Clearly exasperated, a woman from Texas who’s been writing me back & forth for relationship advice asked, “Why is love so hard?”
I like the reply I found myself writing:
>>>Why is love so hard??? I believe it’s because the purpose of this life is not for us to be “happy” all the time, not for punishment but for our own preparation for the next life, or for a higher level of consciousness, or whatever you want to call it!<<<
My friend Lamar Massingill, the religion editor of the Magnolia Gazette newspaper, wrote a column last week about Jesus as the Ultimate Caregiver, who always found the time to change his plans (or otherwise inconvenience himself) in order to be there for people who needed him. In praising Lamar for the column, I told him it had resonated with me on many different levels, especially his point that the person who practices this kind of healing is also deeply healed him- or herself. I said that this point was one I was always trying to make in my own writing—that to live for God and other people instead of for yourself causes most of your problems & pains to vanish into thin air!
To change the subject slightly, twice in the space of 48 hours I found myself being careless in my interactions with others. First, on the way back from a family beach vacation I stopped by to visit with my old friend Malcolm, who used to own a charter fishing & scuba diving boat in Destin. He and his wife & I had a very spirited & enjoyable conversation, but I had hoped to ask Malcolm if he still believed in God, since I hadn’t talked to him about faith in decades. But I forgot, or never got around to it. I hope he does believe, because I hope he’s happy, truly happy.
My other instance of carelessness occurred Saturday evening at a wedding of a kid who grew up living next door to me, although she hasn’t lived there in years now, and I don’t keep up with her or her family on a regular basis. I get the sense that the bride is one of those few lucky people who _really_ believes in God, and if I had had the chance to tell her how rare that gift of faith is, I would have, but I knew I probably wouldn’t get the chance at the reception, and I didn’t. When I did talk to her, however, for some reason I made a conversational mistake that I wish I hadn’t. In trying to express how much she and her sister had grown & changed, I said, “I swear to God I wouldn’t have recognized either one of you” and then, remembering that she seems to be a more conservative Christian than I am and probably doesn’t say “I swear to God” very often herself, I tried to retract it but of course it was too late. My point here is that if I had been careful I would not have used language that could indicate that I don’t take God seriously myself, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. (I mean I take him so seriously that my faith is the absolute center of my life and has been for decades, but this bride didn’t know that!) Maybe I’ll get a chance to let her know sometime soon, but if not, I guess when my book comes out, she’ll find out then!
God, help all these folks as well as everyone else in the universe, with everything they do!
THE SECRET to healing & happiness (not to mention getting prayers answered) is getting in touch with God (the God of Love) and opening yourself to discovering what he wants you to learn and what changes he wants you to make in yourself & your attitudes.
For example, in the years depicted in _Petitioning God_, I had to learn to stop expecting more from Belinda than she was prepared to give. Now, I need to become more willing to promote my book (instead of just sitting here writing it all the time).
It’s our human nature to resist this move of focusing on the God within us & doing what he lovingly urges us to do, but it’s the only way to be happy.
For example, I resisted my growth with regard to Belinda, repeatedly trying to pretend our relationship was more than it was, even after she met her honey Nicole, when at first I assumed they had merely met by chance when actually Belinda had aggressively tried to meet someone online, & finally succeeded. Currently, I struggle every day with the part of me that still wants nothing to do with promotion or even finding a publisher because it thinks it doesn’t want the changes that will take place when all that stuff happens. But I will keep working on it and, with God’s help, will triumph over it in yet another step of spiritual growth, which is, after all, the whole purpose of this life. Because I know that continuing to progress on the journey is the only way to true peace & joy!
Good luck in your journey, & feel free to write me anytime with problems or questions!
God’s love,
Sara
The great psychologist Carl Jung spoke of “the work of the second half of life,” which is the task of spiritual & psychic transformation that is necessary for happiness after humans reach a certain age.
This fact, which it seems to be our human nature to avoid for as long as we can, strikes me as very good evidence that the whole purpose of life is for us to grow spiritually. The poetic genuis Keats put it concisely: the world, he said, is “the vale of soul-making.”
The promise of heaven is often best understood by those whose lives consist of chronic pain or poverty, because their situations lead them to put their hopes in eternity instead of continually trying to make this life meaningful & satisfying. They don’t try to do that in the first place, & therefore don’t struggle with the disappointment that life doesn’t meet their expectations the way “normal” people tend to do. Much of the depression that is so rampant in our privileged society could be alleviated instantly if the sufferers could learn to focus on eternity instead of this temporary (& frequently frustrating) life.
In my 20s and 30s I was less happy with my life than most of my peers were with theirs. But in my middle age, I look around me & find myself infinitely happier than nearly all others, so I must be onto something, & here it is:
To be deeply happy we have to accept (& continually re-accept) that life on earth is not meant to make us happy! This doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy earthly happiness when it’s available, but we have to stop expecting it to be available. This is the only rational response to the observation that all earthly happiness is fleeting, and life is difficult, for everyone, everywhere.
To stop expecting earthly happiness to be available is to stop expecting our life circumstances (including people, money & career matters, activities & possessions, & all other life circumstances) to be to our liking. Once we do this, the logical next step is to seek happiness within, by communing with God & our conscience, which is God within each of us.
When we do this we usually find that God, through our conscience, is telling us what we “ought” to do—about any problem that may be bothering us, or simply about life in general. If we then in fact do what this Inner Ought tells us to do, we will have taken a step toward deep happiness. It may not be apparent right away, but have faith, because it will be apparent soon.
The Bible passages about not clinging to your life but giving it up for eternal life, & about storing up for yourself treasures in heaven instead of on earth, apply here. And I write about how I did it in my book, as described elsewhere on this website. (That’s because what I found I really had to do to get my prayers answered was precisely this following of the Inner Ought.) Don’t try to intellectualize it too much, just get in there and start working on your own spiritual growth & relationship to God. Trust me, you will be happier this way.
As always, I am glad to help if you want to email me. It’s the least I can do!
Blessings on you as you seek your God.
Sara
I have a movie rec for all us spiritual seekers: AUGUST RUSH, currently in the New Releases section of my Blockbuster, as well as many other sources, I’m sure.
The one quote I went to the trouble to write down was a line spoken by Robin Williams’s character:
“Do you know what music is? It’s God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe.”
Blessings!
Sara
Think TEMPORARINESS. That is, this life is very temporary, even fleeting, a drop in the bucket of eternity.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog that one way to follow Jesus and to find happiness is to view everything in terms of eternity, but I haven’t discussed exactly how to do that. But it’s as simple as remembering that everything on earth is temporary. So we can’t expect wonderful moments to last, but on the other hand, pain & suffering don’t last either, and if we’ve felt the kingdom of heaven (and I think we all have, even if only momentarily at special times), then we know it’s all a prelude to eternal joy.
Indeed, it makes no sense whatsoever that we humans are capable of feeling that ineffable joy if we’re not going to experience it in a more lasting form in the future. It also makes no sense whatsoever that our brains are many times more powerful than we ever use in this brief life, if there’s not a whole lot more to come in the next life!
Blessings on all of you!
By the grace of God I myself usually do this naturally, but the least I can do is to share it in here so that others can try it if they want to—
Many who know me think I’m somehow immune to the pain of life (boredom, meaninglessness, hopelessness, loneliness), but I assure you I’m not! It’s the way I react to it that makes the difference.
Most people—influenced by our culture, no doubt—seem to view the pain as something to be avoided by means of entertainment or activities that they often don’t even particularly enjoy but that merely serve as what one friend of mine calls “boredom preventers,” or by surrounding themselves with expensive possessions, dwellings, & vehicles, with which they hope to buffer themselves against the emptiness.
I and all other deeply joyful people, in contrast, embrace the pain as something to be worked through in the heart, mind, & soul, after which we will feel deeply joyful until the next psychic challenge comes along, and upon working through that pain will be even more joyful than before, thus constantly growing in joy. By embracing the pain instead of trying to insulate ourselves against it, we transcend it and become even happier than we were before the pain struck.
When Jesus said it’s harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, I think part of what he meant was that rich people have more means to do all those artificial things in order to avoid facing the pain and emptiness, the working through of which is the only way to experience true joy, which is surely a chief component of the kingdom! In this sense they’re poorer than those whose circumstances make the pain of life (& the need for God) unavoidable.
