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Happiness: Claim It
[Blowing bubbles with child’s bubble wand] Ah happiness! What exactly is happiness? I found this on the website for Greater Good, the Science of a Meaningful Life.
Most of us probably don’t believe we need a formal definition of happiness; we know it when we feel it, and we often use the term to describe a range of
positive emotions, including joy, pride, contentment, and gratitude.
But to understand the causes and effects of happiness, researchers first need to define it. Many of them use the term interchangeably with “subjective
well-being,” which they measure by simply asking people to report how satisfied they feel with their own lives and how much positive and negative emotion they’re experiencing. In her 2007 book The How of Happiness, positive
psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky elaborates, describing happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”
So we can begin with a key word, “experience”. Happiness isn’t a thing or a destination or even a set of external conditions. It is an experience. A
moment to moment mind, body, spirit event. Which leads me to examine the incongruence of the title of the book this new summer series is based on: The Pursuit of Happiness: 21 Spiritual Rules for Success. Can happiness be
pursued? Can you run after it and capture it? Can you hold it, clutch it and keep it safe? The second key concept is “a sense”. A “sense” is an internal system of knowing, believing, trusting. So the pursuit of happiness is really about a current experience seen through filters we internally cultivate. I
return, once again, I apologize if this gets boring, to Unity principle. The good news is, It’s all about consciousness. The bad news is, It’s all about
consciousness. So whether you are happy or feel happiness eludes you, it’s all about consciousness. YOUR consciousness. The series will focus on what we do or don’t do in consciousness that might appear to get in the way of our greater experience of happiness. Happiness is here, available for us to
experience with the right consciousness. We’ll look at what we want to claim in consciousness; what we might need to deny; what we might want to let go of; how we put our consciousness into action and move; and finally, how to dance the dance of happiness.
I’ll probably use the metaphor of blowing bubbles throughout the series and a few times today. I find a bottle of bubbles in my office drawer is really handy for happiness. I mean, how do you feel blowing bubbles? Joyful, playful, a sense of fun and well-being?
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Our first topic and the over-arching topic for today is claiming happiness. Can I “claim” one of these bubbles? Can you grab an experience and hold onto it? No, of course not. So what are we claiming? Choice! Our old friend choice. Our power of choice. I can’t claim a bubble but I can claim the power to create. I can choose to get the soap and give breath to the bubbles. If I am without bubbles, I am choosing not to get the soap and blow the bubbles into expression. I am not the victim of a bubble-less world, I am a choice maker. Now “the victim of a bubble-less world” sounds silly doesn’t it. Yet how many of us have forgotten how to choose happiness? We have forgotten how much the attitudes and beliefs we hold influence how we experience our world, including whether or not we experience happiness. There’s another of our Unity principles: thoughts and beliefs shape our experience. How do we want to shape our experience?
I found an intriguing question in the very first chapter of the book: do your choices match who you want to be? Think about that for just a moment. We have an idea that we could experience more happiness if we were more
spontaneous, more forgiving, more compassionate. That’s who we want to be. Yet the choices we make arise from and continue to reinforce rigidity,
judgment and righteousness. Then we are perplexed because we don’t seem to be happy. I think Unity would teach us we are making choices in alignment with our true self, our divine self, when our choices match who we want to be. What simple choices have you made already today? Choices about getting up, what to wear, coming to church, how to interact with others. What choices are left today? Are you consciously choosing in alignment with who you want to be? Do you want to be colorful but you chose a neutral color? Are you listening to this sermon online because you want to be connected to spiritual community but you chose to stay in bed? Is there someone you are avoiding because of a stuck place in you that just can't forgive something? Choosing in alignment with our true self ultimately brings greater experiences of joy,
contentment, gratitude—Happiness. I just love the idea of choosing in alignment with who I want to be. It forces me to consider first of all, who I want to be and second of all, to bring an intentional awareness to the choices I’m making.
The second concept under today’s topic of choice, is really, “whose choice is it?” Don’t hold others responsible for your happiness. So the silly version of this is, “I sit unhappy in a bubble-less world because no one will come and blow bubbles for me.” That sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But where in our lives are we waiting for someone else to act and create our happiness?
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You understand, I know, that making someone else responsible for your happiness is giving away your power, not to mention, often your happiness. Reflect for just a moment on who you have given your bottle of bubbles to. Is it someone in your family, a spouse or friend, your boss, your neighbor? I love the saying, “You can sit a pretty long time with your mouth open before a fried chicken flies in.” Holding others responsible for your happiness is a gamble and potentially a long wait—if it ever happens. Claim your responsibility for your choices and your attitude and the great thing is, you get to be in charge of your happiness. No one else. Your bottle, your bubbles!
Next topic for claiming—when is the right time? What about NOW! Stop looking for happiness somewhere out in the future. Do any of these thoughts ever come into your head: I’ll be happy when I retire. I’ll be happy when it’s summer vacation. I’ll be happy when I get a new job, a new house or
apartment, a new something I don’t have right now. Did you know there is a new injury phenomena: people walk into things while texting and reading their phone and get hurt. They step into traffic, they run into walls or light poles or fall off of curbs. Or they knock other people down and hurt others. The
injuries we know about have tripled in the past several years. We don’t know how many avoid the ER or lie about the accident because they are too
embarrassed. As funny as this may seem, it is a sad reflection of the isolation we are experiencing as individuals and as a society. When we focus our
attention into the distance, we don’t see what is in front of us. When we are distracted, we are not present to the happiness right here, right now, waiting for us to claim it.
How do we claim our happiness now? Well first, we have to become present to what is here now. We have to put away the distractions for a time. That
means creating a space, even a tiny space every day, in which there is no phone, no computer, no television, no games, no books—nothing to distract you from what is present. Who is present? Is this a dinner time, which many families use as their distraction free time to be present? What do you notice around you and in you that is a source of gratitude, joy and contentment? Does anyone have a phone in their hands right now? Put it down. Right now, look around the room. Breathe. Think about all that you are and that you have right now. Are you experiencing a sense of peace, joy and contentment right now? Being happy right now doesn’t mean we don’t have goals we work towards or desires for change or events out in the future we look forward to. It just means we have not put all our happiness out there in the future. How does it feel to pause long enough to be happy right now?
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One of the concepts you find missing in Unity that you hear more about in traditional Christian churches is the happiness of heaven in the future. Specifically when you die. In Unity, we focus on the sayings of Jesus that point us to what is available right now. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” Heaven and happiness is not in the sky but within us. “The kingdom of God is within.” It is not conditioned on work but on awareness. That, for me, is part of the lesson of the sisters Mary and Martha. Jesus has come for a visit and Martha is working away while Mary sits quietly at the feet of Jesus. Mary is happy in the moment and Martha, well, I’m not sure when she will find time for happiness. The peace and joy of happiness aren’t pushed out into the future after we earn it. We just have to sit quietly and become aware of happiness.
So the fourth concept in claiming happiness is another way we put our happiness out into the future: we believe happiness is just for special occasions. While I understand it is just a marketing phrase, there is deep wisdom in this Hallmark bag: LIFE is a special occasion! Instead of saving our bubbles for birthdays and New Year’s Eve, what if we gave ourselves
permission to get our bottle of bubbles out every day. “But then they’re not special” our traditional logic says. Seriously? Some things just carry a sense of special and happy for us, no matter how often we experience them. But we withhold them from ourselves, saying we are keeping them for special
occasions. We love the beach but we would never think of living there—it’s just for vacation. How happy would it make you to live where you could go to the beach every day? I have a friend who was a lawyer in Kansas City. She was an excellent lawyer. Sometime after I left law, she left. She loved the mountains. She became an EMT and moved to the Rockies where she worked with mountain rescue and a small town clinic. She is very happy living in Colorado now. It’s not just a vacation spot anymore. When I was young and single and didn’t spend all my money on kids, I bought four place settings of a beautiful black, Mikasa china. There is a delicate pink lily design on black, sculpted dishes. I put them away when the kids came because the Correlle ware that you can drop and not break was a lot more serviceable. The Mikasa was in a box we moved here but I still had the mentality of keeping it for
special occasions. One day this past winter I climbed up into the attic and unpacked the dishes. I was reflecting on how much I enjoyed the dishes and just wondering why they were in the attic. When was I going to use them? I love morning tea in the sweet little cups and the plates definitely made dinner feel more like a special occasion during our long winter.
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The song Tim McGraw wrote for his father, who died of ALS at the age of 59, is not so much about dying as it is about living. Live Like You Are Dying is
about not saving our love, our laughter, our celebrations for special occasions. It is about living each day as a special occasion. It is about “loving deeper and speaking sweeter and giving forgiveness you’ve been denying.” In the past year or so I have lost two people who were friends. Good friends. One a lifetime friend. One a little older, one much younger. Maybe they nudged me this winter to get out the black dishes. I don’t want a diagnosis that tells me my time is limited to spur me to celebrate the splendor in an ordinary day. I want to call friends when I think of it, not waiting for a birthday or holiday. I want to send gifts when I find something special that reminds me of someone. I want to sit in happiness counting fireflies on a cool summer evening. I want to light candles and use the good silver and play music loud and drink from the cut-glass crystal and savor a meal on an ordinary Thursday or Monday or whenever. The experience of happiness is what makes LIFE a special
occasion.
Happiness is being our Spirit selves with abandon and experiencing the
freedom of knowing circumstances don’t define us. Happiness is claiming the power to grab a bottle of soap and blow our own bubbles. It is not giving our power away to someone else or postponing our good or distracting ourselves from noticing the good in our lives right this minute.
I wonder if anyone is thinking right now, “Reverend Joy gave us ducks and turtles in June. Why didn’t she give us a bottle of bubbles today?” Why?! Why you say! I want you to be responsible for your own happiness. I am not responsible for your bubbles or your happiness. You have the power! Claim happiness for the rest of today, the rest of the week, until you fall asleep in consciousness or until you choose something else. Be Happy.
By the way, the flowers in front of the altar are in celebration of 60 years of Life. My life. A life of ordinary and extraordinary days. A life of choosing to be happy, giving my power away and taking it back, falling asleep and
awakening, choosing to be sad and choosing to be happy. A life of thorns and beauty, seasons of blooms and barrenness, roots and roses. I am grateful to be here, to be happy and to be celebrating life. Thanks for being here with me.
