Unconditional Happiness

When I saw in my inbox the subject of The Edition was about what makes people happy, my first thought was, what does it matter? A little naive, I admit. A random search proved what you’d probably guess, perhaps faster than me, that this concept, like everything else, has been weighed, measured, inspected, tested, and reported on the world over, many times, and since forever.

Even though I maintain my own little corner-of-happiness collections in the form of music, poetry, writings, video, and pictures, I confess I was still a little perplexed as to why there would be such universal interest in dissecting the matter. Which, as they say is, “how they getcha…” :) So, once Adrienne Samuels Gibbs’ article started the wheels of ponderance turning on the topic, I guess I felt obliged to join in.

Per Adrienne Gibbs’ article, in the 1930s, happiness meant security, knowledge, and religion. You have to wonder though if, in the modern-day rearview mirror, either their or our own interpretations of what even that meant would be the same today.

My family is blessed to have benefitted from my paternal grandmother leaving behind a few hand-penned autobiographical booklets to help us preserve our family history, and also fill in some of those rich, fuller-picture details that might help us understand what it was like for her and loved ones during their lifetimes.

There were two pervasive themes throughout her accounts and reflections: hardship and happiness. In her stories though, they weren’t mutually exclusive. How about that for paradoxical?

Are happiness and hardship opposite ends of the same stick? The Cantril Ladder depicts happiness on more of a spectrum or scale, as though it is more of an either / or state of being. But is it?

I fully believe my grandparents’ life experience was very hard, but also very happy, but not only because she writes it as so. I, personally, have experienced this paradox throughout my life many times — when my much-anticipated, healthy son came into the world through a trauma-packed emergency c-section; when we were able to purchase a home resulting from a settlement brought about by a driver who failed to yield to 2 (two) traffic signs causing a near-death collision, at 60mph, but leaving my beloved family unscathed — except for me, which is the only way I would’ve cared to survive it; and when my family drew closer, helping one another work through grieving, processing, and materially handling the funerals and estates of 2 (two) close loved ones within months of each other, during the holidays.

Can a person suffer and be happy? Can a person be prosperous yet feel hopeless? Biblical scriptures contain some very specific insights on this topic. Here are just a very few:

James 1:2–4 — Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

1 Peter 4:12–13 — Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

Romans 5:3–5 — Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Psalm 94:19 — When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.

2 Corinthians 1:5 — For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

Even though we still try to measure everything under and also above the sun, I believe my grandmother would say, and her writings also bear out, that during her lifetime, striving for happiness might have included security, knowledge, and religion… but how it translated was much more tangible, like when in August of 1935, my grandfather’s temporary corn shucking job was done and grandma and grandpa had no idea what they would do for income next.

They were able to find a place to live when the previous occupants of a home moved into another house prepared for them by the man’s boss. But my grandparents moved in with nothing but one old, homemade chair. My grandfather borrowed the homeowner’s truck and was able to borrow a bed, a little porcelain-topped table, and an oil stove from the family’s sister. They were also kind enough to take them to town where they bought dishes, silverware, cooking pans, and towels — just a modest few items, but enough to get by.

As it got colder, they had no heating so my grandmother walked to a little nearby town, three miles each way, to purchase a 5-cent gallon of oil for the stove. By November though, available work had dried up and they found themselves in the same predicament.

This was, of course, during The Great Depression, but it was also a time when people still cared about and helped each other. Not having a car of their own, my grandmother’s sister and her husband hired a truck and came and got them. My grandfather was offered a job by his brother-in-law’s boss, but wouldn’t be able to start until March. In the meantime, they depended on friends or my grandfather’s future boss for transportation to get groceries.

Even so, my grandmother writes about such happy times during that winter, like when young people from the church came that Christmas morning in a sleigh with bells ringing, right before dawn. They sang carols, and brought a basket full of food, including a chicken for Christmas dinner.

The employer allowed my grandparents to go ahead and move into his hired man’s house first of January, moved them using his own truck, advanced them money for groceries, and took them to sales where they could buy furniture of their own. The man’s wife brought along curtains and helped my grandmother hang them. “You just don’t forget people like them,” my grandmother writes.

At one of the darkest moments in their lives, and indeed, in the history of the country, I do believe my grandparents would still say they were very happy, even in spite of what they lacked. But, I don’t get the sense from my grandmother’s writings that they were, either, crying over spilt milk, or trying to make lemonade out of lemons. I believe they knew, whether they had abundance, or nothing at all, in either case, it was okay. At times they were very blessed and able to be generous. But in everything, I believe they were grateful and “made do” with what they did or didn’t have.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” — Matthew 19:26 NIV

Sometimes, what we think will make us happy only has surface significance when what we really need is much richer and greater than what we can even imagine for ourselves.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” — Ephesians 2:8–9 KJV.