Grace Cottage Reflections

Happiness

As children, who among us never used the argument, “But everyone else is doing it,” as the underlying logic for our desired actions? And who didn’t hear in reply, “Well, if everyone else [fill in a favorite disgusting action], would you do that, too?” So, thwarted (again) from doing “what everyone else is doing,” we went away disappointed (or perhaps angry). The lesson that what everyone else does or wants for us to do isn’t necessarily good for us is there, if we pay attention.

Strangely, though, most of us failed to learn the lesson, even if we, however begrudgingly, eventually acknowledged the rightness of it. Not only as children, but as adults, we continue to rationalize our actions with “everyone else is doing it.” Because we don’t usually have the countervailing external response, though, the rationalization starts winning the day. So, little by little, we start becoming what we think other people are becoming. We compare our insides to other peoples’ outsides. Eventually, we start becoming what we think others want us to become.

But that voice from childhood remains in our heads, if only as a whisper. We can exert a great deal of effort to tune it out, but it’s still there. Nagging. Tugging. Nudging us to think again. It’s as if Polonius is living inside us, reminding us at inconvenient times, “To thine own self be true.”

So, each of us makes a choice. We decide to continue to ignore that voice, live out our lives according to others’ scripts for us, and run the very high risk of being fundamentally dissatisfied with the outcome. Or, we decide to listen, and to find inside of us what Merton called the “one thing necessary” in our lives that will make us happy. If we do, then we must reject as false those external scripts defining success and accept the consequences.

Letting go of others’ expectations, those things that “everyone is doing,” in a way the childish things that Paul told the Corinthians they needed to give up, is very, very hard. Listening to the inner voice pointing us to the “one thing necessary” for our happiness may mean stepping off the career path, or something else in life, that others had designed and imposed on us and that we had convinced ourselves we actually liked.

When we summon the courage to focus on the “one thing necessary,” we also experience the great paradox that Merton described. For it is in focusing on “the one thing necessary” and forsaking all the rest that we actually obtain the other aspects of happiness we sought in the first place. 

My One Thing Necessary

Each of us has been deeply influenced, one way or another, by certain books we have read in our lives. For some, it is a novel that connects to one’s personal experience. For others, it is a sacred text, or a poem, or a biography of a special person. For me, those books include, among others, Ecclesiastes, Gibran’s The Prophet, and especially Thomas Merton’s No Man Is an Island. In the book, Merton, a 20th century Catholic mystic and Trappist monk, explores in this collection of essays the essence of the search for fulfillment in life. There are a few passages that have always struck me:

If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants to be. Perhaps I have never asked myself whether I really wanted to become what everybody else seems to want to become. Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, I would really begin to live after all…It is not necessary that we succeed in everything…We cannot be happy if we live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony…We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us—whatever it may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need. Happiness consists in finding out precisely what the “one thing necessary” may be, in our lives, and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed. (Merton, No Man Is an Island)

The older I get, I find that my interpretation of these passages and of the essays in general changes. I used to think that the “one thing necessary” referred to specific goals as in a personal strategic plan for individual achievement. After all, we are taught that we must have answers to the question, “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” Nearly everyone I knew had those answers. I didn’t. I didn’t really have a clue where I would be, so I would simply say, “Every time I made that prediction I was wrong.” I always had a nagging feeling, though, that there was something wrong with that answer, so I believed I should make something up. So I did. And once in a while, that meant working and achieving in ways that did not feel comfortable because they were not a good fit. Still, I believed that was the best thing to do.

I don’t believe that any more. These days, I interpret the “one thing necessary” to be relationships. Specifically, I believe that it means being in “right relationship” in a very special way with Chris, but also with other people, with the earth, with God. For me now, “relinquishing all the rest” is the necessary shedding of all the extraneous stuff that gets collected, personally or tangibly, over our lives. Merton urges me to let it go, in the same way that Jesus told the man that he should sell all he had and then come back to follow him. Downsize. Make what you have and what you do really matter. No title, or retirement account, or square footage in one’s house gives as deep a feeling of happiness. For as Ecclesiastes also teaches us, all the rest is vanity and a chase after wind. Only relationships truly matter. Only relationships truly last. Only relationships provide meaning. Only relationships pave the pathway to true happiness. 

Prayer When I'm Feeling Alone

If you are so loving, God, then why do I feel so awful and abandoned? Why have my insides been ripped out and Cuisinarted to be put on Salome's tray for Herod? Sure, I was told that we were only given those trials we can handle. Feels like s lie to me. Where are you, God, when I need you the most? Huh? My prayers seem wasted. It is so hard to maintain faith. I'm begging you--please. I'm so afraid of dying like this. 

Canticle of the Spirit

In the depths of my soul I seek myself. I seek my truth. I seek my being. I enter in. All is darkness. All is nothingness. All is aloneness. I am confronted by the fear that this is all I am, all that I can be. The darkness surrounds me like a shroud, and its cold dampness chills me to my core. I am afraid. I am alone. But I am not abandoned. For where there is despair there is also hope. Where there is nothingness there is also everything. Where there is aloneness there is also togetherness. Where there is fear there is also strength. And where there is darkness there is also light. For deep in the depths of the darkness of the soul, there is always a spark, a pilot light. There dwells the ever-present Spirit. Come, O Spirit. Reveal yourself, O Wisdom. I hear you calling me in the whisper of the fire in my soul. I feel you touching me gently in the flickering of the flame. Come, wrap yourself around my heart like a lover in the night. Caress me, for your love is a shield that protects me from fear. Embrace me, for your gentleness knows no bounds. As one on a journey, I come seeking comfort. I come seeking truth. I come seeking You like a lover searches for her Beloved after a long absence. Guide me on the right path. Hold me gently by my hand and keep me always in your care. My heart sings when You speak, for You are the voice of my Beloved. I rejoice at Your coming as I rejoice at being united with my lover. To be with You is to know sheer ecstasy, is to experience true bliss, is to feel perfect contentment. Come, then, O Spirit. I ache for Your presence. I yearn for Your grace. Fill me with the Wisdom of Life. Enlighten me with the Wisdom of Knowledge. Infuse me with the Wisdom of Compassion. Fire me with the Wisdom of Love. 

O Guide and Companion

O Guide and Companion, at last I have found you! From the beginning have you been waiting for me. Forgive my doubting that I would find you. At times my faith was weak. But now my soul rejoices and my heart sings like the harp and flute with praise for you! You quench my desert thirst. You banish my forest aloneness. For you are my rock and my shield, you enable me to perform wondrous deeds. With you at my side I have no fear, for you reside in my soul. You fill my heart with joy. Your wisdom and love propel me; your grace sanctifies me. The shadows have no more dominion over me. And I shall dwell with you for all eternity. 

A Prayer for Couples

Dear God: If I and my Beloved are so right for each other, then why are we on this awful roller coaster ride? We just don't see the point. Can't you just raise your finger and make these obstacles and this pain go away? We get the point already. Don't we deserve some slack here? But we guess that we have something to learn. Sure wish there were an easier way. But because the outcome is assured, we are ready to trust you and eat the bread of sorrow and drink the cup of pain. But please don't abandon us here. Be with us and guide us through the wilderness. You have the GPS and the map. Guide us and bring us to our destiny. For you are the one who gave us our souls and led us to each other so that we could reunite and become one spirit in you, and experience the full power of your divine love. 

Prayer on the Journey

God our Father and Mother, You who shaped all of creation so that our paths were destined to cross, be with us now in our time of pain and struggle. You always give us a choice. Grant us the wisdom and courage and conviction to choose the right path. One appears smooth, and is paved with ways with which we are so very familiar—of leaving, of doing nothing to stop it, of fear—to make the traveling easy. The other seems so rough, so very full of deep heartache, to make the journey hard. The choice seems so very much like You. As easy as the first path appears, it is likely paved with regret and with lives untouched. You have shown a glimpse of the second path in the remarkable changes in and joy of others who have felt the compassion and love of two people working in  harmony. Yet it’s so hard to know what to do when the sobs from the pain are pouring forth. But even though it sometimes feels like it, You never abandon us. So be with us now as You were with Mary, and St. John, and all those who knew the agony. You sustained them until they found You, the Beloved, and chose the right path. Grant us the ability to feel Your grace and comfort in our trial, and to see Your guiding light through the darkness. We ask for Your arm around us, so that we may feel Your love and warmth. For we know that if we are open to Your help, we will find the right road for our journey.

An Essay on Receiving

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“It is better to give than to receive.”

No other statements so clearly and concisely define the bases for human ethical behavior. Doing for and giving to others is the gold standard for action principles. We are taught them and held accountable for them almost before we understand the words. People who embody their meaning are held up for our admiration and emulation, and are declared saints. The principles are so important that in the U.S. we are even rewarded with tax deductions for giving to certain organizations.

I’ve always been troubled by the way they are usually interpreted. Thousands of sermons have been preached, books and essays written, documentaries filmed, and laws enacted based on doing and giving to. Very few talk describe how one is supposed to receive well. Yet, if you read the statements carefully, they actually describe a two-way relationship, an analog of sorts for Newton’s Third Law of equal and opposite force—for every action of doing or giving, there is an action of receiving. Without the receiving, the act of doing or giving is meaningless. Understanding these principles can only be in the context of the entire transaction, which puts an entirely different perspective on things.

The true message, then, is quite simple: Lived experience is about being both a doer/giver and a receiver. We have all been in both roles. But we are taught so well that one is better than the other that the “good” one usually results in a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling and the other often results in feeling shame or embarrassment. The emphasis on the goodness of giving means that in our zeal to commend the doer/giver, we send a terrible, perhaps unintended, message about the receiver. This implication is that the people who receive are, simply, not as good. They are somehow inferior, less than, needier than those who give.

That bothers me. If I’m always supposed to be on the doing/giving side of the equation, how do I learn how to receive graciously, with true, not false, humility? How am I supposed to receive unconditional love and support from a parent, partner, or child? How am I supposed to accept the gift of an education provided to me by my parents and all my great teachers and mentors who provided me the tools needed to be successful in life? How am I supposed to receive the grace of forgiveness from compassionate others when I was truly sorry for choosing the wrong path? How am I supposed to receive an expression of appreciation from others?

Because they are inextricably linked, doing/giving must be grounded in being-done-unto/receiving, that is, grounded in my ability to graciously and completely accept the gift that another is giving to me. Simply put, I must allow someone to be that “other” who “does unto me,” and to do so with deep reverence and gratitude. Why? Because in order to give from the heart, we have to be able to receive in the heart.

There’s another way to think about this. When I do or give, I am in control, consciously or unconsciously, because I choose what, when, and how to give. In contrast, in order to be-done-unto or receive graciously and completely, I am forced to be open, to really experience and listen to what someone else is trying to do or give. Most important, I have to give up control to receive well. Ironically, some of the most popular electronic gadgets are nearly perfect receivers. A new smartphone is open to receiving whatever text message or phone call or app or audio or video input it is given. The smartphone challenges me. How open am I to receiving the love being offered by a family member? How open am I to receiving the wisdom of the teacher who offers a new idea or way of thinking? How open am I to receiving nature’s beauty in all its forms?

To be sure, heartfelt doing/giving is very important. Still, I believe receiving graciously and completely is much more difficult. It’s the secret, overlooked side of the Golden Rule. A good life is one enriched with both. I know. I learned that from my parents, friends, teachers/mentors, and especially my wife. See for yourself—good givers-receivers are around us if we pay attention. We just need to receive their examples.