something that makes me happy: going on TV to discuss issues (here i am at Fox News' LA Bureau)
So, I’ve been watching Joel Osteen. I even bought his book “Every Day a Friday: How To Be Happier 7 Days a Week” for my Nook. This is all very odd behavior for me. But here’s what’s happening to me right now:
I want more happiness in my life. And I’m willing to learn from anyone who seems to have achieved a high level of happiness in their lives. I realize Joel Osteen might not be the most, um, profound source for Happiness Research but he’s just so damn popular I figured he was an easy place to start.
What I’m really interested in discovering is whether it’s possible to be happy AND holy.
I used to believe it was impossible to be holy AND happy. Then again, I was a fundamentalist–which is just a nice way of saying I didn’t believe in FUN. Fun was suspect. Like dancing, it probably led straight to fornication.
But I’m a bad Catholic now with a whole new view of God, happiness and the life-affirming benefits of Pinot Noir. With a side of Confession. Mainly, I now confess to believing that God wants me to be holy AND happy. That holiness and happiness are NOT mutually exclusive.
Something else that makes me happy: being silly
Speaking of confessions, this past Christmas was the first time in many years that I didn’t have a Everything-Sucks-And-I-Want-To-Give-Up thought during the holidays. Which, at the time, seemed like a huge victory. But looking back, I’d prefer a higher standard of happiness than: “Hey, I didn’t want to die this past Christmas!”
For me, the holidays are a confluence of stress, a grief anniversary and a feeling of Not-Good-Enough-itis. From about mid-November through New Year’s, I sorta go into PTSD-mode where I re-live and remember all the painful events that led to the utter annihilation of my previous life and the impact it had on my family. But come January, I cheer up because, hey, that life needed to go up in flames.
Going forward, I want to build on the foundation of happiness I’ve discovered through the unconditional love of God and the new freedom that poured into my life after I forgave those who hurt me. I’ve also found that my own pain can be assuaged by caring for the pain of others. In serving and loving others, I taste a deep, abiding joy that is not dependent on happy circumstances.
I want to build on these discoveries and break through to a lifestyle where joy–not sadness–is the normative state.
I’m pursuing happiness like it’s a research project. My first discovery so far is that happiness doesn’t just happen. You have to work at it. And you have to read lots of books about it (guess which action-item I like better?).
Another key to happiness: food, OF COURSE! (i made this guacamole using Ina Garten's rockin' recipe)
Awhile ago, I read this book called “Stumbling Toward Happiness” which can basically be summarzied thusly: if you’re happy, it’s a totally random accident and here’s all the scientific evidence to back that up. Plus? Your mind is playing tricks on you, sucka!
Can you see why I’ve resorted to Joel Osteen?
Just before buying Joel’s book, I read another book called “Animals Make Us Human” by Temple Grandin–the famous autistic researcher. I read the book to discover how to give my dog a happy life and ended up learning so much about myself, too. One of Grandin’s discoveries was that animals are happiest when they are in a state of anticipating good things. Basically, the thrill of the pursuit makes animals happy.
Which got me thinking that maybe happiness isn’t a destination. Maybe happiness is the pursuit.
Pure Happiness: Sunday mornings w. the LA Times Book Review + Coffee
This reminds me of that wonderful poem by John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn. In it, Keats hints that the highest and most pure experience of love is the ever-anticipatory love, the one that you always pursue but never quite consummate:
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead and a parching tongue.
This ever-anticipatory love is far above that of average human passion. Everyday human passion inevitably ends in sorrow, fever, a parching tongue. The only love I know that never disappoints is divine love. Divine love is a constant expectation of good things.
Similarly, Osteen’s book is all about rearranging the furniture of your mind to expect good things and to make conscious choices to believe good things because these actions improve your outlook. Osteen’s theology is, um, wimpy, but I’m trying to see the good things, here.
So, in the pursuit of happiness, I’ve made a few changes. Very, very spiritual changes. Very, very holy and admirable changes. For example, I’ve fully embraced the joy of false eyelashes. Hello super-easy-way-to-make-myself-feel-fabulous!
Falsies Are My Favsies!
Another change? I’m going to bed by 8:30/9pm. I’ve accepted for better or worse that I am a morning person (oh, but being a night-owl is so much cooler! I’ve always WANTED to be a night-owl!).
But I’m a morning person. Furthermore, I’m an annoying chirpy-singing-songs-in-morning Morning Person. If you call me at 6:15am, I will probably serenade you with show tunes.
So, to increase my happiness, I’ve been going to bed early. Which, as it turns out, is a very difficult thing to do.
Which is when I tell myself: pursuing happiness is difficult and going to bed early will make you happier. So, I go to bed early.
Don’t worry, I always take off my false eyelashes first.
Joe Paterno and what legacies are made of (and how World Magazine & Relevant Magazine got it wrong)
I’ve been reading various posts and listening to commentary on the passing of Joe Paterno this week. Some folks call him a monster. Others (mostly die-hard football fans, I’ve noticed) seem to exclusively focus on Paterno’s winningest football legacy.
But this article by Barnabas Piper, published on World Magazine’s website, caught my interest mainly because it purported to lay out the proper Christian response; ie. “How does our Christian faith direct us in these understandings?”
I found the article deeply troubling and worse, directly harmful to the welfare of children.
Piper allows that disregarding Paterno’s legacy “seems almost justified” but then he spends the rest of the article suggesting why Christians should be “willing not to besmirch his legacy with our vitriol and hatred but to know our God is a consuming fire and all Joe’s evil has been dealt with.”
I absolutely disagree. First of all, WE are not besmirching Joe Paterno’s legacy. Joe did that himself. Secondly, there are certain massive failures that really DO destroy legacies. The Bible is full of them.
To suggest that Christians ought to refrain from any kind of judgment about Paterno’s legacy is participate in the same culture of complicity that enabled a molester to repeatedly rape children. Why? Because saying: “Well, let’s just leave it all in God’s hands” is a cop-out. It exonerates us from actually having to advocate for the victims of Paterno’s horrible legacy: innocent children.
Piper also claims that feelings of complicated complexity arise in the wake of Paterno’s passing saying that it’s “the end of his career that so complicates matters.”
Because, honestly, there is nothing really complicated about covering up the sexual abuse of children. There is nothing really complex about actively participating in a complicity of silence that allowed for the ongoing abuse of multiple children. It’s not like this was a one-time ‘lapse’ of judgment. By failing to follow-up, by failing to remove Sandusky from the coaching position, by keeping silent day-after-day-after-day, Joe Paterno definitively wrought his own demise. And worse, the demise of innocent children.
I’m not conflicted about Joe Paterno’s legacy. No, it’s all pretty clear to me. And I say that as a Christian mother.
Piper asks us if we can “reflect on [Paterno's] life and legacy with grace, even if it is conflicted grace?”
Here’s the short answer: no.
Why? Because that is one screwed-up definition of grace. Sure, I can refrain from spewing “vitriol and hatred” but I absolutely refuse to sit back and lovingly reflect on a “conflicted” legacy.
I have a responsibility–no, WE ALL have a responsibility to the safety and well-being of children. I actually find it appalling that the supposed “Christian response” to Paterno’s death precludes any kind of judgment about his legacy. Certainly I leave judgment of Paterno’s immortal soul to God, but that doesn’t mean I refrain from being angry about actions that endanger children. I actually believe such restraint is morally reprehensible!
Lastly, I also read Shaun King’s tribute (honestly, what ELSE am I supposed to call these articles?) to Joe Paterno on Relevant Magazine’s website wherein he actually claims that Paterno was “so great that I think the ultimate story about him will eventually outshine the awful ugliness of a child molestation scandal.” Yes, Paterno was SO great! Except for that one thing. But hey, no worries! That one thing will be easily outshone.
King goes on to suggest that we are ALL Paterno because…at one time or another we’ve neglected our duty to protect children. Really?! This is the logic we’re using now? We ALL enable sexual abuse? And HEY! Stop judging because we ALLLLLLLL are Paterno???!!!!
As a Christian wife and mother to five children I’d really like to know just WHO thinks these arguments in support of Joe Paterno are worthy of publication on major Christian websites?! Because I’m keeping my children far away from whoever thinks this was really A-OK.
I’m so disappointed and offended that World Magazine & Relevant Magazines found these articles worthy of their huge Christian websites.
What does THAT say about the Christian response to the rape of children?