Coming To Terms With Happiness

Sermon

I may never have had it so good. Minor issues like an annoying commute and trouble fulfilling my exercise regimen aren't really bothering me. Major issues like my family's significant health problems are weighing on me, but not so much as to outweigh a great sense of happiness I feel. I have peace, plenty, love, health and safety and all these things are blessings that give me great joy. The season too is lifting me up:

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape
give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away….

The Song of Songs reminds me that it's not just me that gets carried away at this time of year, now when the dogwood blossoms, more precious for enduring their blight, float like lace amidst the woods and birdsong and the perfume of flowers and cut grass and the good earth which fills the air. But that part is easy - we are supposed to live in connection with nature and be affected by it and sensitive to it; that's a good thing. It's all good - love, family, new life, children, health. These are the most basic and essential of blessings and no one begrudges any of us any of them. No, the straw that broke my camel's back of happiness, the cherry fallen from the sundae of content, the real grain of sand in my oyster of enjoyment, that has forced upon me not the making of a pearl but reflection and ultimately this sermon, is the car.

My new car is the emblem, the nexus, the crux, and it's not because anyone begrudges me it. If we get right down to it, I fear it's because I begrudge it to myself.

My new car is not about nature, or at least not other than that having the top down makes one much more aware of the weather. It is not about health nor family nor love nor peace. It is inorganic and manmade, purchased and indulgent. It's not even a hybrid.

I wondered at first if I would feel buyer's remorse. Long as I had wished for it, it seemed unlikely to fulfill my hopes and expectations. And it was a big commitment and requires some serious budgeting in my life. I wasn't sure if I would learn to manage the sporty handling well, if Maccabee, my dog and fairly constant companion, would transition well from my old car. I wasn't sure if the options I included would seem as enjoyable and useful as they had in the abstract. And I sometimes reminded myself it was really just downright inexcusable to focus my energies and even my spending on this kind of thing in a world as troubled and full of need as ours.

Now here's the kicker - I love it. Not only do I always look forward to riding in it, not only have I been driving with the top down since early March when I got it, not only is Maccabee happy in it, not only do others have fun borrowing it, but it has changed me, and not in an especially good way. I have become the kind of person who washes their windows often, and wipes the car down from bugs and pollen and dust every few days. I love the sensuous feel of the hood curving under my hands when I wipe it down, and the sparkle of the chrome. Is this me? It is NOT me. I am the woman who washed her cars maybe 4 times total in the last 14 years. I believed my old car was like blue jeans, the more worn-in and visibly used, the better. And now: a piece of equipment gives me pleasure. I feel bound to it. I feel responsible for it. I feel a relationship with it. It has lifted not only my quality of life, but my spirit in a lasting and consistent way and this has made me feel very, very guilty. Guilty and superficial. You may recall that I am the one who preached a canvass sermon a few years ago that likened car dealerships to hell and, of course, the UU Church of Silver Spring to heaven. And now the world is still troubled and full of need and I love my car. This does not sit well with me, not well at all.

The good thing is, being so happy, and so uncomfortable with the source of some of my happiness, has driven me to try to figure things out. And that has eventually led me to understand there are two issues joined here: the relationship of guilt and contentment, and the spirituality of happiness. Because I realized that the car was the tipping point, but not at all the whole issue. Part of me feels guilty for being happy, period. What have I done to deserve this, this comfort, this pleasure, this love and ease? Not enough, not nearly enough. Why me and not the next guy? Perhaps this is heightened for me because I am a minister, and so there is a part of me that identifies primarily with the values of service and sacrifice. Now that my portion also contains peace and plenty, I'm having some trouble looking at my plate and seeing it as still mine. But it is mine, for now at least, and so I have to find a way to come to terms with happiness, not to take it for granted, but at least not to be in such discomfort everyday.

On the other hand, as the rabbi's would say, on the other hand, it's in my own interest to make my peace with my blessings; there's a Bobo aspect to this issue. I preached some time ago about David Brooks' theory of Bobos - the combination of bohemian bourgeios who make consumption a virtue, and find spirituality in lifestyle. The car is, I am sure, a good example of a Bobo-esque purchase. Small, economical on gas, and stylin'. Perfect. But I don't just want to pursue this question as an elaborate form of public rationalization of my private indulgence. Fortunately this issue is not only mine. This is a sermon topic and not just private reflection because I believe there's a part of all of us, or almost all of us, that feels guilty when we are blessed. This is a good thing because it keeps us humble and aware of others, and mindful that all people ought to enjoy plenty and peace and health and love and safety. But as an ethical people, surely there is a way to feel not entitled, but at peace with our blessings while still being mindful of our good fortune and our responsibility to work to create opportunity for others to enjoy them. And as a religious people, surely there must be a spiritual dimension we can identify and honor in the experience of happiness.

Because religion has long known and honored the place of despair in spiritual experience. No one questions the religious integrity of the long dark night of the soul, even if it is a nadir of spiritual experience. We all accept the deep meaning and comfort of the 23rd psalm which addresses just such a crisis.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want; He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

So what about a long, bright, buzzing day of the soul? Can happiness even be a spiritual state? If so, then what is the spiritual aspect of happiness? What does it, ought it, look like, feel like? How can we recognize and honor it in the blazing sunshine of fulfillment and content?

First things first: The Guilt. There is a quintessentially American aspect to this, which we heard about earlier in the excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love. This is the part of us that finds virtue in busy-ness and work and doesn't feel comfortable with indulgence, especially but not limited to, the indulgences of rest or pleasure. Our culture has us doing everything fast. When I have been somewhere else, usually Greece, the only adjustment I struggle to make is to slow down. To let days unfold, the let meals take hours, to meet people much later than we were supposed to, sharing the understanding that we will all, of course, be late because we are not in a hurry and a leisurely pace means lateness almost always. Gilbert rightly digs deeper, because the fundamental issue is not really speed, but indulgence and pleasure. Many cultures are far more peaceful and less questioning about a human right to pleasure and indulgence than ours.

And our discomfort points to the second issue: worthiness. Perhaps it is rooted in our Puritan origins as a culture, but whatever the cause, worthiness eats at us. Again, the fact that this can be an issue has virtue to it. God forbid that we should any of us feel entitled to whatever we want, whenever we want. Therein lies narcissism and taken to extremes, the cruelties of manipulation, deception, violence and on a grand scale, war and destruction. But I'm not talking today about whatever we want, whenever we want. I'm just talking about a sense it's okay to have some things we want. That the proper response to getting something we have long desired can rightly be pleasure and not guilt.

What makes it hard to conceive that being good doesn't always involve discipline or renunciation? What if Goodness, with a capital G, can involve carefreeness and even self-indulgence? This topic is complicated because far too often we Unitarian Universalists are already so oriented toward freedom as to be downright disrespectful of values like discipline. We frequently justify renouncing discipline. In terms of faith, we embrace a one that bends to our terms, whether they are mundane: as in we wear whatever we want to church and come if we feel like it, or lofty: our UU faith practices are just what we choose, or don't, including no practice at all…. As a movement we don't like to toe a line, and we certainly don't like anyone else telling us to toe the line. And the price we can pay for this is that sometimes it is hard for us to gain the clarity and depth that come with consistency and attention and care and, well, discipline in faith. If our own natural tendencies are all that determine our practice, we have a danger of becoming a closed, navel-gazing and thus self-limiting system, rather than growing because we stretch sometimes beyond what is already comfortable for us.

But concern for that tendency of our religious movement to indulge ourselves doesn't preclude pursuing a resolution to this issue of embracing pleasure and joy, both without guilt, and also as a spiritual experience. And reflecting on this two-part question of what in happiness is spiritual, and what can allow us to enjoy happiness despite our sense of all the evils prevailing in the world suggests a two-fold answer.

The part of the answer that pertains to guilt is make sure we are indeed working to make opportunities for others to enjoy what we enjoy - health, safety, love, plenty. We need to pay attention to our consciences. If our conscience tells us we're not doing enough, then we need to figure out what more we should do to make things right. Are we writing checks to salve our consciences or absolve our souls because we don't really know, or care enough to know, what else we ought to do, and how we might best spend our resources? It's hard to keep up; do we really understand what's happening in our government, in Darfur, in the Middle East, in PG county, in Montgomery County, in Silver Spring, in our church? We can't know everything about everything, but maybe we know that we can, and should, know more than we do. And, when we understand that something more, do we then take whatever the next step should be: to write checks or letters or emails? Do we need to give our time to a project or a cause? Do we need to change our schedule or our priorities in order to work and live a little more our values and our faith? It doesn't matter how our lives look to others; if this is true for us, deep down we know it.

The world will always have greater need than we can meet. What can give us peace with that is perhaps the metaphor of the girl on the beach covered with starfish. We can make her choice, to throw back into the ocean as many starfish as we can, knowing too that we cannot save all the starfish the ocean throws up on all beaches. She neither scorns to take the time to do what she can, nor succumbs to despair at the greater need. If we're actually doing what we can, as much as we're able, then we are, in fact, fully living our values and faith, and the sense we have that the world is still crying out in need expresses why we are committed, rather than all that we're not doing.

It is perhaps significant to our search for spirituality in the long, bright, day of the soul that in the reading for our prayer this morning, Anne Sexton uses morning and anticipation of the day as the foundation for her joy. Because I think she has it absolutely right when she means (but often forgets) to give thanks, and creates the very poem as an expression of thankfulness. The spirituality of happiness lies in gratitude. Feeling gratitude leaves no room in our souls for complacency or entitlement. When we are really thankful - not just saying so, but feeling it, how fortunate, how blessed we are for what we have, our awareness of those blessings is thereby increased. It's not about us, it's about them, and we are just the lucky one who can, and should, be grateful. This is, fundamentally, a religious or spiritual attitude. Regardless of theology, every faith tradition in the world includes the element of thankfulness as part of its practice. If we are grateful, that means we have someone or something to thank, which means, again, it's not all about us. The American myth of the individual who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps belies the actual truth that for every story of efforts and dreams realized, there is a matching story of efforts and dreams denied. When we are fortunate enough to achieve an aspiration, even one long worked-for, we are still just that: fortunate, and should give thanks.

I met Anne Sexton's poem in a compilation called Cries of the Spirit. In the preface to the section wherein Welcome Morning is found, the editor, UU minister Marilyn Sewell writes: "Again and again the writing suggests that we may profoundly experience the sacred in the ordinary tasks and pleasures of living, if we would but be open to these events as spirit-filled. Traditional religious themes are transformed in the light of down-to-earth human realities. Just what is marriage, anyway? And salvation? And the Virgin birth? The writers of the following pieces…find the holy in steaming bathrooms, in wretched singers in church, in a bulb of garlic, or in an overweight couple shopping for condoms at the drugstore." (p. 185)

Anne Sexton's poem is so full of gratitude: for each morning and the small, lovely graces that comprise her mornings. 'Each morning,' 'each morning,' 'each morning,' her poem repeats: her days are precious for merely being, and then unfold in details that speak of larger graces and goodness. She has a house and a routine and belongings that give her pleasure. In a world where many wake or sleep in fear, where safety and love and peace and plenty are a so unjustifiably rare combination, isn't it right to honor our blessings, small and great both, for the signs they are of lives inexplicably and wonderfully blessed. If we all wrote a Welcome Morning poem, what would our poems be?

There is joy
in all:
in the smooth sheets I wake in each morning,
in the nubby bathmat that meets my feet each morning,
in the strong coffee in a blue mug
and a swirl of cream
each morning,
in the prancing dog and the daylight
and the swept, waiting countertop
that cry "hello there, Liz"
each morning,
in the sacred woods shading this home,
and the squat, strong car stabled past the door,
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my sturdy brick house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the dining table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds past the sliding glass door
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.

Amen.

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