Don’t worry, be happy – 17 September 2021

 

Happy… says Basil Fawlty, oh yes, I remember that…  Sibyl had just intercepted Basil arranging a bet on Dragonfly in the 4.30 at Aintree.  That particular avenue of pleasure has been closed off, says Basil.  Happiness is a memory. 

It is hard to say what happiness is, except that we know when we’re not.  The United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 famously says that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are our unalienable rights[1].  These days the popular assumption would be that happiness is getting what I want – as though… what else could it be?... the satisfaction of my desires, my expectations of life, the attainment of my dream.  It is widely assumed… firstly that I am entitled to get what I want, and secondly that I will be happy if I do.  Happiness then is primarily about me. 

And at this point I am really puzzled to know what to say.  A scholar of the Christian scriptures would want to say that what we are calling happy, for the Hebrew and Christian writers is commonly called blessed[2].  That is, blessed by God.  But somehow popular religion has warped and twisted that idea out of recognition.  God has blessed me raises all manner of problems.  Who is this God who inscrutably  blesses some but not others?  If blessing is the reward of uprightness, then we can easily produce many good people who are singularly unblessed… and we can find some truly nasty characters who have all they want for their happiness.   Most of the world has realised, moreover, that religious faith is no guarantee whatever of happiness.  Can an atheist never be happy?  Many Christian believers seem to be happy because it is expected… I’m so happy, here’s the reason why / Jesus took my burdens all away… we used to sing.  But we began to suspect before leaving adolescence that Jesus does not take all our burdens all away.

Joy is another biblical word.  The Greek chara (χαρά), joy, is the second in Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit[3].  Chara however is not the ecstatic leaping and jumping which seems now to be obligatory in the event of a triumph in sport, or in the stranger regions of religious charismania.  Paul sees joy as a fruit of the Spirit.  Joy is given to us, even at times in the midst of suffering – the joy that seekest me through pain[4].  It does not depend on everything having gone right, or as we might have wanted.   But around this point I run short on wisdom.  Happiness certainly depends on how I am feeling.  But if you have encountered joy… that sense of gift and wonder, the freedom of having been able to set self aside, the presence of God in our anxiety or dismay… joy awaits us in the silence and stillness, as a peaceful, gentle assurance, and a lovely surprise.  Paul knew it, and he listed joy right there in that initial trio of gifts of the Spirit: Love… Joy… Peace…  Joy, bracketed by love and peace.

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[1] The Declaration says… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  “All men” means not only the American people, but all men and women of whatever race, colour or creed. 

[2] In Hebrew, barak (בּרךְ ).  Barack Obama’s parents named him blessed.  In Greek makarios (μακάριος), as in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12).

[3] Galatians 5:22

[4] Hymn by George Matheson: O Love that wilt not let me go.

Do not forget to listen – 10 September 2021

 

Two passages in the lectionary next Sunday may seem to be at odds.  One is from the Letter of James: Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes.  And the other is in Isaiah: The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.  Morning by morning he wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.[1]  And right there is a fine definition of a teacher… someone who listens as those who are taught. 

One of the central features of Christian Meditation, it seems to me, is what contemporary jargon would call listening mode.  Just for a little while we stop fussing and fretting, planning and directing things… directing people... we stop justifying ourselves… giving our opinion… we stop in order for listening to be possible.  As St John of the Cross puts it, My house being now all stilled[2] – this is the space in which we “hear”, or we are open to hear, God’s Word, God’s Truth, and we are open to grace, mercy and love.  It is not that we see visions or hear voices, but in the Apostle James’ lovely phrase, we welcome with meekness the implanted word.[3]  I realised when writing this talk how in meditation we are actually passive, receptive.  It is startling because it is not normally how we think we should be – we should be active – in fact, we have invented a new word, proactive, which I presume is even better than active… we are helpers, rescuers, we make people feel better.  But here, our house being now all stilled, we are doing something else, we are doing what is primary.  It is what Jesus said about Mary, Martha’s sister in the home at Bethany; Mary had made the better choice, he said[4]. Once we stop and listen, God can initiate and continue the work of creation in us, the work of love and recreation, day by day.

So, in a discipline of meditation, listening, says Isaiah, as those who are taught -- we reinforce our listening in all of life.  The stillness makes us more present to other people at other times, because we remember the gift of listening, we get better at it, we hear more accurately and with compassion.  Paul speaks of the eyes of your heart being open…  We become less inclined to react to each thing we hear with some response about ourselves... what happened to me.  We recognise the many times when it is better not to say anything.  Simone Weil, the young French Christian philosopher, said the act of attention that we give to someone is the greatest act of generosity we can make.  It is a moment of setting self aside, the first ingredient of love.  …he wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught, says Isaiah.  So we can say to the Apostle James that it is good to be a teacher, although he thinks it is hazardous – provided we know how to listen.  Knowing that is good anyway, teacher or not.

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[1] James 3:1-2; Isaiah 50:4

[2] St John of the Cross: The Dark Night

[3] James 1:21 - ἐν πραΰτητι δέξασθε τὸν ἔμφυτον λόγον.  “Welcome” is a verb for receiving guests cordially in your house.  “Implanted” is what we do when we plant or graft a seed or cutting where it can be nourished and grow.

[4] Luke 10:42

Then… - 3 September 2021

 

In the lectionary for next Sunday we find this matchless poetry from Isaiah.  You will recognise some of it from Handel’s Messiah:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;

the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water…

A highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Holy Way;

the unclean shall not travel on it,

but it shall be for God’s people;

no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.

No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it…

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be on their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

I should stop there… it needs no improvement from me, I know.  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened… but the poetic then is… when? – it is never now, it is always not yet… if ever.  Now is bewilderingly different.  Matthew Arnold expressed it in his poem, Dover Beach:  The Sea of Faith was once too at the full, and round earth’s shore lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.  But now I only hear its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, retreating to the breath of the night wind, down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world… And we are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night. 

If we look at how things are these days, there is not a lot to suggest that it will all come right… as they say in movies, everything’s gonna be just fine… they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away…  We are people of faith and hope, and yet it is as though the world is collapsing into irreligion, or violent, divisive, silly, distorted religion, into endemic strife, government by warlords, sociopaths or tyrants; climate change fuelled by mismanagement, neglect and greed; refugees and desperate homelessness, disease…  a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.  What will our grandchildren face? 

Fr Laurence Freeman wrote recently: It seems to me, more and more, that meditation is not an optional extra for children facing the kind of world that we are giving them. It is an absolutely necessary life skill.  Those of us who follow contemplative life and prayer, are now on the frontier of what it will take to live and grow in faith in the time that is upon us.  We are in a kairos – remember that word? – and any profession of faith that can’t deal, for instance, with the roots of fear, with the need always for certainty, with the dominance of the ego… any faith that can’t relinquish hatred and resentment, that can’t cope with change, that has never found how to be still, how to bear pain, how to let go of possessiveness… any faith, in other words, that refuses to grow up, is unlikely to survive.  One day we will come to Zion with singing.  One day sorrow and sighing will flee away.  We can’t speculate how, or when.  But we hold the hope because it is true, decent and loving, and Jesus is risen, and we live the faith that sustains that vision and that hope.