The Pursuit of Happiness

How can we make peace when some find their faith requires that they dominate those who believe differently from them? How can we find harmony in a world where discrepancies of poverty and wealth are so great and cultural norms exist in opposition to each other?  How can we be caring and loving toward others in an environment seems to encroach on personal freedom?  How are we to care for others and allow ourselves to be open and vulnerable as Christ taught us when it invites the possibility of personal risk, manipulation, and abuse?

What topic is most important to you right now? 

Some of us view our older parents as a burden instead of a resource.   We think our parents are costing us so much, in so many ways.  Viewing our older parents this way not only does a great disservice to the old, but also one that inevitably returns to haunt us and the young. 

There is a Chinese story that points this out beautifully.  It tells a story of an old man who’s too weak to work in the garden or help with the household chores.  He just sits on the porch, gazing out across the fields, while his son tills the soil and pull up weeds.  One day, the son looks up at the old man and thinks, “What good is he now that he’s so old?  All he does is eat up the food!  I have a wife and children to think about.  It’s time for him to be done with life!  So he makes a large wooden box, places it on a wheelbarrow, rolls it up to the porch, and says to the old man, “Father, get it.”  The father lies down in the box and the son puts the cover on, then wheels it toward the cliff.  At the edge of the cliff, the son hears a knock from inside the box.  “Yes, father?”  the son asks.  The father replies, “Why don’t you just throw me off the cliff and save the box.  Your children are going to need it one day.” 

Aging, an insult to aesthetics?

I met Teresa in the lunch room at work and had complimented on her beautiful face skin.  She was so flattered and decided to share with me the products that she uses. I was shocked to find out that Teresa goes to great length to keep her beautiful face.  She spends at least $600 a month on face cream and make-up supplies plus the many hours it takes to apply.  I have compassion toward Teresa and at the same time was disturbed and angry toward the attitude being generated by our society about aging, that somehow aging is a failure and that God makes a big mistake. 

I have met other people who have gone to great lengths to keep up youthful front with the help of surgeries and other products including hair-dying and anti-aging.  The results may be superficially satisfying.  But beneath these masks of re-carve and re-cover still remain a profound despair.   

Women suffer with aging more than men do.  This is because men traditionally had access to something almost as good as youth: power.  Women have been deprived of this access until recently.  A man could be wrinkle and gray, but if he held high social or financial status, his physical losses were offset.  Not so for women.  Where an older man can be euphemized as “distinguished,” a woman is more often called “faded” or over the hill,” and suffers enormous pressure to hide her age, often with painful results.

It is as if we are urged to fight a loosing battle against time, pitting ourselves against natural law.  How ghastly this is and how inhuman toward both ourselves and the cycle of life.  It is as if we are running around in the autumn painting the marvelous gold and red leaves with green paint.  It’s a lot of wasted time and energy. 

Is aging an insult to esthetic? 

Tunnel Vision

Grieving

Grieving is a healthy aspect of life.  Only by learning how to grieve can we hope to leave the past behind and come into the present moment.  But in a culture that emphasizes stoicism and forward moment, there is a little toleration for slowness, inwardness, and melancholy.   Thus, grieving is often overlooked.   The older we get the more we loose; this is the law of impermanence.   We lose love ones, dreams, physical strength, work, and relationships.  All these losses bring up enormous grief that we must be prepared to embrace completely, if we are to live with an open heart. 

Someone once said, God breaks your heart again and again and again until it stays open.  To counteract our natural tendency to turn away from pain, we open to it as fully as possible and allow our hearts to break.  We must take enough time to remember our losses—be a death of a long-held relationship, homes, career, health… Rather than close ourselves to grief, it helps to realize that we only grieve for what we love. 

Xanga is a wonderful outlet for grieving.  It can be a ritual site where we can feel safe to pour out the sadness and loss.  We should build more temples specifically for the purpose of grieving.  

Often, when grieving, we think that it’s over, only to find ourselves swept away by another wave of intense feeling.  For this reason, it’s important to be patient with the process and not be in a hurry to put our grief behind us.  Deep feelings don’t just disappear completely.  Each person’s grief has its own timetable.  Ultimately you will come to the truth of the adage that “love is stronger than death.” 

The biggest obstruction of my relationship with God is the belief that I know.  Reflecting deeply on this, it is just my bias, prejudice, and judgment.   Observing the time when my judgments parade as truth, I deceive everyone including myself.  I close the channel to the divine.  I shut God out.  It is as if I say, “Shut up, God.  I know what I am doing here.” Fortunately God is patient, compassionate, and gifted with a great sense of humor.  So His response is “I’m sorry, trim-tab, I did not realize that you were the chess champion of the cosmos.  I sincerely beg your pardon and gladly withdraw until you desire my presence.”   A little sarcastic, perhaps, but to the point. 

God saw my pride and get out of my way and waits for me to come to my senses.  God did not punish me for it.  Since every project I undertake without God is doomed to failure, He rarely has to wait long before I‘m back knocking on the door.  He knows that.  That is why He is so patient and good humored about my fickleness and infidelity. 

What is the biggest obstruction of your relationship with God?

Fear of the Unknown

Ron and I had an interesting discussing in our kitchen the other day.  He asked me, “Why do people continue to live in conditions that are not desirable?”  This is a good question.   A child that has been physically abused by his mother still preferred to cling to his mother rather than to an unknown stranger who is trying to protect him from harms.  A wife that has been physically abused by her husband still preferred to be with him.  A husband that has been mentally and verbally abused by his wife still preferred to stay with her.  Why?  My answer is fear.  Fear of the unknown. 

No matter how toxic and terrible the known environments are, we still prefer them to the unknown future.  Our ego is terrified of the unknown.  We like the feeling of being in controlled.  We think we are the one “doing” our life.  We think we are the one that have created safety, when in fact our life is like a volcano about to erupt and we cannot control over what happens.  We believe that we are powerful, yet we demonstrate again and again our utter powerlessness. 

No matter how hard the ego tries, it cannot create safety. The more we seek to control life, the more life will give us the message that it cannot be in controlled. Then we will feel powerless and try harder to control.  This is a paradox.  It’s a silly game that we cannot win.  Yet we can’t stop playing either.  Control is an addiction.  Control takes many forms and they are endless.   Even the attachment to risk-taking is a form of control. 

When we begin to realize that we are not the doer, we cease to be the victims.  It requires that we simply give up what we think we know.  We learn to face the fears of the unknown directly.  And, as we do, we discover the gifts and miracles that lie on the other side of our fear. 

Shared Guidance

When we commit to be in a relationship with someone and want to walk through this world together with this person as a couple, we should not insist on doing things our way or settle for doing things the other person’s way.  We want the other person to be happy and fulfilled as much as we desire happiness and fulfillment for ourselves.   The relationship is a “we” space and not an ”I” space. 

In the “we” relationship, direction comes from the guidance of both people.  We no longer make decisions based on what is good for us alone.  It has to be good for the other person too.  We don’t deny our individual needs to meet the partner’s needs (become co-dependent) nor do we insist on meeting our own needs at the expense of our partner (become selfish and self-centered).  It requires more than denial or indulgence.  Neither narrow, self-interest nor self-sacrifice.  It requires that the needs of both people be addressed.  “We” cannot and does not mean either self-betrayal or the betrayal of the partner.  “We” means honoring both people at the same time. 

When was the last time you make a decision in an “I” space that erodes the trust in your relationship? 

Betrayal

There is only one betrayal and that is to betray your own life.  There is no other betrayal.  If we continue to live with abusive people including husband, wife, parents, friends without love, we are destroying our own opportunities. God will not ask what sins we have committed; he will ask what opportunities for happiness we missed.  This is really beautiful:  We will be responsible only for those opportunities that were available to us and that we missed.

Remain faithful to yourself – that is the only faith that is needed – and everything will be good.