Cultivating Happiness

This from our friend, The Desert Pilgrim:

The Undying Flame (from "The Battle for Life")

p. 9---

"It is the testimony of an unfailing life, an undying life, an all-sufficient life; the testimony of a life which is not an abstract, which is not something stored up, but something which is coming all the time from an inexhaustible stream; a mighty, glorious life. As the light burns, it is a constant declaration of victory, and that a victory over death, death which would seek to quench the light, quench the flame, smother it. It burns in the mist of surrounding death, a continuous declaration that death has no power to quench it."

This is very timely and speaks to me in a deep way.

Throughout our (almost) 15 year marriage, my husband and his mother frequently say and tell others that I am "one of the happy people".

Since both of them suffer with certain mild forms of depression, I usually make a little joke about it by saying that God had to make "happy people" in order to keep the depressed people from killing themselves!

They think it is an exceptional quality and I can appreciate and be grateful for their sentiment but I try to explain to them that whatever it is they perceive in me, it is not my own doing. I have simply always been aware of a disposition within myself that tends to always see the positive and the good and the potential for positive good.

I count it as a gift from God. But as is the case with many of God's Gifts, it is not a gift that does not require cultivation.

Hence, over the years, my husband and mother-in-law have come to, not just tolerate, but respect what I have to do to cultivate that gift.

Perhaps they don't fully understand but they do know that it effects them and they seem to benefit from the effect.

So this speaks to me now, the "necessity" and "continual need for oil."

Because without it, there can be no "constant declaration of victory."

And for me, in my situation, that means I cannot continue to meet every challenge, every problem that lack of money gives rise to, every temptation to feel offended by a passing word spoken out of aggravation, frustration or pain.

I cannot meet that with only the strength of my 'natural' disposition, however powerful it may indeed be of itself.

I need the continual flow of oil from the Word, from keeping the Commandments, from keeping the Sabbath, from keeping the Divine Office, from serving the Divine Liturgy, from watchfulness and the constant remembrance of the Holy Name.

I think this just constitutes a "Eucharistic awareness", the Sacramental Principle in application. In short, the Orthodox Way of life, or as the Protestants might say, "Walking in the Spirit."

But this way of life will also bring a type of alienation from those who do not or are not willing to understand. And that is a cross to bear, because it facilitates a certain isolation. The isolation that comes from the sudden and un chosen realization that there are moments within and brought on by events that one deeply feels the need to share with another who has similar understanding but there is no one to be found save Christ our Lord Himself.

This is a burden of the Interior Life.

But He is Sufficient and the burden is light as long as the oil is continual and fresh.

+++