Your friend, the health guru, he exposes your lack of discipline and your eating habits, not because he is mean-spirited; but because he is a stark contrast to your own habits.  There is Money-Management Girl, the couple who should win Parents-of-the-Year, and their children – Well-Behaved-Genius-Babies.  Don’t forget Auto Maintenance Guy, who has never had a dash light stay on for more than three days.  You love all those people; they’re friends.  But they exude an uncomfortable light.

I actually don’t like Auto Maintenance Guy anymore.

An old song begins, “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make an ugly woman your wife.”  I rejected that advice and married a beautiful woman anyhow.   Either my experience proves the song to be right or we all live in similar conditions with regard to happiness: it is a moving target at best, or even more likely, it is an emotional vapor.

Before you go accusing me of being an old curmudgeon, let me assure you that I believe in happiness; just not as a goal for real life. 

Pitfalls of Vision and Nostalgia

Everybody has goals.  They vary in size and scope, but we all have them.  Goals are inescapable.  From the illustrious quest for middle management or some authoritative leadership to small business success to out-drinking your buddy on a Friday night: a goal is a goal.  To achieve a goal requires vision;

I have a friend who wakes up most mornings angry and disappointed.  Because life is not in order.  Because she is not who she expected she would be, at least not at this stage of her life.  Because yesterday her to-do-list was twelve items long and three of those items are still unchecked.  Because her efforts toward achieving her desires, simple desires, are all undone.  Not every morning, some days she wakes up in serenity.  You’d think that these days would be celebrated, and sometimes they are, but often they serve as reminders of the other days, the undone days.  Did I mention that she is a “list person?” 

I once suggested to a group of Christian leaders that we should embrace contentment as a value.  You’d have thought that I proposed streaming Saw II behind their Sunday morning worship lyrics.  The reigning idea within Christendom is simple: “Contentment breeds complacency.”  If people feel quieted and peaceful, there’s a good chance they won’t change.  Maybe there is more than one accepted definition of content.  Maybe that’s the problem…

Contentment is such a huge biblical idea, you find it everywhere throughout scripture.  It starts showing up early

I haven’t forgotten about you.  I haven’t stopped writing.  I’ve been working over-nights and taking care of my children, so my writing time has been devoted to a personal thing that I am working on.  Sorry.  But here we go…

I’ve roughed out several posts for one ongoing thought.  I think that you’ll like it.  Or maybe you’ll really hate it.  I pray that you’ll have some strong reaction.  Beginning this Friday I will resume my Tuesday/Friday blogging regimen.  <Everyone cheers!>

Below is a sampling of my forthcoming thoughts, though I have withheld the word that ties them all together.  Consider it a teaser; my gift to you.  We’ll see you on Friday…

No one ever talks about it because it’s just not popular; and it gives the impression of a kind of resignation, unacceptable to the people grasping for control, those who are earning their way in and proving their value.  Should you embrace it like wine before bedtime; you best keep it to yourself.  Because if you find it, if it finds you; many will not understand.  It’s hard to fit in when you’ve learned to stop seizing upon the opinions of others.  You still care, but with a palm instead of a fist.

Recessions, depressions, traffic congestion – you learn to live around them.  You sing your sad songs with a tilted grin.  Truth, it exists, and you can study her contents.  It’s okay to mourn if you’ve got to.  And by the way, “okay” means okay.

This certain grace is trying to find you.  To accept it, you lay down your undying quest for happiness.  Don’t worry, you’ll get something better, not fleeting.  You’ll work and you’ll dance.  You’ll eat and you’ll pray.  You’ll know something.  Not a lot.  Not everything.  Just enough for this day, and probably the beginnings of tomorrow.  You won’t appear wise to everyone, but you’ll forget to care.

Vision and history will line up in perspective as hope and informant for the unfurling present.  The op-ed pages will cease to make as much sense as they once did.  Newsprint looks like a coloring book, all black and white, waiting for some child to scribble over the lines.  Youthful Ideals have peace talks with Aging Disappointment.  They decide they are both right about certain things, neither of them change their ways; they just become friendlier and reside in their familiar places.

Lying down on your bed you think, “To eat, and to drink and to find satisfaction in your work… this too I see is from the hand of God.”  Rest as if your faith has been proven, “become sight,” as an old hymn says.

(For this to make sense, you’ll have to read last week’s post, a simple quote from The Grapes of Wrath.)

“That terrible action is why I perform this terrible action.”  That’s what you tell yourself.  You might be right; not excused, just correct.  When it comes to pain, anger, hatred or any other negative life experience we all look for reasons that will explain why we are the way we are or do the things we do.  We all have some pretty unsettling corners of our lives; the dark, quiet ones.

There has to be a reason why:

I drink too much.  I tell lies.  I work too much.  I don’t work.  I over-eat.  I make myself throw up.  I visit certain websites.  I’m addicted to facebook.  I sleep around.  I withhold myself from my spouse.  I judge everyone around me.  I’m greedy.  Whatever…