In the Pursuit of Happiness

Thank you, well wishers

and good intentioned fishers

for concern and for hope

for my heart's happiness scope.

Thank you for your word,

your advice is well heard.

But I have one request

I hope in your heart it finds rest.

Please, let me be.

I don't have to smile or grin

or laugh till I'm thin.

I don't have to be happy at all.

It's okay to be sad when you call.

So please let me be

Let me feel all inside me

And trust that in breaking

A whole person God's making.

Our society is obsessed with "happy." Turn on the TV for 5 minutes and you get bombarded with all kinds of messages and advertisements that promise happiness if you just buy whatever they are offering. There are too many people in this world with unhealthy and often dangerously deadly addictions because instead of being told that it is okay for things to be hard and to feel wrecked over suffering and then taught how to face it and survive it, they are told to get on with life and find something to make them happy again. What is that song, "Don't worry, be happy?" So we search for immediate happiness and instant gratification wherever we can find it - drugs, alcohol, sex, food, shopping, adventure, motorcycles, movies - distractions, all, so we don't have to think about what we are really feeling. No wonder no one stays in the same place or job or church or relationship for very long anymore. Living in Camden, I see that so much. I wonder what would happen if instead of telling someone to move on and find happy, we said, "It's okay that this is hard. I'm here, I'm with you and I will walk with you through this pain." Compassion is not looking on with pity, it is suffering alongside. But we all want to be happy, right?