I have a sense of well-being here…a sense of happiness. We’re expecting our first child in December, I’m teaching and loving the joys and challenges of adolescent learners. Life hasn’t always been good…but it is presently quite good. I find myself wondering when the other shoe will drop…when tragedy will strike. Why do I have such trouble accepting, internalizing, the happiness of the moment?
The rain pours on both good and the evil, and so too does the sun shine. This is a mystery that begs for quick and easy answers…we want to hear we have some control over our life. If we’re good…God will be good to us. However, we have no control, and there really is no comfort. Some people suffer greatly, and some do not. What use is it, then, to pray for things to go our way? What use is prayer, one might ask?
Matthieu Ricard, biochemist-turned-Buddhist monk, speaks of happiness:
So, what is happiness? The absence of suffering? The absence of sadness? Or, is there a beauty in the emotional ups and downs life brings…a sense of well-being suspended between peace and heartache, anger and defeat, despair and rapture?
Prayer is the middle way, I think, a foundational place where the experience of the “Other”, existing outside of happiness and pain, outside of emotion and life’s woundedness, can become our own experience…even if only in a limited way. And when I touch that…when in prayer I see through the eyes of Christ, as though through a glass darkly, I do find happiness…or rather, peace that surpasses happiness, surpasses understanding. I inevitably drift away and forget this peace, back in the daily distractions of life. It usually takes pain or passion to call me back again. I admire the discipline of the Buddhists, who give simplicity and silence such a central place in their practice. The western church hasn’t emphasized meditative prayer, but it is exactly this prayer we need. It is the discipline of resting in grace.
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I’m so happy for you that you are experiencing a sense of well-being in your new home, Sam, and prayers for the safe arrival of your first little one! “Resting in grace”; yes, just resting in Him, being with… not asking for anything, yet receiving so much.
This is a good post. I didn’t listen to that fellow in the clip (no earphones at work) but I read the post. I’ve been thinking about what I want if in fact I do want happiness. This came about from reading a book with the theory that thoughts become things. It suggested that there was a sort of hierarchy to desire with the desire for happiness at the top. If you think about being happy then the universe will arrange all the details for this. I don’t know if the theory that thoughts become things is really true and I’ve never seen a scientific study or conducted one myself. But it did get me to ask about happiness and I did come to the realization that I want to experience life with it’s up and downs and happiness is one end of the stick of life.