lives, the hopes of their children, the struggle with disease and recovery. We hold them in our thoughts, appreciate their readiness to connect with us.
In these few moments, we would prepare for the coming week. May we have a positive attitude about ourselves. May we not think negatively of our strengths and dreams.
In the silence, may our self-esteem blossom,
/silence/
Peace be with you. Amen.
There is a report that one day President Calvin Coolidge came home from church and was asked, "What did the preacher talk about today?" Coolidge responded, "Sin." "What did he say about it." "He was again’ it."
Today our sermon is about happiness. And I’m for it.
As a New England Patriots’ fan, I have some cause of happiness, at least if the bookies are right. Bets are that New England will win the Super Bowl by a touchdown. The sports commentators on NPR are suggesting that the score may be more like 25 to 10 or 35 to 10.
But I do not look to sports’ scores for my happiness. It was nice when the Red Sox won the World Series. The City of Boston may have gotten drunk, but I wasn’t that excited. What has been called the new science of happiness has found that wealth does not make people happy. I wonder if sports scores do, although it would seem so.
Perhaps I do not know that
much about happiness. Some times I’m up and sometimes I’m down,
goes the old spiritual – an so do I!. Reading some of the recent work
on the science of happiness, I wonder if the next step is for people to get
a degree in happiness. Yet I think it is more furtive than that. Poets may come
closer than scientists
" Happiness" by Jane Kenyon, from Otherwise New & Selected Poems
© Graywolf Press, 1997.
Happiness is to some extent one of the strange things about life, a bit of a mystery at least some of the time. The definition in the Oxford English Dictionary begins by suggesting the element of luck; happiness comes from ‘hap,’ luck.
Before going much further, I think it would be helpful to consider some definitions, and of the many words we pick up, I chose to look up contentment, happiness, and joy. These seem to me to suggest a continuum of increased feeling.
Content, contented: “Satisfied, desiring nothing more or nothing different; limiting one's desires, willing to put up with something”
Turning to a definition of happiness in the Oxford Dictionary, we read, ‘blessed, beautified,’ as well as luck and, along the continuum I suggested, “Having a feeling of great pleasure or content of mind, arising from satisfaction with one's circumstances or condition; also in weakened sense: Glad, pleased.”
Joy, not a word taken in a weakened sense, is defined, “A vivid emotion of pleasure arising from a sense of well-being or satisfaction; the feeling or state of being highly pleased or delighted; exultation of spirit; gladness, delight”.
All three words point to a sense of satisfaction, of varying degrees. Satisfaction with a job well done, a evening spend with a loved one that went well – ar least okay..
Besides varying intensities of satisfaction, there is a something about contentedness, happiness and joy which they also have in common. All three are fleeting, Satisfaction is a feeling that does not last. Sigmund Freud is considered today more a literary figure than the scientist he wanted to be. Let us not then consider him an expert, but an interested observer of our human condition. Freud noted:
One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be “happy” is not included in the plan of “Creation.” What people call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is by its nature only possible as an episodic phenomenon. When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it only produces a feeling of mild contentment,. We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only form a contrast and very little from a state of things. Thus our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution.’(LONGING FOR PARADISE, p177)
While Freud accomplishes his purpose here by slip sliding between contentment, happiness and enjoyment, his point is still well taken: happiness is not , in the usual sense of the word, not something we can achieve once and for all, like a Ph.D. degree.
One of the ways the new scientists of happiness seek to educate us is by developing new definitions of the word happiness. Dan Baker, author of WHAT HAPPY PEOPLE KNOW: HOW THE NEW SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER, tells us:
Happiness doesn't mean being in a good mood most of the time or experiencing the emotion of joy. Happiness is a way of life, an overriding outlook composed of qualities such as optimism, courage, love, and fulfillment. It's not something that changes every time your situation changes. [LINK]
This seems different than saying happiness is a feeling. Happiness is, rather, a perspective on life.
Is that helpful to you? Baker suggests what he calls happiness traps. One happiness trap is trying to force ourselves to be happy. This rebounds of course. and it is to fall out of the idea of happiness being an outlook, a perspective. The question, “Are you supposed to be happy?” is also a trap. Though some of you may feel entitled to be happy, there is not good answer to this question. I know that if I thought that I would be feeling guilty pretty quick because I’ve set up a should which actually gets in the way of my happiness. There is, as Freud suggests, a certain spontaneity to happiness.
Another question more helpful to our reflection this morning is the question, Do you want to be happy? Do you want to be happy?
/pause/
Does that seem to you to be a stupid question? Sure, everyone one wants to be happy? Oh? Are there other values more important to you than happiness? Have you ever been in an argument with someone who just was not going to let go of it? There can come a time when the question to ask is, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?” I’ve known a number of people who would rather be right and angry, than happy.
On of the most destructive emotions we have is self-pity. “Poor me. Poor me.” You don’t even need a shovel to get deeper into that hole. From my experience, self-pity can have a certain comfortableness to it, a certain warmth. After all, the emotion of self-pity allows us to evade other people, just disappear into our own misery. Some people would rather feel sorry for themselves than be happy.
And we see that in many relationships. Consider an abusive relationship were one person gets there self-esteem from making the other person feel bad.. Happiness for the abused person cannot be very important.
So, for a moment, ask yourself. “Do I want to be happy?”
\pause\
I can imagine that you may have had a little argument with yourself. I think most of us have some element that would rather be right than happy; playing the victim has its own rewards. And, believing strongly in diversity, some of you may have decided that , no, you don’t want to be happy. Fine. All I can say is tune out now. The rest of this sermon is not for you.
Saying to yourself, Yes, I want to be happy, is making a decision. You have made a decision to be happy.
The new science of happiness tell us that we cannot decide to be happy. Again, Don Baker remarks,
You can't just decide to be happy any more than you can decide to be taller. That's because happiness is not a finite entity unto itself, but is the sum of the 12 most important qualities of happiness: love, optimism, courage, a sense of freedom, proactivity (forging your own happiness, not waiting for it to happen to you), security, health, spirituality, altruism, perspective, humor, and purpose. These are the things you should make up your mind to achieve.
I disagree with him in so far as I think that an outlook of happiness does require a decision. No, deciding to lose weight won't lose you a pound, but if you don’t decide to lose weight, you probably won't either. Baker is misleading, because he calls for us to be proactive about our happiness. That begins, in my book, with a decision.
I think we know at some level we are responsible for our own happiness. Perhaps all that means is that if we are not responsible for it, no one else, God, spouses, children, aren’t responsible for it either. When we think someone else is responsible for our happiness, we have either given over control of our lives to them, or else using their failure to make them miserable. We’re still looking for mother. Happiness is very much an inside job.
I think this is one lesson we can learn from alcoholics and addicts. Addicted people use substances in the chase for happiness, oblivion. A great deal of the new science of happiness has been an exploration of the central nervous system. They have discovered that there are happiness centers in the brain. There is a certain danger in that. I am tempted to call them addiction centers. One of the studies done on mice showed that mice would prefer getting an electrical stimulus to the happiness center of their brain rather than eating. Just like a junkie, they starved to death.
What addiction and recovery
show is that a choice needs to be made, whether to pick up the substance or
not. For the addict the choice is never an easy one. But a choice can be made.
We all, if we would be happy, need to make a choice to be happy.
But that is just the first step. Making the decision may give us a little lift,
but more steps lie along the path. Perhaps the easiest is to smile:
Baker writes:
For example, one of the simplest and most effective things you can do to lift your mood is to simply keep a pleasant expression on your face. This was proven in a study in which half the subjects were asked to hold pens in their teeth, which made their expressions approximate a smile, while the others held pens in their lips, which created pouts. Both groups were told a series of jokes. The group with the pens in their teeth rated the jokes as funnier. Now you know the key to happiness: Hold a pen in your teeth!
Beyond the biochemistry, there is really not much new in this self-help technology. I think of Thick Nhat Hanh, who starts each day by looking out his window and saying to himself, A new day, a new morning.
Happiness, not as a fleeing emotion but as a perspective, as an attitude calls for continuing practice. One of the most helpful books I have found for this is David Burns, FEELING GOOD. His work has developed from what is called cognitive psychology. The book is largely about dealing with depression. One of his points is that medication for depression is usually not enough. Depression results, the cognitive therapists argue, from the way we talk to ourselves – what we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Burns writes: “Our research reveled the unexpected: Depression is not an emotional disorder at all! The sudden change in the way you feel is of no more causal relevance than a runny nose is when you have a cold. Every bad feeling you have is the result of your distorted negative thinking. Illogical pessimistic attitudes play the central role in the development and continuation of all your symptoms. (Burns , FEELING GOOD, p 28)
Such negative attitudes result from a small number of what he calls “cognitive distortions:” mind reading, either/or thinking, fortune telling are examples of cognitive distortions. For example, someone might frequently say to themself, “I never do anything right.” This is an over generalization, for each of us do a lot of things right. Perhaps you say to yourself “Everyone will look down on me.:” This is a bad case of mind reading and overgeneralization as well as fortune telling. I’d never get into the pulpit with that one playing in my mind.
Happiness, good relationships with our loved ones, are among the values most of us seek. The pursuit of happiness has been one of the most elusive, misleading quests of our time, its pitfalls many. You will have much to talk about in your Chalice Groups on this subject.
If we genuinely want to be happy, we engage in a spiritual practice. It is as simple as smiling, welcoming the new day. It is as intense as watching over the ways we undermine our own self esteem. We may, following this thought, consider happiness as the spiritual practice of human dignity.