Happy Enough

Do not allow circumstances to frighten you.

Do not allow situations to torture you.

Look beyond the appearances.

Yours will be the unmistakable happiness.

-Sri Chinmoy-

Thank you, God, for loving me more than I loved myself. No acts are greater than the action of giving. Believers are faithers, faith is a verb, action based on belief sustained by confidence. No words give God more pleasure than the attention lavished on the poor and to those socialists, "do-gooders", even Jesus said, "the poor you have with you always" (Mark 14:7). When this writer, world traveler, stood with the Cuban delegation at the May Day parade, Red Square, Moscow, and the workers marched and the same in outer Mongolia, and the same in China, I knew then, as I know now, behind all their fake happy smiles, Communism is not enough. This is my answer to anyone who finds so much fault with the Western way of life.

Most of the real poor in this world live below the 30th parallel, Africa/South America/Asia. The poorest Americans live better than most people in the world.

This writer owned a condominium on the east side of Manhattan, New York City, for many years. I would spend about 1 week a month there. It was near the UN and I was friends with UN officials. I became active in a group called Volunteer Services for Children (wealthy New Yorkers who sponsored shelters or orphanages all over the world for destitute children: victims of war). One Saturday I went to a meeting of the group held at the Hilton Hotel on the Avenue of the Americas. The taxi driver would help me get into the building and from there, I would take an escalator, I could find the meeting room. One Saturday I had to go the "men's room" during the meeting and got turned around, lost my bearings and went to a groups' meeting in another room. Of course, they greeted this blind man very warmly, at the time were having coffee and doughnuts. It was a communist workers union group. One man said, "we are going to hear Gus talk this afternoon at another meeting, we would like for you to go with us since you are a traveled, Army officer veteran". By then, I realized I had made a wrong turn but saw I had nothing to lose by meeting Gus Hall, head of the Communist party in America and Presidential candidate. So I loaded into a taxi with them and went to a meeting on the West Side. I have never heard such vitriol against my country. He described, how an entire city, any city, could be burned down overnight. He called it "cigarette lighter, draperies and bed spreads fire".The plan of action, the wind just right, enough ice picks in the tires of fire trucks, enough windows broken, draperies and bed spreads set afire, just how quickly an entire city can burn down. The opportunity/responsibility/security furnished every American citizen, does not make people happy...just not enough.

I have found that most young people have a sparkle in their eyes when they talk about technology/idealism of socialism do not have such when you talk about salvation and even eternal life. They just don't believe there is anything to it, that life here on this earth is all there is, that what they endure here is enough: that the wisdom of this world is enough: that the wealth of this world is enough: that the thrills of this brief life here on earth is enough. Those at "happy hour" in your local bars and clubs, this very day, alcohol/strange music/perverted sexual experiences are enough.

Today's university student actually believes that only those things can be believed that are found in a test tube. Steven Hawkings, who died this week,  most of his life in a wheelchair, communicating through a voice synthesizer, with all his brilliance (considered to have the greatest mind since Einstein) thought that this world was enough. NOW HE KNOWS. He could have had eternal life, joys forever, where there is no ALS; where he could have spent eternity with ascending, not descending, people; where he could have lived in brightness, not darkness, forever (people who love darkness rather than light, John 3:19) but Steven thought that the fame and notoriety that he had found here on this earth because of this great gifted mind given to him by God, was enough...NOW HE KNOWS.

In speaking of unbelievers today's advances are not enough, constantly talking and planning on what comes next...a more remarkable telephone/car/sexual pleasure, never just content with anything. Inventors do not invent just for more money. Most of the upper 3% who pay most of the tax, already have enough. The builder of a bigger/better airplane does not have the goal of having robots fly the plane into the side of a mountain, a bigger/better car/driverless cars piled up on the highway/hospital operating rooms with robots in scrub clothing.

Who are the gatekeepers? Who will finally say that the human persona cannot be removed from life; that God wanted SOULS of men whom He chose for His eternal companionship.

Not until 1914 and the entrance on the world stage of National Geographic did the world not know much about "far away places with strange sounding names and their fellow man who lived there".

You appreciate the fickleness and cynicism of old people when you get there. It was not until I was in Chin Yang, Manchuria, in a communist hospital, body parts being transferred from healthy, Chinese prisoners to sick people, that I understood the importance of old people having overcome the horrors/terrorism/disappointments, of their fellow man and they could still laugh. Hearing now, almost daily, horror stories of shootings and other calamities we know that being happy, even if only for a few minutes, hours or days, will have to be enough, while on this earth. For the believer, rejoice, the time of sublime happiness is just ahead. Whatever your problem, the nation's problem, Jesus has always been at the crossroads of life before we got there.