Happiness: The Old Path
by Ken Wilson

Has this happened to you lately? In a brief exchange with a stranger you say, "How are you doing?" Person smiles, pleased that you asked, and says, "I'm blessed today" or "I'm having a blessed day."

Get impression: they've known their share of trouble and their word choice, "blessed," means, "I'm finding my way through to some happiness; it's tasting the sweeter for my troubles"

"Blessed" is an older word for happiness that belies an older path to happiness, older than the latest means, which also have their merit.

Well before Wellbutrin and modern psychology, there was a stream of ancient wisdom concerning happiness.

All truth is God's truth, so we don’t want to throw out any truth about happiness whether it's to do with medicine or psychology…but there
there must be something of deep value in that older wisdom.

Old wisdom deserves a little respect. Happiness didn't come easy… only arrived, if it did, forged in fire….

If there were 2 books titled, How to Be Happy; one by Victor Frankl, holocaust survivor; another by Paris Hilton, and you can only buy one, and it's your only hope for happiness, which one do you buy?

Thought so. Series, Happiness: The Old Wisdom. What better place to begin than Wisdom literature of Bible, book of Psalms, which begins as you might guess with Psalm 1, whose first word is Happy.

We'll cover Psalm 1 over two weeks….today:

Happy the man who has not walked in the wicked's counsel,
nor in the way of offenders has stood,
nor in the session of scoffers has sat.
But the Lord's teaching is his desire,
and his teaching he murmurs day and night.

(Psalm 1: 1-2, translation by Robert Alter)

Happy the man who: a fitting opening, because happiness seems to be a uniquely human concern, possibility, frustration.
We strive for something beyond mere pleasure--a full stomach, the the absence of discomfort: we long for happiness.

Function of our complexity. Most complex unit in known universe located between ears. 100 billion neurons. Trillions of connections.

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it… we would be so simple that we couldn't." Emerson Pugh

Happy the worm who…has enough moisture. Happy the dog who… has a belly rub. Happy the man who…that's another thing altogether

Happy the man who has not walked in the wicked's counsel,
nor in the way of offenders has stood,
nor in the session of scoffers has sat.

The old wisdom doesn't flinch at the need for negation in order to be happy. Happiness isn't just a happy-clappy upbeat thing.

To have a shot at real happiness, you have to renounce some paths that don't deliver the real deal. Talking to a young man, 19, living on the streets. Just out of the foster-care system. Facing every possible disadvantage a young man could face except himself: his health, his heart, his wits, his made-in-the-image-of-God self.

I realized I was a missing link for this young man. A person of influence at a critical juncture in his life. We sat down and I said, "You can make it, I know you can, but….in order to make it, you have to stay away from alcohol, from illegal drugs, and from anyone--anyone--who just by your hanging out with them, increases your chances of landing in jail.

Fact is, there are several paths that are a fast-track to nowhere. You can slip onto one of these paths as easy as a bare foot into a warm slipper on a cold morning. Slip me on for size! Walk my way! To have any shot at happiness, you need to say GET BEHIND ME!

"in the wicked's counsel: in Bible the wicked are people of power & influence using their power & influence to gain more power & influence over others, no matter the cost.

The powerful wicked beat a path, however, that many others walk down…

So you're not one of these power brokers the Bible refers to as wicked. You're just a normal joe. But you're walking in the wicked's counsel. The counsel of the wicked resonating in your ear.

It's as if the wicked have attached a computer virus to your mapquest software, so the directions you print out are leading you somewhere you don't really want to go. Somewhere that is really nowhere.

"the way of offenders: those who cross lines that shouldn't be crossed. Don't respect boundaries. How do you feel when someone doesn't respect your boundaries? Offended! There are those who don't care about your boundaries or God's. Offenders.

The offenders make a way, however, that many others then follow….

"the session of scoffers": people whose joy in life is deriding others, pointing out what bozos they are, criticizing, carping, heaping contempt on others. The talking heads on cable TV, for example.

The scoffers are in session all around us, and its easy to take a seat among them….

See, the old wisdom understands that all this foot-traffic on all these paths creates a kind of momentum that can sweep us all in… like a few kids in a pool, all going in the same circular motion can create a powerful current that knocks them and everyone else off their feet…

Could we make it concrete? If you're a married man, say a married man with children, you need to know that in our particular stretch of the human landscape, there is a path, a well worn path....

You know: things are stale at home. Not getting what you need to thrive at home. And there's this other someone who makes you feel like a new man. Who takes an interest in what interests you.

"Just go ahead, it's your time. What could be wrong with something that feels so right?" says your brain stem to your cortex along a well worn neural pathway.

No-fault divorce, that's what we've agreed to. It's got its advantages, especially when divorce is necessary for your sake and the kids.

But that no-fault divorce path, is part of a no-fault divorce culture, and let's not be Pollyanna about it, powerful vested interests--real, economic interests--are served by quick-draw divorce.

A thriving real estate market depends on it: divorcing couples sell their home to split their assets and lots of people get a slice of that pie. Each goes out to get a new place, buy new stuff at Ikea, and the economy is happy even if the kids aren't.

It's not like you have realtors, bankers, lawyers, rejoicing in divorce.
But somewhere in the system, powers & principalities of wickedness in high places are rejoicing.

That's worth being aware of. The Old wisdom catches some things the new wisdom misses.

Hear me again: there are times when divorce is necessary. But we all know married people who are right now putting their marriage at risk and not taking steps to preserve what is worth saving. (Maybe your spouse has been sounding an alarm, and you're just ignoring it. You've tried counseling once and the counselor hit a tender spot, and now you say, no more counseling--let's just see how this plays out!)

Are you aware there's a current you don't control? A momentum you do not generate, which may be pulling you, unwittingly, along?

Are you aware, trolling the internet for a little relaxation, there are vested interests--powerful economic interests--people who are happy to line their pockets no the matter toll on the likes of you?

Are you aware of software companies working hard to make their video games more addicting, knowing some people with certain vulnerabilities, will get hooked, and this will help their stock price?

Are you aware that historians of the Internet say it wouldn't have been viable as a network without the pornographers generating the traffic…there are powerful interests forging powerful paths online.

Or let's move to the global scale. We're burning through fossils fuels at a rate that's not sustainable. Every presidential candidate regardless of party says it's not sustainable and it's harmful.

Are we aware?…there are powerful interests, powerfully vested in continuing the burn rate unabated?

The old wisdom understands. Happy the man who somewhere along the line works up nerve to say, I'm not taking certain paths, I'm not going down certain routes, whatever pleasures may attend, whatever short-term relief may be offered--I'm not drinking the Kool Aid!

This is one of the great contributions of the old wisdom when it comes to happiness: The old wisdom understands the cost.

Happy the man who has not walked in the wicked's counsel,
nor in the way of offenders has stood,
nor in the session of scoffers has sat.

Happiness depends, paradoxically, on a willingness to be lonely for a time…because there's company on those crowded paths….and we all need company. Every gain comes at the cost of some loss.

The old wisdom catches some things the new wisdom misses.
Like the central role of desire in the life of the Spirit.

But the Lord's teaching is his desire,
and his teaching he murmurs day and night.

Desire. Did you catch that?.
Negation (refusing to follow the crowd) without desire is not sustainable is it? It's what has given religion a bad name!

Desire. Just because this is in the Bible, doesn't mean we're supposed to put some pious spin on this term. Desire.

I know people don't like their pastors to talk like this, but the text is driving me to it. I didn't have a lot of girl friends back in the day. I know this may be hard to believe, but I was not a player back in the day. I held the hand of one girl, Patty Brown.
I kissed Karen Drinkwater good-night, maybe Alice Fujioka too, on the porch. (Different nights. Different porches.) But then I started hanging out with Nancy Rozell.

And there I am, a nerdy-athletic skinny guy, class cut up, smart, with a posterior spin, if you catch my drift, with a real live girlfriend. Like woah, a serious girlfriend. And then one time, something came out of my mouth that shocked me: I want you.

I'm thinkin' to myself, man this sounds like a rock and roll song!
And I play the clarinet!

I'm thinking to myself, this is something off the white album!
This is John Lennon, willing to ruin Beatles over a woman, Yoko Ono.
I want you. I want you so bad.

Enough about me. What about you? Did you ever want something?
I mean real bad? So that even if you were in the greatest rock band of all time, the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time, you would be willing to upset that applecart to get what you wanted?

The happy woman, the happy man? The Lord's teaching is his desire.

O come on! you say. Two different universes of meaning. John Lennon wanting Yoko Ono so bad he's willing to risk the Beatles, and the desire a person might have for "the Lord's teaching…."

We hear a phrase, "the Lord's teaching" and it feels like we're walking down the aisles of Hallmark store, and we get to the religious card section and we say to ourselves, "Thank God I'm not the kind of person who buys cards from this section of the Hallmark store!"

The Lord's teaching, to the psalmist, didn't feel like that. The Lord's teaching meant the whole mysterious reality of a God revealing himself and his way to us.

When the psalmists speak of the Lord's teaching, they don't wrap it in the language an obsessive-compulsive introspection. They wrap it in the language of desire. Because that's what they felt.

To the psalmist, it's natural to move from wonder at the night sky in psalm 19--"the heavens declare the glory of God, day to day pours forth speech, night to night declares knowledge, there is no speech there no words, yet his voice goes out through all the earth"--like the pantings of a Carl Sagan at the stars…..to go from that to something like this: "the Lord's teaching is perfect….more desired than gold, and sweeter than honey, quintessence of bees!"

Those two things are together in his universe!
"the Lord's teaching is his desire"

Oh no, he's not talking about the feeling you get when your great aunt sends you a drippy religious card for your birthday…He's talking about God here. He's talking about the fire burning in the fireplace of all being, here, that's what he's talking about.

You know what?

God, for all our attempts to tame him, can unleash himself on you so that you desire, you crave, you want whatever it is he's passing out….

YOU WANT THE MYSTERIOUS REVELATION OF GOD WILLING TO
MAKE HIMSELF AND HIS WAYS KNOWN….

Learning to notice that desire when it's just a seed in you,
making room for that desire when it wants to hold sway over you,
honoring and trusting that desire, so that it stays with you,

that too is part of the old wisdom that leads to happiness.

The old wisdom catches what new wisdom sometimes misses.
So we are wise to pay it some mind…

Enough for now. Next week, we finish the psalm.