the pursuit of happiness

Here is a quote that I find interesting:

As Jesus was entering into the last days of his life on earth, he prayed for his disciples and for all disciples to come. His petitions were for union with the Father, joy, protection, and usefulness. The sequence of those petitions is significant (John 17.11-17).

Friendship with Christ is the first priority and is basic for the qualities that follow. Out of that intimate, love relationship, joy is a logical consequence. Jesus knew, as he prayed for his disciples, that if they did indeed come into fellowship with him and exhibit the kind of full-fledged joy that he gives, there would be opposition from the world, and so he prayed not that his disciples would be protected from the world or taken out of it into a kind of insulated, holy huddle, but that they would be protected from anything that would destroy that union and joy. Then, out of that dynamic partnership, usefulness would naturally flow.

- Jeanie Miley

Ever since 6^th grade, I’ve kept a daily journal. They line one of the shelves here in my dorm room, and from time-to-time I flip through them. Just last week I was reading some material from my high school years, and I couldn’t help but notice how joyful I was. It irked me in a sense. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why the joy has slipped past me nowadays, but it came to me then like a flint being struck in the dark: I’ve wandered from God. Lots of suffering hit me, and it tore at my faith; and while my faith has been re:inspired, re:worked, and (in a sense) re:invented, the intimacy of my union with God is at a low. I am united with God through Christ, but I am not pursuing a deeper and more enriching union with Him. It is through this union that true joy—the kind of joy that brings laughter in sorrow and smiles during suffering—is experienced.

Yet something tugs at my mind: “How is joy formed?” Joy is the result of brain chemicals reaching high levels of influence. Thus “joy” is biological. I’ve struggled with how union with God brings joy if joy is a biological function. Two theories: there is a joy that is caused biologically in the natural realm, and a similar yet greater joy that is caused by God in the supra-natural realm, and it is this “mysterious joy” that Christians experience. Or, Christians experience a biological joy as God personally tweaks our brain chemicals. Hmmm… Okay, done with that tangent… Jeanie Miley continues:

…The more I know Him, the more I experience that deep inner well of joy that is not dependent on external circumstances. This joy is present even in the midst of suffering and sorrow; it is a motivating power even in discouragement and dismay.

My life sometimes seems like a constant theatrical play of discouragement and dismay, of suffering and sorrow, of external circumstances gone wrong. All of this oftentimes leads me into a deep depression marked with hopelessness, despair, and feelings of futility. The idea of joy, tranquility, and happiness seems to be a far-fetched illusion; the “pursuit of happiness” becomes an unreachable mirage, functioning only to keep us moving in futile hope towards a resolution that doesn’t exist.

But what if I can experience joy despite all that’s going on?
What if I can experience tranquility in the midst of adversity?
What if I can experience happiness in a life marked with emotional heartache?

life keeps moving forward... kinda

Wednesday was a good day. I needed some time off campus. The drama was suffocating me. I met Sarah at Barnes and Nobles, and we drank coffee and chatted for five hours. She ordered an iced caramel macchiato (my favorite), and I tried a pumpkin spice iced latte (very good, I plan on getting it again sometime this weekend). We talked about everything and nothing: school, movies, addictions, depression, and lots about Christianity & Culture, and how the individualism of Protestantism has oftentimes lost the communal nature of Christianity. I spent the night at my friend Isaac’s apartment; from his back porch, you can see all of Cincinnati sprawled out before you. It was a cozy place. We hung out and talked lots about church, theology, Pauline studies and how essential it is to know how to interpret the Bible before actually reading it; because of the danger of reading the Bible without knowing how to interpret it, it’s easier and safer for Christians to read books by Max Lucado and authors of that nature. Thursday I worked at the Hilltop with Andrew, Kirby, and Katie. Andrew is my favorite supervisor to work with, he's really laid-back and jokes around all the time; Kirby is always fun, her awkwardness makes me hit the floor laughing many times; and while I don't know Katie very well, we found ourselves in playful fights the entire evening, and Andrew kiddingly kept exclaiming, "Stop fighting! I will not have Kirby working in such a hostile environment!" Good times.

From the moment I made the resolution to deal with certain things in my life, life itself became overwhelmingly complicated. Within the first 24 hours I nearly had an emotional breakdown, but after some time praying, things got much better. It seems that everything from my past—my regrets, my sins, my dark skeletons—is being dredged from the depths of my subconscious and flashed before my eyes. I can’t escape it. Everywhere I go, around every corner I turn, there it is, a great neon sign blinking it cataclysmic letters: DO YOU REMEMBER?! I clench my fists, close my eyes, take deep breaths, fight. My legs grow weak, I need support, I become flustered, the world spins. The sign grows larger and larger in my mind until it’s all I can see, and little voices scream obscenities and dark lies, masked ogres parading in my own mind. I drop to my knees and tears crawl down my face, and I plead with God to help me through the nightmare—and the ogres vanish, the vile shrieks silence, the sign fades into nothing, and my mind is clear and cool. I take a deep breath, stand, feel my heart beating in my chest. One foot in front of the other. I knew this would happen. The enemy knows how to play this game. I just didn’t expect him to be this vaulted against me. Maybe he knows something I don’t?

All of this drama makes me want to pack my bags and leave. I keep remembering Alaska: how peaceful and serene it was, how beautiful, how my problems seemed to fade into the background. I want to just move to Alaska and start a new life; but then again, that’s just escapism. It’s me saying, “I don’t want to deal with any of this. I want to leave it all behind me.” But, as I told my friend Katie, I am a walking baggage train: all of the baggage that manifests itself here won’t be left on the Holy Hill. It would follow me all the way to Alaska. Granted, moving to Alaska is just wishful thinking; but it does make a point: It would be easier to try to abandon my problems and not work through them, but that would never succeed, so I need to work through my problems. Open, shut, closed case.

If God would grant me just one wish,
I wish He would give me
ONE LAST
chance.

The enemy never lets up. He struck me hard tonight. Extremely hard.

I couldn’t smile. Couldn’t laugh. All I could do was stand there, my eyes vacant and empty, and though to outsiders it may have looked like I was zoning out, the truth is a million screams and shrieks and cries were going through my head with every passing moment. I stood in the coffee shop, surrounded by people, but I felt so utterly alone. I felt tears brimming behind my eyes, so I escaped outside. I ran into Jessie, and I told her I was leaving; she asked why, and I confessed that I wasn’t feeling too good. I told her, “I have to leave, or I’m just going to start crying.”

She looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

I replied after a moment, “Because I’m so sad and unhappy, and I feel like my life is a waste and no one really genuinely cares.”

“I care,” she said. “Please, tell me what’s bugging you the most.”

“It’s not really just one thing. It’s lots of things piled together.”

Compassionately, “Tell me.”

I told her, “Everything I want, I can’t have. Everything I have is taken away. And happiness is as empty as the stars and as fleeting as the spring rains.”

Obviously confused, she asked, “What all is going on?”

A sigh. “I just… I just want to be happy.”

“What’s making you unhappy?”

“I want to love and be loved, but every time I find it or get close to it it’s taken away or becomes a lie.”

“What brought these thoughts up?”

“Everything going on with a girl I like… and with Courtney.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to be with this girl, but I’m afraid it will never happen. Courtney is with another boy, and I’m okay with that, but the fact is, the moment I realized I loved her and didn’t want to be with anyone else ever, the damage was done and the sentence was passed: we were over.”

It doesn’t look like I’m going to be with the girl whom I want to be with. It sucks, but I’d rather know that’s the case than continue stumbling around in blindness. She kept me in the dark about things, and that upsets me, but at least now I know what’s going on. I just feel like I’m in a glass jar or a plastic bubble, seeing everyone living out their dreams, and being stuck in place left only with regret, shame, and the inability to move. I am trying to move forward. I really am. I am making changes, and perhaps this is why the enemy is striking me so hard: he doesn’t want those changes to take place. The truth is, though, Courtney—not Julie—was my first love. She was the only girl I could ever see myself being with for a really long time. She meant everything to me. But I was stupid. I made stupid decisions, and I have to live with that. I’m a stupid creature sometimes; hell, most of the time. But I learned and I’m trying to move forward… It’s just so damned hard, especially when the enemy does everything he can to stop you.

P.S. To all girls out there: don't lead someone on for a month if you're not sure if you like them or not. It's totally uncool.

“We’re moving forward, but holding ourselves back, and we’re waiting on something that will never come.”

- Straylight Run

Those lyrics seem to be the epiphany of my life. They always play over and over in my head, a haunting sonnet that never leaves me, even in the night. For so long I let them consume me, let them guide my every move, direct my every step, but I have come to realize that this shallow existent falls short of my potential. I can be so much more. I have been disappointed and broken, my heart has been stomped-on, smashed with a sledgehammer, and I have been left bleeding and crying on cold, dark, rainy street corners for far too long… How come I never thought to myself, “Why don’t I just get up and walk away from it all?” I’m not talking about resignation; I’m talking about the exact opposite, actually. I can look at my failures and my pitfalls and my screw-ups and the great sins of my past, and I can let them take root and hold me into a place of cynicism, despair, shame and regret; or I can shake off those chains, free myself from the burden, and walk forward, embracing whatever comes. Life is full of suffering… But there is joy to be found as well. I may have met my fair share of dead-ends, empty alleys, and dark dungeons, but I don’t have to stay there. So I’m going to stop sitting on that rainy street corner, I’m going to pick up my feet, and I’m going to walk. At first, it will be hard. Painful, even… For I have known that street corner for nearly two years now, and it’s all that I know. But I dare to believe that though darkness has come, a dawn is coming; and though I believe that the dawn certainly is coming—I believe this with all my heart—, I am haunted by a question: “How long?” The idea of dawn not coming for a long time frightens me. But I know that if I just sit on that street corner, it may never come.

God doesn’t want me to sit on that street corner. He isn’t pleased when I dwell on my mistakes. He gets no joy out of my suffering. He wants me to be happy. He wants me to get moving. He’ll help me, I think. No, I know He will help me. I’m not going to be able to walk away from that street corner in an instant. First, I need to pick myself up. I’ve already done that. Now I need to put one step in front of the other, baby steps… And I know what these steps include. All will be hard, some harder than others, but all are necessary. I have become engrained in habits and tendencies that need to be tossed. “Trying” won’t cut it. I need to train myself for this journey, and at first it will seem like I am a 900-pound lethargic fat man running a marathon. But I will get better. I will be victorious. It won’t be easy, but I know it has to be done.

There is a dawn approaching… And I’m going to start walking towards it.

Isn’t it peculiar how those within the Christian sect will use anything to parade their own cause? One thing I’ve noticed is that when we want something to happen our way, we’ll see “signs from God.” One might say, “I believe God wants me to do this, because He’s been giving me signs!” It can be used in manipulation: “I think you should do this, because God has given me signs telling me that you should.” Anyone can say they’ve received “signs” from God—but this whole thing of divine “signs” is tricky business. When Julie broke up with me, I really wanted to be with her; I wanted God to want us together; and so everywhere I went, I saw “signs” that God wanted me to be with Julie. Of course, these signs were mere coincidences or me reading my own desires into random events and situations. Right now, I have no desire to be with Julie and am totally content with not being with her—so either God is a liar, or I deceived myself. I think we can want something so badly that we’ll try to convince ourselves God is on our side, and we’ll see “signs” with every blink of the eye. Most of the time, though, I think we might just be deceiving ourselves. We may think these signs are from God, but in the end it’s our own psyche trying to bend the rules to our favor. When it comes to people trying to manipulate us by telling us they’ve received “signs” telling us what we should do, we should be wary: if God is not giving us the same “signs,” then there’s a pretty good chance the other person is self-deceived.

I can’t keep the false prophets of the Old Testament out of my head. They produced “signs” wherever they went, proclaiming that these “signs” were from God. I have no doubt that they performed miracles and healings and such acts of that nature, but I believe that Satan can perform any of those. I believe he can and will use those to push us down wrong paths; during the Old Testament days, isn’t this what he did? I think of a story when the prophet Jeremiah preached against a false prophet, though the scriptures never deny that the false prophet performed “signs.” The “signs” were from a source that was attempting (and, sadly, succeeding) to drive the people away from God. The scriptures talk about false prophets during the days of the New Covenant (ahem, our days…) who will perform signs and wonders and such of that nature, but they will do so in order to pull people away from God (granted, they may think they’re performing God a favor, but they’re just fitting into the devil’s hand). Of course, the “signs” I’m talking about here aren’t exactly the kinds of “signs” that we talk about when we speak of God “giving us signs,” but the principle, I believe, remains the same: Satan can give us signs to keep us going down a wrong path or from taking the right one. In the end, I think, we should just be careful and prayerfully consider what is going on, allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, and let the word of God be our light.

I went for a drive this morning to think about everything going on in my life. I went to U.C., promptly became lost, and somehow ended up in Over-the-Rhine. I followed Vine Street down into the heart of Cincinnati, and took the roads between and along the Reds and Bengals stadiums to get back to Eighth Street, up Glenway, and back onto my beloved campus. I don't have much to do today. I am in a state of numbness. Amos is coming down today, which should be good. I head home this evening, because I'm teaching a class on "Grace" at my church. I'm pretty excited. I'm also quite hungry and thinking about getting something to eat. I wrote this last night when I got back to my dorm:

i just don't know what to do anymore

i want to give up
but for some reason i keep pressing on
hoping that things might,
one day,
work out.

is it an illusion? am i hoping
for a resolution that will never come?

i wish life were more simple
it's always so damned complicated.

* * *

I fell asleep quickly last night, and I woke up to screams and the sound of crashing next door. I laid in bed terrified. I think it was all in my head; the time was 2:13 and I had gone to bed at 1:40, so I imagine I fell into a fitful sleep an was woken by a bad dream.