New Year's Resolution: Be Happy

"The trouble with happiness is that it can't be sought directly. It is only a precious by-product of other worthwhile activities." - Dr. Benjamin Spock

A few months ago, I preached a sermon on Song of Songs. For years, Robert Alter has been a great source of understanding for me of Hebrew literature and poetry, and he did not let me down in my study of Song of Songs. In his book, The Art of Biblical Poetry, he dedicated a chapter to this short book of the Bible. The chapter is called "The Garden of Metaphor."

I moved to this house just so I
could take Instagram pictures!

The book of Song of Songs is all about pleasure. It's about good food and drink, love and beauty, parties and music. It seems like it would be a perfect complement to our world today with our prolific Instagram pictures of artfully arranged food and drink, the underlying (or overt) sexual tension in nearly every tv show and movie, and even my generation's return to their grandparents' record players and music. We excel at "appreciating" food, drink, love, beauty, gatherings, and music.

But do we?

I've been reading a book called All Joy and No Fun. It is an excellent survey of how we understand parenting in our culture. I keep discovering myself in the pages of the book. I was startled to read, however, that kids are boring. I hadn't realized how boring kids truly are. But you know, it is boring to watch the same YouTube video one hundred times, read the same book every single night, pretend to eat the pretend food my kid brings me over and over and over until I can't stand to say, with enthusiasm, "Nom nom nom nom" one more time because I am bored out of my mind. There are thousands of pictures of cute kids doing cute things, lists of the hilarious things kids say, opportunities to buy clothes and toys to make your kids even cuter...but no one tells you how boring they are!

Robert Alter demystified some of the metaphors in the book of Song of Songs, and I was a bit scandalized at the graphic sexuality portrayed right there in the middle of the Bible! But he ended his chapter on "The Garden of Metaphor" with an interesting observation. Yes, this book subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly describes physical attraction and sex along with other very physical pleasures, but it is also a book about a garden.

We are surrounded by imagery in our culture that appeals to our physical appetites--giant, juicy hamburgers on billboards, scantily clad women on the covers of magazines in the grocery store check-out line, internet ads for the best ridiculously rich, chocolatey dessert. But I don't see nearly so many images of gardens. Gardens have a more subtle attraction, a beauty that takes time and patience to appreciate. Gardens, like kids, are boring.

Authentic Barbie

Too often, we frantically go from one activity to the next, one new bar or restaurant to the next, one new relationship to the next, one pair of shoes to the next--looking for the perfect moment so we can take a picture, share it, hold on to that moment in some way while we frantically pursue the next moment. We find ourselves on this increasingly frenetic pace, accruing followers and likes, pursuing the "authentic."

But when do we have time to cultivate our garden? When do we have time to be? To let the moment go by without taking a picture or desperately trying to hang onto it in some way?

"Enough is as good as a feast," says Mary Poppins. When do we have enough?

It is easy to look at the world around us, at our friends and family and think, "If only I had what they had, I'd have enough. I'd be happy." But let me tell you something about gardens. They are boring. They can be beautiful, but they are mostly boring.

Let me tell you another secret. They are also free.

Maybe you don't believe that. Maybe you immediately start thinking about land, soil quality, irrigation. But it's not as complicated as that. You can find a plant that is dead or dying, harvest its seeds, discreetly dig up some dirt from a local park or street corner (if you don't have any of your own dirt), put it in an empty milk carton or other discarded container, set it where it gets some sun, give it some water, and you will have a garden. A single-plant garden, yes, but a garden nonetheless. And you can watch it sprout and grow and enjoy its beauty. All it requires is time and patience and a little care.

According to Song of Songs, that is the key to happiness. It is not about what you pursue. It is about seeing what is in front of you. When you can look at a lily and find joy in its beauty, when you can stop pursuing and just be and even be bored, then you will start to find a little piece of that ever-elusive sense of happiness.

I love this quotation by Annie Dillard:

“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Happy new year! May you be bored enough to find happiness.

A moment of happiness