We Americans take our guarantee of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness rather seriously. Our founding fathers, in graphic language, wrote the guarantee on paper and successive generations have attempted to prove the validity over and over again. The din and confusion and hustle and bustle of their relentless pursuit of that elusive mirage called happiness is an all consuming passion of our time. "Ever seeking, but never coming to," is an apt description of our society.
A song making the rounds these days 'Happiness Is..," is an amusing yet sad commentary on the paradox of our pleasure mad contemporary society. It seems the whole world is engaged in a frantic headlong chase of that deceptive phantom called happiness.
Life in our twentieth century is graphic reflection of this obsession with the trivial. A clown is hired to make us laugh and then a melodrama is viewed to make us cry,. A stimulant is taken to pep up the sagging torso and then a depressant to calm it down. A sleeping pill is swallowed to induce a blissful slumber and a beanie is gulped for a state of artificial alertness. As millions are spent on cancer study, tens of thousands daily and habitually commit suicide in defiance of all conclusive evidence and in the name of happiness. Rock and Roll, designed to tickle the savage foot patting instinct, ripples and rumbles over the air waves and then Beethoven is wafted along to soothe the savage breast.
Thousands ascend to the mountain to escape the savage heat as other thousands descend to the valley to escape the fierce cold. Whole population centers move to suburbia to elude the deafening den of the city and then build shopping malls all around themselves. A whole phalanx seek the cultural advantages of the suave metropolitan centers and yet plant gardens atop their penthouse patios to bring a bit of country to town. A host daily pack their bags and head out West, following Greely's advice, on the road they meet an equally disgruntled crowd heading East.
We are a nation on wheels. We demand more power plus economy, an insoluble problem the mechanical engineer claims to have solved, especially to the satisfaction of the automobile manufacturer. He says we can have our cake and eat it too. We dash down the street at breakneck speed only to come to a screeching, grinding halt to wait five minutes at a red light. The younger set takes the cue from the oldsters. They zip up and down roads in their hopped up, stripped down versions of mobile joy wagons, accelerating and decelerating in a mad frenzy and whirl until Mom and Pop hardly recognize them when they do drop by to replenish dwindling funds.
Happiness Is?? Perhaps to the old broken down mule that used to walk the circle of the old syrup mill it was the little enticing tidbit of corn tied to the end of the pole forever just out of reach .... that is if he could have ever reached it. Perhaps to the racing greyhound it is that mechanical rabbit that somehow always seems to just barely beat him to the wire ..... that is if he could ever catch it. Perhaps to a carnal man it is his endless fruitless, futile attempts to sate the desires of a fleshly appetite .... if he could ever satisfy them. But to the true Christian it is to, " Know that we Know HIM... " That's what HAPPINESS IS!"
A song making the rounds these days 'Happiness Is..," is an amusing yet sad commentary on the paradox of our pleasure mad contemporary society. It seems the whole world is engaged in a frantic headlong chase of that deceptive phantom called happiness.
Life in our twentieth century is graphic reflection of this obsession with the trivial. A clown is hired to make us laugh and then a melodrama is viewed to make us cry,. A stimulant is taken to pep up the sagging torso and then a depressant to calm it down. A sleeping pill is swallowed to induce a blissful slumber and a beanie is gulped for a state of artificial alertness. As millions are spent on cancer study, tens of thousands daily and habitually commit suicide in defiance of all conclusive evidence and in the name of happiness. Rock and Roll, designed to tickle the savage foot patting instinct, ripples and rumbles over the air waves and then Beethoven is wafted along to soothe the savage breast.
Thousands ascend to the mountain to escape the savage heat as other thousands descend to the valley to escape the fierce cold. Whole population centers move to suburbia to elude the deafening den of the city and then build shopping malls all around themselves. A whole phalanx seek the cultural advantages of the suave metropolitan centers and yet plant gardens atop their penthouse patios to bring a bit of country to town. A host daily pack their bags and head out West, following Greely's advice, on the road they meet an equally disgruntled crowd heading East.
We are a nation on wheels. We demand more power plus economy, an insoluble problem the mechanical engineer claims to have solved, especially to the satisfaction of the automobile manufacturer. He says we can have our cake and eat it too. We dash down the street at breakneck speed only to come to a screeching, grinding halt to wait five minutes at a red light. The younger set takes the cue from the oldsters. They zip up and down roads in their hopped up, stripped down versions of mobile joy wagons, accelerating and decelerating in a mad frenzy and whirl until Mom and Pop hardly recognize them when they do drop by to replenish dwindling funds.
Happiness Is?? Perhaps to the old broken down mule that used to walk the circle of the old syrup mill it was the little enticing tidbit of corn tied to the end of the pole forever just out of reach .... that is if he could have ever reached it. Perhaps to the racing greyhound it is that mechanical rabbit that somehow always seems to just barely beat him to the wire ..... that is if he could ever catch it. Perhaps to a carnal man it is his endless fruitless, futile attempts to sate the desires of a fleshly appetite .... if he could ever satisfy them. But to the true Christian it is to, " Know that we Know HIM... " That's what HAPPINESS IS!"
