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Morning Devotion for the Season of Epiphany

February 9, 2024

Invitatory

The earth is the Lord’s, for he made it: Come let us adore him.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Reading from Zero At the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair

Thirty years ago, watching some television report about depression and religion–I forget the relationship but apparently there was one–a friend who was entirely secular asked me with genuine curiosity and concern: “Why do they believe in something that doesn’t make them happy?” I was an ambivalent atheist at that point, beset with an inchoate loneliness and endless anxieties, contemptuous of Christianity but addicted to its aspirations and art. I was also chained fast to the rock of poetry, having my liver pecked out by the bird of a harrowing and apparently absurd ambition–and thus had some sense of what to say. One doesn’t follow God in hope of happiness but because one senses–-miserably flimsy little word for that beak in your bowels–a truth that renders ordinary contentment irrelevant. There are some hungers that only an endless commitment to emptiness can feed, and the only true antidote to the plague of modern despair is an absolute–and perhaps even annihilating–awe. “I prayed for wonders instead of happiness,” writes the great Jewsih theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, “and You gave them to me.”

Meditation–Rebecca Northington

This is a longer passage than I would normally like to share with you all in a morning meditation but one that sort of took my breath away as I read it, and re-read, and re-read it it this past week; and then shared it with my sons, and my husband, and anyone else who would listen. It is the opening paragraph to Christian Wiman’s new book Zero At the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. In one paragraph Wiman captures so much of what is upside down and backwards about the human condition, the human pursuit of “happiness”, this elusive and illusive concept that distracts and unmoors us from the pursuit of something deeper and more meaningful.

I would argue, as I think Wiman is trying to, that we have never before been so focused on happiness as a goal of life. “Whatever makes you happy”, is one of my friend’s favorite sayings and she applies it to her own children and their quest for answers or paths to choose. It is not about what is most healthy for you, or the world, but what at that precise moment makes you happy. Do you want a large fast food lunch and dinner for a week straight? Sure, whatever makes you happy. Do you want a different face or a different body, if you can afford it, do what it takes? Sure, whatever makes you happy. Do you want a new hand bag, do you want to skip school, do you want, want, want…?

You see where I am going with this line of thinking. This approach does not necessarily contribute to a long term healthy lifestyle where we build layer upon layer of choices towards something greater than ourselves. It does not help train us to choose the harder path because of the greater meaning of that path in the greater picture. It trains us to seek the short term hit or high, and ultimately leaves us feeling the crash of that unfulfillment.

Aristotle famously described human development through the metaphor of the acorn and the oak tree. Given the right conditions the acorn will evolve into a mighty oak tree. If those conditions are not ideal we fail to reach our ultimate potential. Socially and emotionally this includes a healthy family, a robust education, strong ethics, self discipline, and a healthy environment. Philosophically we can go in many different directions with this theory but I bring it up in the context of the passage above because I believe that we fail to consider our inner potential, and become too focused on our passions, what makes us happy. I have heard many parents today talk about their hope for their children's pursuit of their passions. “Find what you love to do, and make it work for your life”, many parents propose. I am not counseling against this per se, but cautioning all of us to distinguish our passions from our purpose. Just as I would have us distinguish happiness from the “awe” and “wonders' ', as both Wiman and Heschel describe. Seeking happiness will not grow our oak tree to its’ fullest.

“One doesn’t follow God in hope of happiness but because one senses a truth that renders ordinary contentment irrelevant.” This is a truly powerful statement and one that should make us all really uncomfortable if we are being honest with ourselves. It demands that we be truthful about where God is in our lives. Do we have God neatly tucked away as this or that? Have we designed God to be some one in our mind, to represent something, or fulfill an idea that we can actually comprehend, or more importantly control? Or do we follow God in awe, with a hunger that cannot truly be satiated in this lifetime? Have we opened our hearts and minds to the immensity and incomprehensibility of God and stood bare and stripped down, vulnerable and out of control? Because this is what makes “contentment irrelevant”. It is beyond happiness, this pursuit of God. But, it promises to fill you up without measure, to grow your oak tree, outside of a high or a hit. There is no crash with this love, only wonder and awe in all that has been given. This, I would argue, is why we believe.

Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,