EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Constancy is basis of happiness
By Nancy Walden
I was listening to a talk show on the car radio recently.
The host asked the caller if she knew people who were happy. The caller said, yes, she did. The host then asked her to name the qualities she saw in those people that made them happy.
The woman caller, who sounded not at all happy with her own life situation, had to think for a long while. Finally she said, "Going to church?" Pause. "Giving to others?" Long pause. "Loving others, being kind."
"Yes," said the host, "you're getting it. Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking of others and give."
I noted that neither of them mentioned anything about money, nice home or cars, a happy marriage, etc.
Well, I thought all of that sounded like good advice. But what if someone were to interpret that to mean "if all I have to do is give charitable donations, attend a church service once in a while and help others from time to time to find happiness — well, would that be it and make me happy?
I didn't think so.
What is it, then, that makes us happy? What makes us stay happy, even if something goes wrong in our lives, which usually seems to happen sometime, whether it has to do with money, relationships, jobs and careers or health.
Maintaining happiness often seems difficult, but a key to lasting happiness has been suggested in sacred texts throughout history. I turn to the Bible for inspiration. Some years ago, I found a very simple clue for identifying the things that lead to lasting happiness. James in the Holy Bible (1:17) has put it beautifully: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
In other words, everything good and true comes from God. The best part is that this source does not change. God is constant good and constant love. Turning to God, whom the Bible describes as divine love, as the basis for our thoughts and actions — this gives our actions strength, wholeness and constancy. It also gives strength, wholeness and constancy to our lives.
That, to me, is largely what happiness is all about: feeling good about what we are doing because we know it is right and that God would approve. This makes us feel complete and whole — not lacking anything, because we have discovered that there is no variableness in God. And this, to me, is happiness. We're thinking good, doing good and, most of all, maintaining good.
In "Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures" — a book that turned my life around several years ago from one of intermittent happiness to not just one of ongoing happiness but also a life filled with peace and joy — Mary Baker Eddy, the American spiritual reformer who founded in Christian Science, wrote:
"Unselfish ambition, noble life-motives, and purity — these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute individually and collectively true happiness, strength, and permanence."
Nancy Walden is a member of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Honolulu.
