Happiness Hour
I generally try to tune in to Dennis Prager's show, especially for the second hour on Friday. That's when he does his hour on happiness. If you're not familiar with Mr. Prager and his thoughts on the moral imperative of being/acting happy, this review of his book, Happiness is a Serious Problem gives you the basics.
So, here's the show from 2/16/07- Happiness Hour
More below-
I like at the beginning how he talks about the fact that we need more than just God to confide in. It goes something like this (starts at the 7;41 mark on the audio)-
You can't say you don't need people because you have God. Look at how we were created. God creates man specifically Adam and says it is not good for man to be alone, and then creates woman. (Here's the important part) Adam had God, Adam did not have a person and still God said he was alone. God is necessary but not sufficient. God doesn't claim to be sufficient. Where does God say or even imply that?
(As an aside, I'm glad I'm not a transcriptionist. Just trying to get this much of it word for word was too much!)
That was...enlightening, and at the same time fits so well into what I already know and believe. It ties in nicely to the people who say, "I don't need to go to church, I've got God with me all the time". That's not really the point now, is it? Throughout salvation history it's ALL about the community and your ties to that community. It's true of the Church today as well. God is certainly sufficient as the source of our salvation, but he gave us each other for a reason.
This post took a different turn from where I started, but I think talking about the importance of community is important too.
More on this later, and I'm interested in your thoughts on how community affects your life and impacts your happiness.
Tags-Happiness
posted by Kyrie Drake @ 10:34 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Really cool thoughts! I was saving this until I had some work from home to do (possibly...um...in a couple of weekends--I'm glad the show isn't going anywhere) so maybe I'll have some more comments for you then.
I think a lot of the abstract stuff in the quote you typed is similar to some of the debates about sufficiency of Scripture, sufficiency of Faith, etc. The point is that God *could* have made those things to be completely sufficient, but that's not the way He made us--because He's relational, and because He's the ultimate example of not being threatened by the other things He made for us to rely on.
I think the sufficiency of God has to do with the way that, when everything else is gone, that's when God is enough. At the same time, most of us don't live our lives in that place (God gives special grace to those who do, like...oh...the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, maybe). God might be enough...but there's a world out there, and He's put this compulsion inside of us to go find it and explore it.
I agree that church is all about the community. Even if I'm fully convinced that Catholic doctrine is true, I never would have found even the beginnings if it hadn't been for the community. But the community is more than a stepping stone...it's another of those tools for living life.
I'll probably have more to say on "tell everything" friends once I've heard the radio show. And yet, I've been thinking about this a little on my own. I used to feel lonely because I couldn't let the rules of conversation and communication completely down...and yet that's not the way human beings communicate with each other; we have those guidelines for reasons. So I think that's where the imperfection comes in. I have several people, you certainly being one, who I can discuss any subject, any issue, anything weighing on my heart with. It's just that I still have to follow certain guidelines of communication and take the chance of being misunderstood with any human being, and that's okay too; it's all the way it should be. That's another reason God has for not being threatened (although He certainly has enough)--He's the only one who can see so far into our hearts that we don't need the guidelines.
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