The Pursuit of Happiness

Morning Poem, Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches
–and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly, every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Is it in your nature to be happy? Isn’t it part of human nature-to be happy, or to seek happiness? So why does Mary Oliver say ‘whether or not you have every dared to be happy.?” What about the so-called ‘pursuit of happiness?’

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of this famous Declaration of Independence between June 11 and June 28, 1776.

As a model, he was able to use Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason. The Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12. It was available to Jefferson on June 11 when he began writing what would become the Declaration of Independence.

Indeed, the Virginia Declaration was widely copied by the other colonies as they prepared their own versions of such declarations. It would later become the basis of the Bill of Rights.

To show the relationship between Jefferson’s statement an that of George Mason, look at Section 1 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. It says, “that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The political philosophy of the Declaration was not new. John Locke expressed the ideals of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of property.’

Jefferson said that these ideals were “self-evident,” and in order to achieve them, the colonies needed to break away from England.

Jefferson changed the third item of John Locke’s triad of human rights–life, liberty and property, to “the pursuit of happiness.”

But what is happiness? What is unhappiness? What makes you happy or unhappy?

William Blake wrote a little quatrain:

“He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy.
He who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.”

Carl Sandburg, wrote a poem he titled, simply, Happiness:

I asked professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me
what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work
of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile
as though I was trying to fool with them.
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the
Des Plaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and
children
and a keg of beer and an accordion.

One of the things we in this congregation are thankful for is our freedom of religion-that is, the freedom from having religion imposed on us by the state, by governments.

We’re a little nervous about this freedom right now. It’s fragile. Make no mistake about it. There are people in this country, including elected and appointed people in Washington, who would like to impose religion, or religious ideas.

Not long after Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, he wrote the Virginia statute of religious freedom, which became the basis of the we refer to as the ‘separation of church and state.’ It’s worth taking a look at that statement, which he considered among his three most important accomplishments in his life-the other two being the Declaration of Independence, and the founding of the University of Virginia. Notice that the presidency wasn’t one of the three which he considered his most important accomplishments.

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness.that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness.that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way truth is great and will prevail if left to herself

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise iminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.

Jefferson directed that on his tombstone he should be remembered as the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and as the founder of the University of Virginia.

Jefferson expressed the deep convictions at the soul of America-the American people. But anyone who is paying the slightest attention can clearly see that our freedom from having religion imposed on us is in grave danger from the use of public money in support of religious schools, and so-called ‘faith-based’ programs, to the more subtle use of religion by politicians who use religious language and code words to pander to large voting blocks.

Happiness comes in moments, here and there. Sandburg pointed to a ‘crowd of Hungarians at the river with a keg of beer and an accordion,’ he saw one Sunday afternoon. This, he thought, was the picture of happiness which words could not capture.

Sunday afternoons used to be family times-when there were no shopping malls, or, if there were, they weren’t open for business on that day.

The phrase in the Declaration of Independence, ‘The pursuit of happiness,’ sounds frantic, like the desperate race we’ve made it. It doesn’t suggest contentment, it suggests a kind of competition-a chase, as in the fox-hunt.

I was asked to put together a service at Camp Jewell last weekend. I decided to ask a simple question which turned out to be the centerpiece of that service. The question I asked then, and invite you to consider now, is ‘For what do you feel appreciation, now?’

We passed a lighted candle around the big circle, and each one expressed something for which they were feeling a sense of appreciation. (I appreciated the way those sixty adults handled the question–each one made a sincere effort to express something for which they were feeling a sense of appreciation in that moment, then the candle was passed to the person to their right, until it made the full circle.)

Our service took on a religious or spiritual quality as we entered that place in each of us. that place.like a piece of sacred ground. like a ‘take-the-shoes-off-your-feet’ place. Appreciation is the key to the door of spirituality.

We were there, in part, to pursue something; the theme was visioning, as part of the Vision 2028 process, about which I’ve been feeling enthused and appreciative.

But the forty-five minutes it took to pass that candle from one to another was like Sandburg’s ‘crowd of Hungarians with a keg of beer and an accordion.’

Someone said, “I appreciate taking this time to think about all the things I ‘m thankful for, which I don’t do often enough.” Several echoed this theme.

We’ve been living through a difficult period. Terrorism is taking its toll. We’ve lost the edge on our sense of security. Security and happiness go together.

The Virginia Declaration said that our inherent rights include, “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Jefferson didn’t say that happiness is a right, nor did he say that happiness is self- evident. He said that the right to pursue happiness was the third person of his trinity: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Before the 18th century enlightenment, happiness was a religious reward in the hereafter. The assumption was that one suffered on earth. One religious notion was that the more you suffered on earth the bigger the reward in heaven. They said, in effect, “Blessed are you who suffer now, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

That old theology doesn’t sell very well today.

While it’s nonsense to suggest that happiness has nothing to do with material things, it’s also dangerous to suggest that having more stuff will make for lasting happiness.

There is a religious or spiritual ingredient to life, and for some it’s at the core or center of life. And I don’t mean piety. I don’t mean practicing one’s religion in public. I do mean that happiness or joy is deeply rooted in our spiritual lives. It’s complex. It’s challenging. And, to some extent, it keeps changing-what made you happy last year might not work next year.

Mary Oliver says it nicely: