Happiness

I listened to this article a couple of weeks ago and wanted to share it here. The article was written by an Eastern Orthodox monk in Washington State. You can find this and other articles by Abbot Tryphon at his blog at morningoffering.blogspot.com. You can listen to the audio here.

I can personally attest to the power of gratitude in my life. By practicing thankfulness, I can see God and the gifts with which He has blessed me. Intentionally being grateful for hardships and trials helps me give those over to God and trust in His provision and love for me.

Happiness

Gratefulness makes us happy

We all know that money can't buy happiness, yet many are not aware that practicing simple gratitude does bring about happiness. Being grateful for the people we have in our lives, and for the things that we have, brings about a happiness that can not come about by endlessly trying to acquire things. Researchers testing gratefulness in laboratories have discovered that gratitude actually changes the brain, and makes us happier because it allows us to be happier. Gratitude changes more than brain chemistry, for it makes us better, happier, and kinder to others.

If we practice being thankful for the compliments we receive from our friends, and for those dinners they treat us to, the gifts they give us, the flowers they bring to our home, or for just being there when we need them, we will find that our gratitude brings about more friendships, for others will be drawn to us.

Dr. Robert A. Emmons conducted a study on gratitude at the University of California at Davis which proved measurable benefits on psychological, physical, and interpersonal health for subjects who practice gratitude. "Evidence on gratitude contradicts the widely held view that all people have a 'set-point' of happiness that cannot be reset by any known means." Translated, this simply means that if we practice gratitude we can actually be happier than we've ever thought possible.

Gratitude is an affirmation of goodness, for in our being grateful we affirm that there are good things in the world, and good people that are part of our lives. Our being grateful does not mean that everything in life is perfect, but it does mean that we look at life as a whole, and receive with gratitude all the goodness that is in our life. In turn, our gratitude becomes the foundation for building up those around us, for in being happy ourselves, we are more likely to bring about happiness in others.

Being happy nurtures those random acts of kindness that everyone loves to experience, and promotes goodness and kindness among even strangers. People love it when other people are good to random people. This happiness becomes like a magnet, and even strangers are drawn to us, and our list of friends proliferates. There is nothing that brings about satisfaction like being grateful for our life, for the lives of those around us, for the things in our lives, and for the love God has for us. Remember, it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.

With love in Christ,

Abbot Tryphon

Mansfield Park

A friend recently invited me to read Mansfield Park with her and I took her up on it. I had previously read it and very much enjoyed it. From the few Jane Austen novels I had read, I has always loved Mansfield Park the most, because I really enjoyed the characters. I remember especially liking Pride and Prejudice as well, but I felt that Austen had created very real characters in Mansfield Park. There were no stupid characters as Mary or Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice in Mansfield Park. Those were my impressions then, and remain my impressions upon a rereading. I enjoyed each of the characters and how they moved through life. The only stagnant character is Mrs. Bertram, the only truly dislikable person, Mrs. Norris, but they still feel more real to me, perhaps because I see parts of myself in them.

Apparently, when you find Truth, it begins to turn up in every area of life if you are open to seeing it. Ever since giving my speech (see my post "Active Love"), I continue to see the impact of actions and people such as Fanny. Fanny's placement at Mansfield Park is intended to be a charity to her family and to Fanny herself, but her presence ends up improving everyone. Not only is Fanny the heroine of the novel, she also ends up being confirmed in her judgement of many, including Mr. and Miss Crawford as well as her own cousins. She holds to her principles, even when others do not understand how she is being asked to compromise them as when her uncle urges her to accept Mr. Crawford.

Fanny's simplicity, principle, and abundance of feeling is in her favor and everyone else's. It is what starts to change Mr. Crawford. It is what she is praiseworthy. While she is complimented for her beauty, it is her manner, her natural ability to know what it proper, her giving herself to whatever is good that distinguishes her. Perhaps one could argue that Fanny has too low an opinion of herself. Perhaps that is true, but is genuine and not born of pride. She sees no reason she should be distinguished, something markedly different from every other female of the novel.

There are some wonderful insights as well as concern the raising of children, the importance of religion, the effect of gossip on people. Sir Thomas reflects near the end of the book on the fate of his two daughters who both fell despite their good education. Sir Thomas' sternness was meant to counteract Mrs. Norris' indulgence to the daughters, but he reflects that instead his daughters merely learned to repress their feelings around him so that he would know none of their thoughts.

Bitterly did he deplore a deficiency which now he could scarcely comprehend to have been possible. Wretchedly did he feel, that with all the cost and care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought up his daughters, without their understanding their first duties, or his being acquainted with their character and temper. (Chapter 48)

While Fanny is never overtly portrayed as religious, indeed outside of a couple visits to church, and Edmund's future as a parson there is not much mention of church or religion, yet there are a couple lines that suggest that Fanny put her faith into practice as opposed to her cousins, Maria and Julia. "They [Maria and Julia] had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice." Edmund's sensibilities and Fanny's manner do not come simply from their natural inclination. Fanny's humility and desire to think the best of others stands in contrast to the liberality of Henry Crawford, Tom Bertram, and Maria, and the destructive gossip of Mrs. Norris and Mary Crawford.

Fanny is perhaps the character we can relate to the least, because we do not think we can attain to her example, but her example is still compelling because it proves that everyone can change. By the end of the novel her uncle has aquired more tenderness in his approach, the sources of destructive gossip are removed from Mansfield Park, and Fanny and Edmund settle into a mutual simplicity and love for each other. Not all the change, such as Tom's change of heart, can be attributed to Fanny, but it is abundantly clear that a great change comes to all at Mansfield Park.

There is much more that could be said, for example, about the redemptive role suffering plays in many of the characters' lives, but I shall simply echo my history teacher by saying that this is not just a book for women who like reading romances. Faith played an important role in Jane Austen's own life. Her stories are not simply for people who enjoy romantic movies, but they contain a powerful message that we need to hear.

Active Love

I wrote this speech for my graduation a couple weeks ago and wanted to share it again because this is something that I need to remember.

Active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

--Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Through this Fr. Zosima reveals to Alyosha that it is not through immediate action but through work and perseverance that we fully love. The love that Zosima and Alyosha show is unconditional. Peter Kreeft, a modern philosopher and apologist, writes that “[love's] object is always the concrete individual, not some abstraction called humanity. Love of humanity is easy because humanity does not surprise you with inconvenient demands. You never find humanity on your doorstep, stinking and begging.”

Yet Alyosha loves all of those around him individually. His father, Fyodor Pavlovich remarks that Alyosha alone does not judge him for his wicked ways. Similarly Alyosha, who struggles with his own temptations, loves his profligate brother Mitya, his doubting brother Ivan, a low woman, a silly girl, and a bunch of rowdy schoolboys. Some, like Fyodor and Mitya are the stinking while others such as Grushenka and Ivan are those unknowingly begging for reassurance and love. Alyosha loves all of them out of the abundance revealed to him by his elder Zosima, and ultimately by Christ.

His love for each brings them to a place where they must embrace or reject the love offered to them. Ivan only comes to love individual people after experiencing great trials; by the end of the novel, Ivan may have glimpsed the necessity of the all-encompassing love of Zosima, Alyosha, and the God he has doubted when he picks up a freezing peasant and carries him home on his back. Each individual comes to some such realization by the end of the novel. Dostoevsky does not reveal whether they will fully embrace this self-sacrificial love, but but it is clear, that having been moved by love, they must respond one way or the other.

So we also must respond. We have been loved and so we must love. We cannot love humanity in general but we must love people specifically. We experience this when a mentor or a friend touches our lives as Alyosha did with a quiet love fueled by love of Christ. My mentors have inspired me most, not by giving me advice or by doing great things, but by loving Christ and by loving me as I am.

Loving words, compassion, and a faithful life, even more than “great deeds,” have a profound effect on us all. Small acts, which we might disregard as insignificant details, shape our lives, and likewise our actions impact others in ways we cannot always fathom. Many sermons or seminars could not have prepared me to give myself to others as much as seeing one woman give herself to Christ. It is not easy, but we are called to this love. Peter Kreeft writes “There can be no button to push for sanctity, any more than for love. For sanctity is simply love: loving God with all your soul and mind and strength. How do you love? You just do it. A cause cannot produce an effect greater than itself. And nothing in the world is greater than sanctity, nothing greater than love.”

Longing for Life

I'm Zoe. My name means "life." My life goal is to be a saint. Whew...I said it. Every time I want to say that, or explain how much I desire God, I feel inexplicably shy. It makes me think of the bit from The Weight of Glory where C.S. Lewis says,

In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you - the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.

 This is something I have related to since before I even read The Weight of Glory. We have this yearning for God, for heaven, to respond to our creator, but when we come to speak of it to others, to try to let them in to this secret of our lives, we find it hard to say it. We somehow know that we should long for this, but we cannot explain why or what this looks like. After all, how you explain something you yourself do not fully understand?

I think especially as an Orthodox Christian, the icon of the saints lets me know that I am not crazy. What they did, what I want, is possible. They lived out the fullness of the Christian faith, they laid down all for the sake of Christ. But the example of the saints is something we have lost. Peter Kreeft, a Catholic philosophy and apologist, pointed out that the only way we will win the culture war is with saints. We must all be saints. If this is what we must be, and even if we recognize this, why are we still shy to explain our calling. We feel that perhaps the person we are talking to doesn't feel that way, that they haven't quite come to that point yet. I am anxious to put myself out there because I cannot explain it. As Peter Kreeft said, there is no method, no button to push for sanctity. It is something that must be grasped, and then just done.

This goes against everything in American culture. I want to live fully for Christ. But when I say this, I find myself shy because I don't know if anyone else feels this way, because this desire goes against everything our culture tells us to want, because I have no idea what this looks like in a modern world. After all, we go to school so that we can get good jobs, right? But how do I explain that I don't care about career success that way in a college entrance essay? This is about dying, and some days, I'll be quite honest, it terrifies me. Most days I have no idea what to do with Christ's words. But the thing is that we simply have to do it. I have to simply be a follower of Christ. I have to simply do it. Simply pray, fast, give alms, do the work that I know has been given to me. This is the life that I long for. This is the life and love that Christ offers. There is no button push for sanctity. We must just do it.