Parallel Conversations

 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"

 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

- Numbers 21:4-9

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Have you ever had a "parallel" conversation with someone?  There might be a more official term for it, but what I mean are those conversations where you say something to someone, and instead of responding to what you've said they reply by saying something that does not have much to do with what you've said.  Hence, the parallel nature of the "conversation," which basically includes two people talking at each other, but not with each other, never having their thoughts or words actually connect.

I hate to use another video clip to illustrate my point, but I will:



Well, in the passage above I saw something like this going on.  The Israelites pleaded with Moses to ask God to "take the snakes away from us."  So, you'd expect God to answer Moses by either saying "yes" or "no," right?  He doesn't.

Instead, he replies by telling Moses to put a bronze snake up on a pole so that anyone who is bitten can look up at it and be saved.

God does not comply or deny the request (although I guess it can be interpreted as an implicit denial), and seems to almost ignore the plea to take the snakes away.  At first glance, it appears that God is acting like a parallel converser.  But that is not the case.  His response is sufficient and resounds so much louder than a simple answer would have.  Not only does it point to the ultimate "bronze snake" to come, but it speaks to the issue of suffering.

Suffering is one of the common denominators in this life.  Every single human being on the face of this earth is familiar with it in some form.  Still, this does nothing to soothe us in our times of pain, sorrow, and anguish; for some, this knowledge can actually magnify the despair.

Whenever we enter a time of suffering our first response is to ask God to take the source of it away.  (I think the source of our times of suffering is very distinct from the suffering itself.  It is far more common to have suffering flee from us for seasons, but the sources of our suffering may very well linger for our entire lives on this planet.)  That is expected, and even good since it shows our trust in and reliance upon God as our Almighty Father, whose arm is neither weak nor short.

But I think I can confidently say that many, if not all of us have had venomous snakes that were not taken away from us, no matter how often, how earnestly, or how fervently we asked for their removal.  Why is this?  That is the billion dollar question, and though there are so many ways to approach the question of suffering (its allowance, its presence, its lingering, and everywhere in between) it seems that the most sure and true response is: no one knows.  Though it's unsatisfying and even haunting, it's the answer that we are left with in Job, the Bible's very own book of suffering.

So, what's the proper focus and response to our times of suffering?  It seems wise to begin at a place where Paul sheds some light: "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."" (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

Though it's good for us to respond honestly before the Lord, asking him to take the source of our suffering away, it is unwise and unfruitful to stop there.  We must go beyond and even accept the holy fact that God may never take that thorn away, though he does provide a way out.

Our Lord's grace is always available to us.  Though maybe not as tangible, it is infinitely more accessible than the bronze snake Moses elevated on that pole.  Our Savior raised up on a wooden cross is all we need in our times of suffering.

Jesus suffered the deepest pain on the cross.  The Son of God himself cried out and received no response so that we would never have to be ignored whenever we cry out in our times of need.  He was separated from God to ensure our eternal union with him.  He took the venom and had nowhere to look for salvation so that he could become salvation for us.

God will accomplish his mysterious purposes through our times of suffering.  In the meantime, let's not waste so many of our thoughts, so much of our breath, and so many tears pleading with God to remove our thorns and snakes.  When we do, we forget the fact that we have someone to look to in order to be saved from death.  That's the important thing: we will live.

His seemingly illogical, and even cruel answers are meant to improve our perspective and draw us nearer to him, the one our hearts desire and seek.  That alone should be reason for thanks.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13

Before they call I will answer;
       while they are still speaking I will hear.
  - Isaiah 65:24

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God’s Silence— Then What?
by Oswald Chambers

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When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was — John 11:6

Has God trusted you with His silence— a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible— with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him— He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God’s sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).

A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that His stillness is contagious— it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy— silence.

Smart British Guys...

...or do they just sound smart because of their accents?

Find out for yourself, and watch something edifying while you're at it.

Go on.

I dare you.


Charlie Rose - A conversation with Timothy Garton Ash, Alistair Horne and John Burns.

Arirang

In honor of the Oscars...

Numbers 18:29

'You must present as the LORD's portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you.'

Superman

Untitled from Jason on Vimeo.

Unbelievable.

I could write an entire entry on that dunk alone, but I'll restrain myself from doing so.  Seriously, the thinnest shred of decency and sanity is all that is separating me from bursting with absolute man-love for Dwight Howard right here and now.  Yes, I said it, because it's true.  The dude is a stud...a straight up hoss.

Whew...

But I'll get straight to my point.

What was the best part of that incredibly entertaining display of ridiculous physical prowess (by a mere 22 year-old, mind you)?  I guess the easy and obvious answer is the actual dunk itself, but I'd like to contend that the best part of Mr. Howard's dunk was what he did beforehand...namely, the removal of his jersey as he revealed the awesomeness underneath, and the donning of the cape.

The reaction from the crowd, the giddy anticipation of what was to come, the set up of something unique and special...it was all in the steps leading up the the dunk.  The dunk was just the fulfillment of all that preceded it.

Now, I'm probably straining the logic here in order to make my point, which is this:  If a crowd can get so amped up just to watch some insanely gifted freak of nature put a ball through a hoop, no matter how creatively he does it...how much more must God and all his angels be ablaze with impatient, feverish, drooling anticipation for his saints to finally be revealed?  Not only them, but all of creation as well?

There will come a day when our external shells will finally fall off, and when all of our naked beauty or ugliness, our true likenesses will be revealed.  For Christians, that day will be the elated fulfillment of what has been anticipated since the beginning, when God had already foreseen it all.  We'll get our capes then, and the rest is gravy.

The wonderful thing about this is that God allows us to taste this even now.  We are always riding carousels that take us to moments where we "have taken off" our "old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:9-10).  Christians must always be in the business of taking off their jerseys, revealing their Superman outfits, and donning their capes.  They must always be unveiling their true identities, acting like who they really are, and doing things that make this dunk look like child's play.  The actual dunk, the imminent consummation and ultimate reveal may still be far off, but that shouldn't matter.  What precedes it is where we are right now, the best time and place until then, and there is much to be done still...with big smiles on our faces because we know...



"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed." - Romans 8:18-19 (emphasis added)

Cast Away

Chuck Noland: We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and...knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had...lost her. ‘Cause I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So...I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I…I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing. And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass. And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

To all the quixotic, amatory saps out there...

Happy Valentine's Day. May you find true evol.

I am Bitter; Come On!; I am Boring; Test Your Ignorance; Jason = Genius

Well, foolish me, I didn't check my work email inbox this morning. After all, the roads weren't that bad, right? Imagine my delight when I sat down at my desk after hydroplaning for 35 minutes and saw this email from my manager:

Unless you live very close by, I'd suggest sitting this one out.

My reaction was something like...



All in all, my morning as a whole was something like...



I'm expressing my bitterness by using company time to make this pointless entry.

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By the way, the above clips are from a little show called Arrested Development. It is easily my favorite TV show right now, and definitely in my top three of all time. It's simply excellent in every way. Though I'm a bit late, I'm incredibly angry that it was cancelled. Still, I'm girl-giddy at the growing possibility of a movie.

You can watch the complete first and second seasons, and almost all of the third season here (better viewed in Internet Explorer...it's MSN, what do you expect?). (A lot of it is available at Hulu.com as well. Hulu is great.)

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I created a Twitter account last night and was about to actually use it, when I realized that I lead an incredibly vapid life. I don't need a neat little social networking site to remind me of that.

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Here's a fun litmus test for your ignorance:

presented by TravelPod, the World's Original Travel Blog

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No, the Jason I referred to in the title of this entry is not me. I'm referring to Jason Wade of Lifehouse. I've said it multiple times, but I'll say it again: the man is a primo lyricist. Seriously, the guy can write.

The first line of "Whatever It Takes" gave me goosebumps:

A strangled smile fell from your face

Come on! Can that imagery be expressed any better?

This verse from "Storm" (great, great song) also smote me:

I know you didn’t bring me out here to drown So why am I ten feet under and upside down Barely surviving has become my purpose Because I’m so used to living underneath the surface

Their most recent album, Who We Are, is pretty good. Take a listen.

And, by the way, "The Joke," which is up at the top of this page, is from the album and has a very interesting background:

Known for his brooding lyrics of teenage angst resulting from his parents’ divorce and his own poor relationship with his father, Wade explores more diverse songwriting topics this time around, putting himself into other characters in songs like “The Joke,” with its syncopated world beat, inspired by a newspaper article detailing the story of a British boy who hung himself after being bullied by schoolmates. Jason puts himself into the subject’s shoes, with lyrics that could be right out of a suicide note: “When you find me in the morning/Hanging on a warning.”

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Back to work...

Ratatouille

Anton Ego: I don't like food, I love it. If I don't love it, I don't swallow.

Now, that's how you love food.

It strikes me that though I want to say that I love the Bible, I'm not sure that I always "swallow" its words, which leads me to believe that my actions (or lack thereof) evince a mere liking, a shallow reverence of God's Word, and not a love for it.  If I don't consume those words, I suppose that I spit them out.

Still, I want to love it, even as extremely and honestly as Mr. Ego loves his food.

For I know that all real, earnest, unabashed wrestling with each and every word in that book must eventually lead to moments like this:



'Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.' - C.S. Lewis

Woven and Then Spun

She had been gazing at the lovely lamp for some minutes fixedly: turning her eyes, she found the wall had vanished, for she was looking out on the dark cloudy night. But though she heard the wind blowing, none of it blew upon her. In a moment more the clouds themselves parted, or rather vanished like the wall, and she looked straight into the starry herds, flashing gloriously in the dark blue. It was but for a moment. The clouds gathered again and shut out the stars; the wall gathered again and shut out the clouds; and there stood the lady beside her with the loveliest smile on her face, and a shimmering ball in her hand, about the size of a pigeon's egg.

'There, Irene; there is my work for you!' she said, holding out the ball to the princess.

She took it in her hand, and looked at it all over. It sparkled a little, and shone here and there, but not much. It was of a sort of grey-whiteness, something like spun glass.

'Is this all your spinning, grandmother?' she asked.

'All since you came to the house. There is more there than you think.'

'How pretty it is! What am I to do with it, please?'

'That I will now explain to you,' answered the lady, turning from her and going to her cabinet. She came back with a small ring in her hand. Then she took the ball from Irene's, and did something with the ring - Irene could not tell what.

'Give me your hand,' she said. Irene held up her right hand.

'Yes, that is the hand I want,' said the lady, and put the ring on the forefinger of it.

'What a beautiful ring!' said Irene. 'What is the stone called?'

'It is a fire-opal.' 'Please, am I to keep it?'

'Always.' 'Oh, thank you, grandmother! It's prettier than anything I ever saw, except those - of all colours-in your - Please, is that your crown?'

'Yes, it is my crown. The stone in your ring is of the same sort - only not so good. It has only red, but mine have all colours, you see.'

'Yes, grandmother. I will take such care of it! But -' she added, hesitating.

'But what?' asked her grandmother.

'What am I to say when Lootie asks me where I got it?'

'You will ask her where you got it,' answered the lady smiling.

'I don't see how I can do that.'

'You will, though.'
   
'Of course I will, if you say so. But, you know, I can't pretend not to know.'

'Of course not. But don't trouble yourself about it. You will see when the time comes.'

So saying, the lady turned, and threw the little ball into the rose fire.

'Oh, grandmother!' exclaimed Irene; 'I thought you had spun it for me.'

'So I did, my child. And you've got it.'

'No; it's burnt in the fire!'

The lady put her hand in the fire, brought out the ball, glimmering as before, and held it towards her. Irene stretched out her hand to take it, but the lady turned and, going to her cabinet, opened a drawer, and laid the ball in it.

'Have I done anything to vex you, grandmother?' said Irene pitifully.

'No, my darling. But you must understand that no one ever gives anything to another properly and really without keeping it. That ball is yours.'

'Oh! I'm not to take it with me! You are going to keep it for me!'

'You are to take it with you. I've fastened the end of it to the ring on your finger.'

Irene looked at the ring.

'I can't see it there, grandmother,' she said.

'Feel - a little way from the ring - towards the cabinet,' said the lady.

'Oh! I do feel it!' exclaimed the princess. 'But I can't see it,' she added, looking close to her outstretched hand.

'No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it. Now you can fancy how much spinning that took, although it does seem such a little ball.'

'But what use can I make of it, if it lies in your cabinet?'

'That is what I will explain to you. It would be of no use to you - it wouldn't be yours at all if it did not lie in my cabinet. Now listen. If ever you find yourself in any danger - such, for example, as you were in this same evening - you must take off your ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay your finger, the same that wore the ring, upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you.'

'Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!'

'Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.'

'It is very wonderful!' said Irene thoughtfully. Then suddenly becoming aware, she jumped up, crying:

'Oh, grandmother! here have I been sitting all this time in your chair, and you standing! I beg your pardon.'

The lady laid her hand on her shoulder, and said:

'Sit down again, Irene. Nothing pleases me better than to see anyone sit in my chair. I am only too glad to stand so long as anyone will sit in it.'
   
'How kind of you!' said the princess, and sat down again.

'It makes me happy,' said the lady.

'But,' said Irene, still puzzled, 'won't the thread get in somebody's way and be broken, if the one end is fast to my ring, and the other laid in your cabinet?'

'You will find all that arrange itself. I am afraid it is time for you to go.'

'Mightn't I stay and sleep with you tonight, grandmother?' 'No, not tonight. If I had meant you to stay tonight, I should have given you a bath; but you know everybody in the house is miserable about you, and it would be cruel to keep them so all night. You must go downstairs.'

'I'm so glad, grandmother, you didn't say "Go home," for this is my home. Mayn't I call this my home?'

'You may, my child. And I trust you will always think it your home. Now come. I must take you back without anyone seeing you.'

'Please, I want to ask you one question more,' said Irene. 'Is it because you have your crown on that you look so young?'

'No, child,' answered her grandmother; 'it is because I felt so young this evening that I put my crown on. And I thought you would like to see your old grandmother in her best.'

'Why do you call yourself old? You're not old, grandmother.'

'I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people - I don't mean you, for you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better - but it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs. I am older than you are able to think, and -'

'And look at you, grandmother!' cried Irene, jumping up and flinging her arms about her neck. 'I won't be so silly again, I promise you. At least - I'm rather afraid to promise - but if I am, I promise to be sorry for it - I do. I wish I were as old as you, grandmother. I don't think you are ever afraid of anything.'

'Not for long, at least, my child. Perhaps by the time I am two thousand years of age, I shall, indeed, never be afraid of anything. But I confess I have sometimes been afraid about my children - sometimes about you, Irene.'

'Oh, I'm so sorry, grandmother! Tonight, I suppose, you mean.'

'Yes - a little tonight; but a good deal when you had all but made up your mind that I was a dream, and no real great-great-grandmother. You must not suppose I am blaming you for that. I dare say you could not help it.'

'I don't know, grandmother,' said the princess, beginning to cry. 'I can't always do myself as I should like. And I don't always try. I'm very sorry anyhow.'   

The lady stooped, lifted her in her arms, and sat down with her in her chair, holding her close to her bosom. In a few minutes the princess had sobbed herself to sleep. How long she slept I do not know. When she came to herself she was sitting in her own high chair at the nursery table, with her doll's house before her.

Happiness: Enough Already

The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.

By Sharon Begley

NEWSWEEK

Updated: 1:10 PM ET Feb 2, 2008

The plural of anecdote is not data, as scientists will tell you, but consider these snapshots of the emerging happiness debate anyway: Lately, Jerome Wakefield's students have been coming up to him after they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and not because they want him to recommend a therapist. Wakefield, a professor at New York University, coauthored the 2007 book "The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder," which argues that feeling down after your heart is broken—even so down that you meet the criteria for clinical depression— is normal and even salutary. But students tell him that their parents are pressuring them to seek counseling and other medical intervention—"some Zoloft, dear?"—for their sadness, and the kids want no part of it. "Can you talk to them for me?" they ask Wakefield. Rather than "listening to Prozac," they want to listen to their hearts, not have them chemically silenced.

University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener, who has studied happiness for a quarter century, was in Scotland recently, explaining to members of Parliament and business leaders the value of augmenting traditional measures of a country's wealth with a national index of happiness. Such an index would measure policies known to increase people's sense of well-being, such as democratic freedoms, access to health care and the rule of law. The Scots were all in favor of such things, but not because they make people happier. "They said too much happiness might not be such a good thing," says Diener. "They like being dour, and didn't appreciate being told they should be happier."

Eric Wilson tried to get with the program. Urged on by friends, he bought books on how to become happier. He made every effort to smooth out his habitual scowl and wear a sunny smile, since a happy expression can lead to genuinely happy feelings. Wilson, a professor of English at Wake Forest University, took up jogging, reputed to boost the brain's supply of joyful neurochemicals, watched uplifting Frank Capra and Doris Day flicks and began sprinkling his conversations with "great!" and "wonderful!", the better to exercise his capacity for enthusiasm. When none of these made him happy, Wilson not only jumped off the happiness bandwagon—he also embraced his melancholy side and decided to blast a happiness movement that "leads to half-lives, to bland existences," as he argues in "Against Happiness," a book now reaching stores. Americans' fixation on happiness, he writes, fosters "a craven disregard for the value of sadness" and "its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos."

It's always tricky to identify a turning point, at least in real time. Only in retrospect can you accurately pinpoint when a financial market peaked or hit bottom, for instance, or the moment when the craze for pricey coffee drinks crested. But look carefully, and what you are seeing now may be the end of the drive for ever-greater heights of happiness. Fed by hundreds of self-help books, including the current "The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want," magazine articles and an industry of life coaches and motivational speakers, the happiness movement took off in the 1990s with two legitimate developments: discoveries about the brain activity underlying well-being, and the emergence of "positive psychology," whose proponents urged fellow researchers to study happiness as seriously as they did pathological states such as depression. But when the science of happiness collided with pop culture and the marketplace, it morphed into something even its creators hardly recognized. There emerged "a crowd of people out there who want you to be happier," write Ed Diener and his son, Robert Biswas-Diener, in their book, "Rethinking Happiness," due for publication later this year. Somewhere out there a pharmaceutical company "is working on a new drug to make you happier," they warn. "There are even people who would like to give you special ozone enemas to make you happier." Although some 85 percent of Americans say they're pretty happy, the happiness industry sends the insistent message that moderate levels of well-being aren't enough: not only can we all be happier, but we practically have a duty to be so. What was once considered normal sadness is something to be smothered, even shunned.

The backlash against the happiness rat race comes just when scientists are releasing the most-extensive-ever study comparing moderate and extreme levels of happiness, and finding that being happier is not always better. In surveys of 118,519 people from 96 countries, scientists examined how various levels of subjective well-being matched up with income, education, political participation, volunteer activities and close relationships. They also analyzed how different levels of happiness, as reported by college students, correlated with various outcomes. Even allowing for imprecision in people's self-reported sense of well-being, the results were unambiguous. The highest levels of happiness go along with the most stable, longest and most contented relationships. That is, even a little discontent with your partner can nudge you to look around for someone better, until you are at best a serial monogamist and at worst never in a loving, stable relationship. "But if you have positive illusions about your partner, which goes along with the highest levels of happiness, you're more likely to commit to an intimate relationship," says Diener.

In contrast, "once a moderate level of happiness is achieved, further increases can sometimes be detrimental" to income, career success, education and political participation, Diener and colleagues write in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is extremely happy, 8s were more successful than 9s and 10s, getting more education and earning more. That probably reflects the fact that people who are somewhat discontent, but not so depressed as to be paralyzed, are more motivated to improve both their own lot (thus driving themselves to acquire more education and seek ever-more-challenging jobs) and the lot of their community (causing them to participate more in civic and political life). In contrast, people at the top of the jolliness charts feel no such urgency. "If you're totally satisfied with your life and with how things are going in the world," says Diener, "you don't feel very motivated to work for change. Be wary when people tell you you should be happier."

The drawbacks of constant, extreme happiness should not be surprising, since negative emotions evolved for a reason. Fear tips us off to the presence of danger, for instance. Sadness, too, seems to be part of our biological inheritance: apes, dogs and elephants all display something that looks like sadness, perhaps because it signals to others a need for help. One hint that too much euphoria can be detrimental comes from studies finding that among people with late-stage illnesses, those with the greatest sense of well-being were more likely to die in any given period of time than the mildly content were. Being "up" all the time can cause you to play down very real threats.

Eric Wilson needs no convincing that sadness has a purpose. In his "Against Happiness," he trots out criticisms of the mindless pursuit of contentment that philosophers and artists have raised throughout history—including that, as Flaubert said, to be chronically happy one must also be stupid. Less snarkily, Wilson argues that only by experiencing sadness can we experience the fullness of the human condition. While careful not to extol depression—which is marked not only by chronic sadness but also by apathy, lethargy and an increased risk of suicide—he praises melancholia for generating "a turbulence of heart that results in an active questioning of the status quo, a perpetual longing to create new ways of being and seeing." This is not romantic claptrap. Studies show that when you are in a negative mood, says Diener, "you become more analytical, more critical and more innovative. You need negative emotions, including sadness, to direct your thinking." Abraham Lincoln was not hobbled by his dark moods bordering on depression, and Beethoven composed his later works in a melancholic funk. Vincent van Gogh, Emily Dickinson and other artistic geniuses saw the world through a glass darkly. The creator of "Peanuts," Charles M. Schulz, was known for his gloom, while Woody Allen plumbs existential melancholia for his films, and Patti Smith and Fiona Apple do so for their music.

Wilson, who asserts that "the happy man is a hollow man," is hardly the first scholar to see melancholia as muse. A classical Greek text, possibly written by Aristotle, asks, "Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly melancholic?" Wilson's answer is that "the blues can be a catalyst for a special kind of genius, a genius for exploring dark boundaries between opposites." The ever-restless, the chronically discontent, are dissatisfied with the status quo, be it in art or literature or politics.

For all their familiarity, these arguments are nevertheless being crushed by the happiness movement. Last August, the novelist Mary Gordon lamented to The New York Times that "among writers … what is absolutely not allowable is sadness. People will do anything rather than to acknowledge that they are sad." And in a MY TURN column in NEWSWEEK last May, Jess Decourcy Hinds, an English teacher, recounted how, after her father died, friends pressed her to distract herself from her profound sadness and sense of loss. "Why don't people accept that after a parent's death, there will be years of grief?" she wrote. "Everyone wants mourners to 'snap out of it' because observing another's anguish isn't easy."

It's hard to say exactly when ordinary Americans, no less than psychiatrists, began insisting that sadness is pathological. But by the end of the millennium that attitude was well entrenched. In 1999, Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" was revived on Broadway 50 years after its premiere. A reporter asked two psychiatrists to read the script. Their diagnosis: Willy Loman was suffering from clinical depression, a pathological condition that could and should be treated with drugs. Miller was appalled. "Loman is not a depressive," he told The New York Times. "He is weighed down by life. There are social reasons for why he is where he is." What society once viewed as an appropriate reaction to failed hopes and dashed dreams, it now regards as a psychiatric illness.

That may be the most damaging legacy of the happiness industry: the message that all sadness is a disease. As NYU's Wakefield and Allan Horwitz of Rutgers University point out in "The Loss of Sadness," this message has its roots in the bible of mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Its definition of a "major depressive episode" is remarkably broad. You must experience five not-uncommon symptoms, such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating and feeling sad or empty, for two weeks; the symptoms must cause distress or impairment, and they cannot be due to the death of a loved one. Anyone meeting these criteria is supposed to be treated.

Yet by these criteria, any number of reactions to devastating events qualify as pathological. Such as? For three weeks a woman feels sad and empty, unable to generate any interest in her job or usual activities, after her lover of five years breaks off their relationship; she has little appetite, lies awake at night and cannot concentrate during the day. Or a man's only daughter is suffering from a potentially fatal blood disorder; for weeks he is consumed by despair, cannot sleep or concentrate, feels tired and uninterested in his usual activities.

Horwitz and Wakefield do not contend that the spurned lover or the tormented father should be left to suffer. Both deserve, and would likely benefit from, empathic counseling. But their symptoms "are neither abnormal nor inappropriate in light of their" situations, the authors write. The DSM definition of depression "mistakenly encompasses some normal emotional reactions," due to its failure to take into account the context or trigger for sadness.

That has consequences. When someone is appropriately sad, friends and colleagues offer support and sympathy. But by labeling appropriate sadness pathological, "we have attached a stigma to being sad," says Wakefield, "with the result that depression tends to elicit hostility and rejection" with an undercurrent of " 'Get over it; take a pill.' The normal range of human emotion is not being tolerated." And insisting that sadness requires treatment may interfere with the natural healing process. "We don't know how drugs react with normal sadness and its functions, such as reconstituting your life out of the pain," says Wakefield.

Even the psychiatrist who oversaw the current DSM expresses doubts about the medicalizing of sadness. "To be human means to naturally react with feelings of sadness to negative events in one's life," writes Robert Spitzer of the New York State Psychiatric Institute in a foreword to "The Loss of Sadness." That would be unremarkable if it didn't run completely counter to the message of the happiness brigades. It would be foolish to underestimate the power and tenacity of the happiness cheerleaders. But maybe, just maybe, the single-minded pursuit of happiness as an end in itself, rather than as a consequence of a meaningful life, has finally run its course.                 

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/107569

My Favorite Super Bowl XLII Ads

David Tyree

Approximate post-game quote on the radio:
"God does this.  He makes an ordinary guy look like Superman so that He can receive the glory."

Two Types of Beggars

I was in New York City a few weeks ago, and I noticed something about the homeless beggars there.  Essentially, there are two types of beggars: those who try to earn their keep, and those that put themselves at the mercy of those that walk past them.

If you've been to a big city, you know what I'm talking about.

This realization hit me when I was waiting inside a store, looking out the window towards the street.  After a few minutes, I saw a homeless man who held the door open for each person walking into and out of the store, looking at each beneficiary of his help for any sort of financial reciprocation.  He found no takers, and decided to move on.

I contrasted this man to a woman I walked past earlier.  She was sitting on the sidewalk, her back resting upon a building's marble wall, eyes closed, face downcast, with a thin blanket across her lap and a lone cup sitting in front of her.  Her request was clear.

The man and the woman were both looking for the same thing, but took vastly different approaches to garnering it.

By opening the door for people, the man was hoping to put them in debt to his kindness, thereby hoping to compel them to repay him with some change.

By being still and placing a cup before her (and everyone walking past her), the woman was placing herself fully at the unwarranted mercy and kindness that might spring forth from a stranger's hand.

He was trying to earn his help; she was waiting for grace.

(I am fully aware that I am reading into these peoples' motives, and might be incorrect.  For instance, the woman might not have had such innocent motives: she may have been playing the guilt card, which would just be a different form of the "earning" attitude that the man was exhibiting.)

I can't help but to see two different approaches to Christianity.  Some of us are more like the man, in that we "do good" and "obey" to put God in our debt so that he must answer our prayers, bless us, and save us.  Others of us are more like the woman, simply sitting quietly before him, placing ourselves fully at his mercy and confessing (without words, even) that we are in a wretched state, that his uncalled-for kindness is the only thing we wait for and need.

This division is not even just between people; it lies within individuals, it lies within me.

I know that I am nowhere near the first to convey this notion, but it becomes startlingly clearer to me as each day passes that it's this division in me, and not necessarily the shifting line between "old" and "new," that is my daily struggle, my main offense, the source of so much misery, because it speaks so honestly about what I really think of Jesus Christ and what was finished on Calvary.