In the last few posts, we've been talking about happiness. There's more to say on the matter. Today, we shall examine happiness from a biblical perspective. We shall take a look at Matthew 7:24-27. It contains an allegory about two men. Jesus describes one of them as wise and the other as foolish. The short passage reads thus: "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." This allegory fits in neatly with what we've been saying so far about happiness. And in the next few paragraphs, we shall explain the passage thoroughly.
Let's start with the words: "everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice." We earlier defined happiness as the condition of courageously doing what one knows beyond a doubt to be right, regardless of the challenges that arise along the way. We also said that it consists of two parts: finding the certain truth, and then putting what we've found into practice. In other words, epistemology and ethics. Hearing Jesus' words and putting them into practice means exactly what we've said. Jesus exhorts us to first "hear these words of mine." Hearing Jesus words means nothing other than looking for the truth. Because Jesus is God, the one who knows everything about everything, his words are absolutely true. So, to listen to the words of Jesus is to find truth, and much faster too than by doing extensive research. Listening to Jesus' words is epistemology. But Jesus does not simply ask us to listen to his words; he also asks us to "put them into practice." This is the ethics we've been talking about, the one that follows after epistemology. We hear Jesus' words and we put them into practice.
We've used several images to describe the foregoing: a person finding a priceless pearl and going to great trouble to obtain it - not simply finding it, but also endeavoring to obtain it; also, carrying a food load on a journey - not just carrying the load, but taking out of it to eat. The deal with all of this is that our search for knowledge has value chiefly in our applying the knowledge found to our own life situations. If we are unwilling to apply the fruits of our epistemology in the course of our lives, then we need not have bothered to find truth in the first place. It is a two-part injunction: search for truth, and then use the truth. And what is the reward? Happiness. Practical epistemology and practical ethics bring about happiness. And Aristotle as we saw yesterday has defined happiness as the condition of the soul such that it cannot be taken away. This happiness cannot be taken away because it is not founded on transient materiality. It is not excitement. It is founded on the things which last forever, things that are not of this temporal world.
Jesus is creative in his description of this state of happiness. He says it is "like a wise man who built his house on the rock." In an earlier post, we said happiness is a species of wisdom, and so it is no wonder that Jesus describes happiness as a wise man's activity. Aristotle sees happiness as the teleological end of all humanity. In other words, for Aristotle, all people are to have happiness as an end-goal. Now, think of a house; of the concept of shelter. When we're out and about: at the mall, at our places of work; at school - anywhere we are, our homes remain in the corner of our minds. We know that, after all the day's work, we'll return to our house and sleep. It is our end-goal of the day. Whether we succeed or we fail at what we're doing for the day, we return to a house and end our day within its sheltering providence. As the teleological end of all humanity, happiness is like that, a house. But not just any house; it is a house built on solid rock. It is a house built on firm foundation. Happiness is not built on the fleeting material things of this world, but instead on transcendent, spiritual reality. In other words, it is a reliable end-goal.
Jesus goes further to say: "The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall." In the search for truth, such as in listening to the words of Jesus, and in putting such words into practice, we shall always encounter difficulty. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33). Nothing good comes easy, as they say. We cannot expect to find truth easily. Truth is like a flower guarded by thorns; we may get pricked in trying to find it. Recall the difficulty for example that Mary faced when she sat at Jesus' feet to listen to him. Her sister Martha tried to guilt her into abandoning her quest for truth with a proposal of shared responsibility for chores around the house. In our day, people who spend long hours searching for truth in books are called nerds or geeks, and are often ridiculed. And what about when we try to put into practice what we've learned? Putting truth into practice is even more challenging. We are sometimes persecuted and called names, such as "goodie-two-shoes" or "Mr. Nice-guy," and so on. And so it is not easy to embrace practical epistemology and ethics. In our quest for true happiness, the sort that is built on solid foundation, we encounter challenges along the way. "The rain does come down and the winds do blow, and they do beat against the house."
In other words, people, things, trials and tribulations threaten to steal the happiness that we've glimpsed. Recall we've earlier said that the symbol for emotions is water, and so it is no wonder that Jesus uses the imagery of water, as in rain and watery winds, and streams, in describing the emotional hardships we endure in our quest for practical epistemology and ethics. But Jesus does not just say we will face difficulties. There's hope. He also says: "yet it did not fall." In other words, in spite of the trials and tempests, the house built on solid rock, on solid foundation, did not fall. Similarly, in spite of the hardships we experience in our daily lives, our happiness, founded as it is on eternal truths, does not go away. It does not fail us. No matter how hard people and things and situations try to steal our happiness away, we get to keep it because it is a situation of our souls that exists such that it cannot be taken away, because of the solid foundation it has.
Let's briefly examine the nature of epistemology. Jesus said that the reason the house built on rock did not fall was "because it had its foundation on the rock." In other words, its epistemological foundation was sure. But, in building our house of happiness on possible truths, how can we know that the opinions we acquire as we progress in life are true knowledge? There are four principal ways by which we know something: by habit, from authority, through research, and through personal experience. Different schools of thought advocate different approaches. In religion, we know through habit and authority. In science, conversely, we know through research and personal experience. Each of these methods of knowing has merits and demerits. There are also deductive and inductive approaches to reasoning and argumentation, and these too have their advantages and disadvantages. We will have to take at least two posts to talk a bit more about epistemology, because the space here is limited. Our focus for today is the passage, Matt 7:24-27. Let's get back to that. Tomorrow, we'll begin a crash course in epistemology, which may take the next two or three posts to summarily treat.
Jesus went on to say, in the passage we're dealing with: "But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand." There are many people out there today who do not know what happiness really is. They mistake it for excitement; and so, instead of finding happiness by listening to Jesus' words, or searching for truth, or conducting epistemology, they search only for material pleasures. In other words, rather than concentrate on knowledge, they turn their attention to mundane delights like food, wealth, status, and numerous other diversions and dissipations. Jesus calls people like these "foolish." They are foolish because they do not pay attention to Jesus, distracted as they are with the passing things of this material world. And because they do not know Jesus' will, God's will, owing to having not listened to the divine words, they do not put it into practice, naturally. And so the best they get is excitement, not happiness. This excitement derives from the dissipations and the physical pleasures they indulge in. This excitement is their own end, their own house. However, unlike the house of happiness, the house of excitement is built on sand, which is not a solid foundation.
"The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." Because the foolish individuals who mistake their excitement for happiness also live in this world like the rest of us, and Jesus has already said concerning this world, "You will have trouble," they also do have trouble. But the reason their own situation is much worse is that the excitement they have, like the house built on sand, cannot withstand the vicissitudes and tempests that beset them, and their excitement gives way quickly to depression. All the silicon boobs and nose jobs; all the wine and booze; all the I-pads and I-everything; all the money and cars; all the clothes and status; all the fancy vacations and luxury spa treatments - all of it cannot stand up against the emotional pangs we all are tempted with. Whatever temporary relief excitement gives leaves more to be desired. And so, many foolish people are crashing everyday. I recall a movie star - name withheld - that once came on the Oprah Show. In popular culture, this star was seen by all to have the perfect life: successful movie roles; outrageous sums of money in the bank; fancy clothes, and so on. But on that unforgettable Oprah Show episode, she confessed to being a regular visitor to the psychiatric hospital, where she gets a depression "treatment" so powerful that she passes out any time it is administered.
This psychiatric treatment, which is called electroconvulsive therapy, consists of touching the skull with nodes bearing such powerful electric voltage that the patient begins to convulse and pass out as soon as they feel the nodes press against their head. This treatment was used on cows in the medieval era, when such cows were sick - recall the appellation, mad cow disease. Because the cows were hysterical and unruly, the farmer in charge of them would typically get them subdued and tied down and then, with powerful volts of electricity, administer shock to the cows, causing them to convulse and summarily pass out. Some even died. This form of therapy does not actually treat the depression in humans; it only makes the patient temporarily forget that they have depression. It's like the old technique of hurting your arm to forget you have a pain in your leg. As soon as the pain in the arm goes, the one in the leg reminds you of its presence. This is why the celebrity that confessed on Oprah, and others like her who engage in psychiatric treatments, keep going back to the mental clinic over and over again for help. Only recently as well, a star on the celebrated TV show, Glee, was found dead, owing to overdose of heroin and alcohol. He is of course not the only star to have been found dead in this way. Hundreds more have died due to their desperate need for the excitement that physical stimulation provides. And this is a serious matter.
These individuals are supposed to be our role models. We see them on television; we watch them in the movie theaters. To many of us, they appear to be living the good life: with their "money, power, respect," and all. We try to be like them; we adore them. But little do we know that some of them are so depressed and afraid that they don't get to sleep at night. Some are so depressed, they need to keep pumping themselves with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain inside. Some are so screwed that they attempt suicide over and over again, as another popular - and very young star we know, but name withheld - tried to do recently. These people are suffering! They have refused to listen to truth, to the word of God; they have refused to embrace epistemology, and then ethics, and so they live life inside a house built on sand. It is a sad situation indeed. We must not be like them. The money, power and respect are not worth the cost of happiness. We should seek to build our house on solid rock, so that when the winds and waves come, our house will stand.
There's a delightful old lady I met while I was at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish participating at Vacation Bible School earlier this summer. This lady must have been at least 90 years old, if I'm not mistaken. But in spite of her old age, she was full of happiness. You could tell. She never missed going to daily morning mass and receiving the Eucharist. She never missed reading her bible and going to confession. And whenever the priest called for prayer, she always joined in. She prayed for her family, her friends and the world. She has never touched a drop of alcohol in her life, nor has she ever used drugs. She doesn't need any form of physical stimulation. She probably doesn't even need coffee. She just gets up and goes about her business with peace and joy. She is a truly happy woman. She is the sort of person Jesus refers to when he talks about wise people building their house on solid rock. We should emulate the good old ladies in our lives. We should seek for happiness that lasts, and that can withstand the trials and tribulations of life. We should not settle for wishy-washy excitement. Our house should be built on solid rock instead.
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