10.12.08 The Road to Happiness #8 "The Holy Grail of Happiness"
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
October 12th, 2008 The Road to Happiness #8: “The Holy Grail of Happiness”
“There is nothing that I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength.”
We are living in incredible times. I am watching, as you are, the financial meltdown of Wall Street that has affected Main Streets across the whole world. “A financial Pearl Harbor” Warren Buffett said as he quietly bought up $5 billion dollars of General Electric Financials that pay dividends. People have lost and are losing their homes to foreclosure, businesses cannot get loans, construction has slowed, charitable organizations are losing income, people’s 401 k’s are melting down as well and it’s not just the United States it’s the whole world in this financial distress. Deregulation and devaluing the role of government, and greed has had its price and it is misery, hurt, anger, confusion and bitterness. As the Bible says: “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” And discouragement has fallen upon the American people in a way not seen since the Great Depression. People are on edge and not their best selves because they are worried and hurting and apprehensive about the future.
But you didn’t come to church to hear about that. You came here for spiritual help, because you know that God is faithful and cares about each one of us without favorites and has all the hairs on our heads numbered. God cares! Believe it! And deeply believe it in troubled times.
When I last saw you I asked you whether you would practice the shortcuts to happiness with me until I returned. We created the word Tangs: T: Make happiness THE highest priority- we can give ourselves a good time in the worst of circumstances by simply taking a decision to do so.
A: Be Authentic. We need to be utterly ourselves. Each one of us is a child of God. You are unique and precious exactly as you are. Stand in your own beauty. Pull out your highest best self in these tough times. Let the sun come out of your authentic personality! And let your gifts shine!
N: N stands for non judgment. I came across a helpful treasure this week from Marianne Williamson’s book, Everyday Grace, about non judgment.She talks about when someone has behaved in what we interpret as a non-loving way toward us what to do about that. She says that all parties to a conflict can choose to believe in the eternal innocence at the heart of everyone, and when we hold that belief at the heart of our consciousness that will help others to wake up to that truth as well. The light in our mind can dissolve the darkness in someone else’s but only if we refuse to judge and blame them for what we view as their errors. She says that to focus on someone’s essential innocence as a child of God is the light, while our focus on someone’s guilt is the darkness. She says that on the level of personality, the walls that divide us can be too thick to tear down through mortal means alone. She says Phone calls, letter writing, or conversation are not always measures that are received well. She says that the real key to healing relationships is to go back to God, asking for a miraculous life changing shift in perception: from guilt and fear to innocence and love.
It is often said that Jesus left no commandments other than to love each other. But that is not true. There is a second command and it is this: “Do not judge. Whatever measure you give out will come back to you.” The thrust is, Give it up. Happiness does not lie that way. Judgment, fear and guilt are the asphalt mix on the Broad road that leads to destruction. Many people are on that road. But the straight and narrow road to happiness is paved with the mix of the belief of people’s eternal innocence, and the love of the enemy.
G is for Gratitude. In all things give thanks says St Paul. Gratitude heals us all. It is the central mark at the heart of God’s grace. When I was in Stratford I met a former parishioner, a real woman of God. She was the first person to teach me about the power of gratitude. She was grateful for everything and everyone. She believed things like “Everyone is always helpful.” I met her on the street and I had my gratitude rock in my pocket. It was a particularly beautiful one with the word gratitude written on it given to me by a dear friend. I knew it was time for the gift to move and so I gave it to her as a symbol of what she had taught me. Gratitude is a great short cut to happiness.
S is for Stay in the Present Moment. Another insight was given to me this week by two women who love me. One said, “David, look people in the eyes.” The second one said, “When you do that you have to stay in the present moment.”
That is very cool…
The point of TANGS is simple: If you are not happy you are in violation of one or more of these shortcuts. It is that simple. But in the bulletin theme we acknowledged that some people using all these helpful practices still fall short of the full goal of happiness. What is wrong?
The road to happiness for most of us is a mountain we need to climb. I see the tangs in the mountain metaphor as ice picks and ropes. When we begin to free fall into unhappiness and we can reach back over our shoulder and put in a pick to stop the fall. Making the decision to be happy is a powerful pick that will hold in the ice but then we need to look at what other picks we need to use to ascend. The one that gets me up the fastest and is the hardest to do is non judgment, but once that pick is in, there is steady movement upwards. Not before! If this is your problem, losing happiness, be kind to yourself and others who cannot master nonjudgment. But keep trying to put this pick in.
There are base camps and rest stops on the mountain climb. The decision to be happy anyway is a powerful base camp. Some folks never get any higher than that. They are brave and put on a brave face even though they are the walking wounded. And I admire them. There is a lot of room in that base camp because it is on a plateau. And the music playing on the plateau is “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag” or “Don’t worry be happy… just call me on the phone…” but the real climb to lasting happiness is still ahead.
There is another way stop up the mountain and it’s called I’ll be happy when” and you fill in the blanks; whether it is a new job a new car, a home, a new family member or winning the lottery. Anticipating a great event and looking forward to it is a powerful tool. A lot of people hang around here and the music is ‘somewhere over the rainbow’. ‘Or somewhere there’s a place for us.’ But the mountain face is still before us.
What is the mountain face to the summit? What is the Half Dome? The mountain face is the unexpected; when things that were going well start to go sideways. Do we realize just how short a time ago the Dow Jones was at 1400 points? Now look at it and look at what the side effects of the meltdown are. It’s hard to be happy when your marriage is falling apart and you can’t pay your mortgage. It is hard when your spouse dies or when that very dear mother or father or closest friend passes away. The mountain face music are the blues songs and negro spirituals of a people denied justice: It is Kol Nneidrie that haunting Jewish lament or it’s “what went wrong the love has gone, my baby don’t love me no more” or “Deep River my home is over Jordan.”
On the mountain face steeper than Half Dome, are all the tranquilizers and drugs and alcohol that lace our society and the crime and the fears for our security and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the body bags. On the mountain face are the Sudans and the torture chambers of holocausts, the battlefields full of the wounded and dying, the blood of the dead, the crosses in Arlington Cemetery and in Flanders fields, “poppies grow between the crosses row on row…”
I like something John McCain said the other night about getting up again after we have been knocked down. That is the best response to the challenges of the mountain face. The great thing along the way up the steepest of ascents are mercy verses carved into the rock like “All things work together for good to those who love God …” “Shall not the judge of all the earth do the right thing?” “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not faint.”
The happiness mountain is infinitely worth the climb because when we get up to the summit there we see a circle of standing stones and in the middle we see the Holy Grail of Happiness. There is only one writing at this elevation. It is on the headstone and the engraved and timeless words are the words of St Paul “I have learned that whatever state I am in therewith to be content”. St. Paul was tortured, thrown into prison, beaten up, lashed, chained to a soldier and finally was executed for his faith. Yet he could say, “I have learned that whatever state I am in therewith to be content.” You can only live that if you have found the Holy Grail. What is it? It is a chalice. It is a communion, with God….What did St Paul know?
This! I quote from Alan Cohen: “Our good cannot be kept from us. We must and will receive what God has appointed for us. Our job is not to give up. Discouragement, doubt, and despair may arise to intimidate us like the dragons that guard the doors of Oriental temples. But we are bigger than those feelings… Like the knights of old we are on a quest for the Holy Grail.
The grail is not a physical cup; it is the knowing that we are the grail, the chalice into which God pours God’s Holy essence from which we may drink and then offer sustenance to others…
Persevere hold firm to your truth…do not stop until you reach the summit of loving…”As Marianne Williamson says: “Jesus did not say Love each other but only under certain circumstances”. God commanded us to love one another as a way of removing from our midst all that is not love. That is the way of the grail.
To drink from the Holy Grail is to discover that happiness is its own reward. We can be happy for no good reason. Happiness is not a derivative it is a state of being. It is recognition that each of us in our innocence is a beloved child of God.
St. Paul said, “Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled and worried, or being persecuted, or lacking food and clothes or being threatened or even attacked. These are the trials through which we triumph by the power of Him who loves us.”
The way of the Grail is this: “To become certain that neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, nor any power or height or depth, nor any created thing can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Jesus.”
Emmett Fox wrote these words out of his experience of the Great Depression:“There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer. There is no disease that enough love will not heal. No door that enough love will not open. No gulf that enough love will not bridge. No wall that enough love will not throw down. And no sin that enough love will not redeem.
It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble. How hopeless the outlook. How muddled the tangle. How great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. And if you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful person in the world.”
This is the Holy Grail. This is True Happiness!
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