Ask Yourself: God's Glory, or Whose?

Here it is, folks:

When it comes to spiritual questions, cultural disputes, and how we intend to interpret any passage of the Bible, this is how we should do it:  Interpret everything in the Bible and life itself in deference to God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  Everything.

Interpret everything in a way that gives glory to the Holy Trinity.

Straight-up, no-holes-barred, every time.  No cultural exceptions, no circumstantial qualifications.  Ask yourself, "who gets the glory?  God, or me, or humankind in general?

It's as simple - and profound - as that.  Isn't it?  Do we each need to be an expert in Hebrew, Greek, or seminary-speak?  Do we need to get some evangelical celebrity or political guru to weigh in with an opinion?  When we read God's Word, and when we consider how to apply it to our daily lives, no matter the subject at hand, won't the right way to act be the way that best glorifies God?

If we're living for God, instead of ourselves, these won't sound like trick questions.

Nevertheless, as I wander around our evangelical subculture and listen to different people say different things about their interpretation of faith, it never ceases to amaze me how we all - every one of us - approach God's Word from some degree of our own, unilateral, personal perspective.  We view the Bible, faith, God, His Son, and how we're to live our lives through a prism of our own preferences, experiences, assumptions, education, and hopes.

Yes, that's part of being human, and of our sin nature, but it's also part of the sanctification process, through which we're supposed to be progressing, not languishing, or regressing.

Unfortunately, we tend to forget that our cultures - even in religion - can work against our sanctification.  We're taught that since God loves us, and created us each as individual people, we have a right to think however we want to think.  We're taught that God expects us to think for ourselves.  The more liberal we are, the more we're taught to value other people, and how they think, and what they think.  The more conservative we are, the more we're taught that other people should think like us.  Which, if you think about it, is as inaccurate an ambition as letting everybody believe whatever works for themselves.  As long as the humanity for which we advocate has a decidedly lateral and horizontal focus, instead of a vertical one, we're probably not honoring God.

At least, we're probably not honoring God as much as we'd like to think we are.

We're in trouble when we consider our opinions to have at least as much weight as God's do.  We forget that we're always interpreting, because humans cannot create truth.  We can only respond to it.  On the other hand, God interprets nothing, since He is the Source of all things.  He is omniscient, omnipresent, and sovereign.  We're not, so we interpret how God's Word applies to various situations in our lives, whether that interpretation is fairly direct, or vague, or apparently not supported by much of anything.

What should matter more should be our desire to honor God in all that we do, endorse, and believe.

Sure, some of us are more accurate than others when it comes to how we believe God is glorified.  As our society has devolved into an "all roads lead to Rome" sort of universalism, however, and narcissism has ossified our ability to critique our own motives, it's easier to fall into a reverse pattern:  evaluating what faith can do for us, rather than acknowledging what God has already done, is doing, and will do.

Both inside and outside the church, for example, we treat issues like gay marriage as if we're entitled to craft a viewpoint based on variables that are relevant to our experiences.  Instead, shouldn't we be viewing everything in light of how each thing - person, experience, fact, ideology, motivation, emotion, reflex, fear - exists as a manifestation of God's revealed word and will?

In other words, we can argue 'till the cows come home about love, relationships, fidelity, marriage, selflessness, covenants, commitment, lifestyles, wants, needs, feelings, romance, and how we think or believe God would want us to act when it comes to gay marriage.

But what do you think honors God about gay marriage?  And what does God say honors Him regarding heterosexual marriage?  God has given us some pretty specific facts regarding marriage, sexuality, covenants, and purity that, in and of themselves, aren't open to as much interpretation as we often like to presume.  We like to believe that we are autonomous actors in His presence.  We've seen how our ideas about things can change over time, as we experience new people, and participate in new relationships.  So surely, God changes, too!  Right?

Well, He doesn't.  He tells us He's unchanging, and that what He said when each book of the Bible was first transcribed is as relevant and factual today as it was then.

Besides, we haven't yet answered the question:  what is it about gay marriage that brings glory to God?  The ability of people to marry each other regardless of gender - how does that bring glory to God?  Is love bigger than God?  Is commitment bigger than God?  Is human sexuality and gender assignment bigger than God?  Is what we want to do bigger than what God wants us to do?

What right do we have to decide whether or not marriage honors God in the first place?  That right comes from God Himself, correct?  What right do we have to decide whether or not gender matters when it comes to marriage?  For that matter, what right do we have to decide that even heterosexual marriages can be terminated simply because one or more spouse has tired of it?

People get divorced because they want to get divorced.  Meanwhile, where does God ever say that divorce honors Him?

Don't we make these conversations much more complicated than God intended them to be?  Of course, conversations about gay marriage aren't complicated to people who don't want to honor God with their view of it.  And they're not complicated to people who deeply desire to honor God with their view of it.  To be frank, the only people for whom conversations like gay marriage are complicated are people who struggle with imposing their own personal sense of superiority upon God, Who will not share His holy superiority with anybody or anything.

Actually, it's probably a good struggle to have, as long as you're willing to realize that, ultimately, you're not in control of your life.  You're not able to change God's view of sexual perversion.  A society can vote to allow gay marriage, but such a vote doesn't change God's will.  But that reality doesn't mean much when we concentrate more on what we want, than on what honors God.

No, living lives that honor God isn't necessarily easy for us, but being purposeful about honoring God shouldn't be a difficult desire for us.  To the degree that it is, that's the degree to which we haven't given Him the Lordship over our lives that He desires - and deserves - to have.

Every child of God's has been bought with a Price.  And that Price is His holy Son, Jesus.  Therefore, we are to honor God with our lives.  We are to live in deference to Him, out of thankfulness for Christ's sacrificial death on our behalf.

If any of us aren't living this way, then perhaps He's not yet our Lord.

And if you find that last sentence particularly offensive, then it's probably because you know He's not. 

Meanwhile, we can never err on the side of God's honor.  But we can certainly err on the side of ours.

Trophy Bathrooms, Manhattan Style

A bathroom with a view at Midtown Manhattan's brand-new 432 Park Avenue

Trophy bathrooms.

You've heard of trophy wives, right?  And trophy homes?  Well, when it comes to trophy homes, just about every room gets blinged-out and hyper-accessorized.  New rooms also get added, such as media rooms, gift-wrapping rooms, and even miniature religious chapels.

For a long time, however, the most private places of any home - trophy or not - had been kept in the shadows.  These rooms were usually small, and were ferreted away into the bowels of a dwelling, tucked out of sight, with discrete views, if any, and absolutely nothing to celebrate.

Well, not any more!  The inner sanctum of personal - and often undignified - physical maintenance has now become one of the most celebrated rooms in a trophy house.

That humble ceramic-tiled shower with an opaque curtain?  It is now a glass-sheathed, marble-walled "wet room."  The impolite toilet?  It has now been practically re-visioned as a sleek throne.  Instead of being secreted into a corner or closed off by its own louvered door, toilets can now command prime bathroom real estate.

Uninhibited.  Out there.  Brutally honest.  Nothing to hide.  And leaving nothing to the imagination.

Indeed, it's imagination overboard with today's trophy bathrooms.  And the trend isn't just for today's McMansions and upscale exurban tract homes, where bay windows flank sunken bathtubs. 

A few restaurants, bars, hotels, and other commercial establishments have been tinkering with the concept of unconventionally visible public bathrooms for a number of years, but even public bathrooms expect their patrons to remain mostly clothed.

But not so for a number of prime new ultra-luxury residential towers in New York City.

For generations, the New York City residential bathroom has been designed for cramped, discrete utility, and if they had a window, it was tiny, and faced a back alley.  Today, however, privacy is for commoners.  If only the little people pay taxes, Leona Helmsley's infamous quote could be reinterpreted today as being "only the little people have little windows in their bathrooms."

Witness the pictorial essay compiled by the New York Times of some very immodest, very glassy, and very view-filled bathrooms currently being offered in the city's most expensive residential projects.  At what is perhaps the city's newest celebrity tower, 432 Park Avenue, you can purchase a brand-new apartment with at 10' x 10' plate glass window centered in front of your pod-shaped bathtub, and a glass wall hiding very little of your shower space and toilet area.

From your bath pod, you'll be able to peer down the corner
of 215 Chrystie Street

If such a spectacle isn't enough for you, there's the pod-shaped bathtub - no rectangular tub-and-shower combos at these price points - tucked into the corner of another celebrity building being literally erected with glass corners.  Which, yes, means that you can take your bath practically peering over the corner of your apartment building.

Yet another luxury building in Manhattan is remodeling its bathrooms to have two toilets facing each other behind glass walls.

It's as if exhibitionism has become the next rung on society's elitism ladder.  Talk about conspicuous consumption!  Still, if you've got twenty, forty, or ninety million dollars to spend on an apartment, there's only so much marble and African wood that can be purchased to outfit such skyscraper palaces.  At some point, these apartments have to provide the biggest "wow" factor architects and interior designers can imagine.  And when it comes to "wow" factors, how much better can it get than showcasing Manhattan's dazzling skyline?

Enter Manhattan's take on the trophy bathroom, which outclasses anything you'll find on the ground in suburbia, simply because you need the verticality of these sky mansions to pull off the desired effect.  Like a Realtor quoted in the Times article says, wealthy homebuyers in Manhattan have always wanted a view from their living room; now, they also want a view from their bathroom.  And when it comes to views, Manhattan can certainly deliver.

So what if the bathroom offers some of the best views?  Remember, only the little people would be intimidated by so much glass when they're getting into and out of a bathtub.  Or off of a toilet.

Besides, it's not like these glass bathrooms are going to be on low floors, where the only view will be of other buildings - and their occupants.  It's also not entirely clear how many of these new apartment towers are being constructed with such transparent trophy bathrooms.  It could be that the market for such exhibitionistic elitism is smaller than developers and Realtors say it is.  Then, too, how many of these glass-walled bathrooms are going to have designer shutters over them anyway, after their naked novelty wears off (which will probably happen by the third night in the homeowner's new apartment)?

According to the Times piece, if this is a bona-fide trend, it can actually be considered quite beneficial for the homeowners of these see-through bathrooms:  considering how self-conscious so much visibility could make the people using them, a rise in physical fitness among Manhattan's penthouse population may be forthcoming.  In what other room in your home are you almost always nude, with lighting that accentuates everything you don't want accentuated, and plenty of mirrors so you can't avoid it?

What's more likely, however, is that the type of people purchasing homes with such bathrooms are people who already possess a personal confidence that has either propelled them into pursuing physical fitness.  Or theirs is a personal confidence that says their personal looks don't matter.  What matters to them is being able to own an apartment where one's bathtub can command a view replicating the vantage point of a ship's captain piloting the mighty USS Manhattan down into New York Harbor.  Looking south from high above Manhattan island, its pointy tip makes the borough look like a nautical vessel plying the waters represented by the Hudson and East rivers.

Of course, that ship effect is lost on any north-facing bathroom.  For buildings near Central Park, there's hardly any northward skyline in which to revel, either.  Besides, what happens when other buildings of equal - or greater - height eventually get constructed near these luxury buildings currently under construction?  Hardly anything ever stays the same in Manhattan's skyline.  Will owners of today's crop of trophy bathrooms have to start going to court against future developers who either want to obstruct views - or, perversely, take advantage of them?

Hey - a boom in trophy bathrooms is one thing.  But a boom in high-powered portable telescopes may be forthcoming as well.

Purchased not only by people living in these skyscraper palaces.  But also by folks living within sight of them.

Plural Universes for a Faith Odyssey

Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name,
by the greatness of His might,
and because He is strong in power
not one is missing.

- Isaiah 40:26

Ten years and four billion miles.

That's how long it's taken the spacecraft Rosetta to deliver its landing craft, named Philae, to a small comet 300 million miles away from us here on Earth.  Today, history was made as the European Space Agency announced that their Philae had indeed landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a nifty bit of spinning rock and ice that travels at about 85,000 miles per hour.

And it wasn't a direct flight.  Rosetta's epic journey of four billion miles over ten years included multiple looping orbits around the sun.  The next time you wonder why your flight from Houston to Chicago involves a layover in Atlanta, be glad you're not traveling four billion miles to reach your destination a mere 300 million miles away!

Indeed, Philae's landing today marks yet another stunning feat in the annals of human imagination, intelligence, ambition, and tenacity.  The numbers and distances boggle our minds.  Humankind marveled when men walked on the moon - and that was with 1960's technology!  We keep talking of going back to the moon, but since it's already been done, it can sound anti-climactic.

Predictably, most evangelicals will likely smirk at the objective of Rosetta's galactic enterprise, which is to study the molecular composition of Comet 67P and attempt to derive theories for the origins of life on our planet, and indeed, the beginnings of our universe.

Modern science is relentless in its pursuit of defining our beginnings, and while on the one hand, the exploration of our environment stokes an understandable curiosity, most of the people doing the exploring have no interest in correlating what they believe they find with far less sophisticated accounts of our origins that we find in God's Word.

Still, it's fascinating that mankind can develop a machine that can travel four billion miles in a decade.  It makes you wonder why Detroit can't make cars that don't start falling apart when their warranties expire.  What's even more fascinating is that God created all of this that seems so limitless.  This vast expanse of our universe is intriguing both for what we've been able to learn about it, and also for what we don't know about it.  Yet, anyway. 

Even we evangelicals can be in awe of what science discovers, even if the people discovering new facts about our universe read false causal narratives into them.  But how about this:  We believe that the God of the Bible has created everything that exists in our universe.  We commonly say "the universe," as if there's only one.

But what if God has more than one universe out there, somewhere?

I'm not the first person to ask such a question.  In scientific terminology, the concept is called "multiverse" in the singular, while in sci-fi lingo, they're called "parallel universes."  But we don't like to broach this subject much within polite, conventional evangelicalism.  Somehow, it sounds dirty, like we're doubting something about God; or excessively weird, like something in our brain may start leaking out of our ears.

Yet it does not deny God's sovereignty to wonder if there's more that He's created out there, beyond our universe.  In fact, don't we acknowledge God's limitless, boundless sovereignty by allowing that He's powerful enough to have more than one universe going on under His auspices?  If, as some creationists say, our planet is only several thousand years old, that's not a whole lot of time for our timeless, eternal God, is it?  What else might He have been doing before time began?  Or at least, before time began for our universe?

Might God have multiple universes out there, beyond ours?  The Bible teaches us that there is only one God, so there aren't multiple gods somewhere.  Science fiction folks wonder if God has created other things and places in our universe that may or may not support human life, but what about other universes?

Have you ever thought about plural universes?  God is omnipotent and omnipresent, so even though He's sovereign over our universe, being so doesn't deprive Him of a scintilla of effort or attention elsewhere... if there is indeed an elsewhere.  Or if anything is an "effort" for God anyway.

I have to admit:  My brain starts to tingle after contemplating these possibilities for a while.  And His Word is appropriately silent on the parallel universe idea.  Obviously, it's not for us to know what else God may have created for His glory beyond the universe He's given us.  Even though it would all be for His glory.

Besides, there's little practical merit in knowing what may exist beyond our universe.  It's not like we're experts on the universe we've got.

As far as Philae is concerned, initial reports from outer space indicate that its anchors may not have deployed properly.  Scientists say they may be able to repeat the deployment activation to try again, but even if Philae can't maintain its stability on Comet 67P, the landing craft has still provided them with significant information for the future.

Which simply proves that science keeps on learning, even from its mistakes and momentary failures.  I wish I could say the same for myself.

Indeed, God has given you and me particular responsibilities for today, for here, and for His creation in this universe - creation to which we're gaining greater and greater access.

To boldly go where no man has gone before may be intriguing, and even prideful, but to know the God Who created all of where we've been, and wherever we've never been, and may never get to go this side of eternity, is humbling.

Humbling for us here on Earth, and for whomever else may be out there.

Motor City Needs a New Engine

Today is a big day for Detroit, Michigan.

The city that used to be a grand showcase of America's industrial might is now barely even a shell of its former self.  A quarter of its population abandoned the city just in the last 14 years.  All totaled, Detroit's population has shrunk by over one million residents since its peak in the 1950's.  Unemployment is high, high school graduation rates are low, and municipal dysfunction is rampant.

These days, Detroit is a grand showcase of ruin porn, blighted urban landscapes pockmarked by windowless skyscrapers, abandoned churches, decaying houses, and weed-choked lots where vibrant neighborhoods used to be.

On July 18, 2013, with $18.5 billion in debts, the city filed for bankruptcy protection.  Detroit's was the largest municipal default in America's history, and the ignominy was palpable.  Trees were growing out of desolate office towers downtown.  America's legendary Big 3 automakers, which used to dominate the Motor City, had begun donating free vehicles so Detroit's threadbare police department had cars to use.  Even its world-renowned, city-owned art collection was rumored to be on the auction block for one last fire sale to stave off Motown's legions of creditors.

But today, Detroit's sprawling bankruptcy plan was approved by federal judge Steven Rhodes, paving the way, as it were, for the city's drive into the future.  Approximately $7 billion of its debt has been erased, and Judge Rhodes simply rebuffed remaining legal challenges to the bankruptcy plan by reasoning, "this city is insolvent."

As part of the deal to get the city out of bankruptcy, thousands of municipal pensioners agreed to cuts in their benefits, an issue that had been a significant generator of populist angst.  And the publicly-owned art collection stewarded by the Detroit Institute of Arts will remain the city's.

Of course, it remains to be seen how well Detroit can learn from its past mistakes, value the second chance bankruptcy court has given it, and capitalize on its future opportunities to attract private investment in the form of taxpaying citizens and employers.  It needs to practically start from the ground-up to overhaul its police and fire departments, as well as other basic services.  Its public schools probably should start over from scratch, too.

So much needs to change, and change so much, that it's woefully premature to celebrate anything about Judge Rhodes' ruling today, except the fact that finally, a consensus has been reached in a court of law regarding the need for a drastic re-think of what Detroit is.

We already know how Detroit got to this point in its history.  It was a combination of racism, political corruption, suburbanization, and the manufacturing sector's migration from the Rust Belt.  Of course, all these factors have affected other American cities as well, but not nearly to the level they pummelled Detroit.

Yet Detroit's story illustrates some basic reminders about socioeconomic reality that affect more than just southeastern Michigan.

For example, Detroit's very existence began, like it did for many American cities, as a trading post.  Not it's wonderful weather, or its scenic beauty, or its abundant natural resources.  Detroit began because it was a convenient place to conduct the type of business that was profitable at the time.  Its location along a broad river, next to the Great Lakes, and North America's wide-open northern frontier, took full advantage of the New World's robust growth and the key role water played in shipping goods to market.

However, simply because its geography was crucial for its growth, Detroit can't bank on its geography to enhance its viability today as a location for jobs, commerce, the arts, education, and other aspects of modern life.  Frankly, few cities around the world today boast a location crucial to their existence.  

We know that geography means less today than it ever did, in terms of having a population that can make goods, service goods, buy goods, and invent goods in the first place.  Many things are more essential today than geographic location, such as what's called "multi-modal" access, which means the efficient distribution of goods and services by air, mainly; as well as land, and technology, such as the high-speed transmission of data.  Lots of newer cities in the world best Detroit in these metrics.

Other qualities modern cities need in order to be viable include less tangible things, such as lenient government regulations, a cost of living that the average type of desirable worker can afford, and an overall lifestyle that is attractive to desirable workers.  A "desirable worker" is the type of worker most in demand by the industry located in that city.  In Silicon Valley, then, a desirable worker is what we would call a techno-geek.  In New York City and Boston, a desirable worker is mostly one with a brain for finance, higher education, or the arts.  In Chicago and Dallas, it's business management.  In Houston, it's energy, and the engineering necessary to find and harness it.

So what would Detroit's desirable worker look like?  A car person?  Maybe not.  Sure, General Motors has its headquarters in downtown Detroit, but Chrysler and Ford have been in the suburbs for decades, and hardly any car manufacturing takes place in Detroit proper anymore.  The city is home to Quicken Loans, but that's mostly because the company's owner, Dan Gilbert, has taken a personal stake in developing Detroit.  Not many other large corporations appear interested in risking as much as Gilbert has on Motown.

Also important is the ability of employers to pay market rates to their workers, and by market rate, we're talking about how much it costs to make something in Malaysia, as well as Michigan.  One of the reasons why Detroit - and the rest of the Great Lakes region - has lost so much manufacturing stems from the fact that unionized payrolls remained stable, while the willingness of workers in Majority Work (a.k.a "Third World) countries to work for far less made offshoring economically attractive.

Yes, the demise of Michigan's storied auto industry was due to the shoddy manufacturing quality and inferior fuel economy of its vehicles, plus the bloated managerial bureaucracies built-up over the years in the Big Three's corporate cultures, but it was also due to unionized labor's unwillingness to take painful wage cuts in order to keep their jobs at home.

These days, thanks to some creative financing and government incentives, the Big Three have been able to take some of their auto manufacturing facilities around Michigan out of mothballs, and build up the state's employment base, which is good for the region as a whole.  But none of this has directly benefited the city of Detroit.  Yet, anyway.

Can Detroit, even as it exits bankruptcy, compete in today's economy?  That's the question the city needs to ask itself.  Detroit's survival doesn't depend on politics, it depends on practicality.  How practical is Detroit in terms of being a place businesses want to do business?

Even if the Big Three wanted to bring auto manufacturing back to the Motor City full-throttle, why would they?  Nostalgia is one thing, but all this bankruptcy resolution does from a practical business perspective is prove that the city is being held accountable for its past transgressions, which have been many.  Indeed, that's the reason why no government - either at the state or federal levels - was willing to bail out Detroit, as some Democrats wanted to see happen. 

Fiscal disaster loomed over the city for decades, but failed to propel its voters into substantive action - and change.  Corruption and simple incompetence reigned.  Racism remained mired in the city's ethos, even after most of Detroit's whites had long ago decamped to the suburbs.  At the same time, manufacturing wasn't just leaving Detroit for the suburbs, it was leaving the state, and the country.

And as we all know now, there was no Plan B.  Motor City needed a new engine, but it hasn't been able to find one yet.

So, can Detroit, even as it exits bankruptcy, compete in today's economy?

It's the key question Detroiters need to be asking themselves, but it's also the question any number of cities across America need to be asking.  Not that they've had to file for bankruptcy.  Yet - anyway.  But times have changed.  The reason cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Kansas City, Syracuse, Memphis, Des Moines, St. Louis, and New Orleans were founded are no longer reasons for them to be viable urban centers today.  Some, like Charlotte, North Carolina, have found their new raison d'être in banking.  Minneapolis has technology and healthcare.  Miami has international commerce, particularly with Latin America.

Plus, at least for Miami, it never really lost its tourism economy.  After all, palm trees and balmy ocean breezes never really go out of style, do they?

Meanwhile, what's Detroit got for tourists, besides a plethora of that ruin porn?

Today, however, Detroit lives to see another day, or another decade, even.  It may have taken a bunch of outsiders to hammer together its bankruptcy package, the process may have instigated a lot of bickering and contention, and not everybody's happy about the result, but it had to get done, and it got done.

Not many bankruptcies can be considered a major progressive accomplishment.  But for Detroit, today is a major progressive accomplishment.

Unfortunately, that says a lot of negative stuff about where Detroit has been, and how far it still has to go.

Need More Happy?

"Do you write happy stuff?  I need more 'happy' in my life."

A friend of mine from church was being honest with me, like friends should be.  He's read some of the things I've written, and noted my penchant for pessimism.

And he's right, isn't he?  You know what "happy" is - something cheerful, optimistic, smile-inducing; in other words, everything everyday news is not.

So, do I write happy stuff?  No, not a lot.  I know that.  And it's a reality that tends to bother me.  I can write all day about stuff that saddens me.  But I have to rack my brain for personal memories that are happy.  I have to scour the Internet to find happy news, or topics that spark my imagination in a lighthearted, uplifting way.

Both my friend and I know the reason why "happy" is elusive.  He readily admits that he needs more happy in his life, and so do I.  And, I suspect, so do you.  But we neither need nor truly want the type of happy that is fleeting, or trite, or based on illusion that everything's right with the world.

To be clear and Biblical, we need to understand that happiness is not joy or peace.  Joy or peace can be present even in the worst of circumstances, whereas happiness is more of an emotion that is dependent upon pleasant, if not fulfilling, circumstances.  The Apostle James says we should "count it all joy" when we're suffering, but he says nothing about being happy with it.

My friend, a born-again Christian, knows that everything isn't right with the world, and so do I, and I hope you do, too.  In fact, that's why he - and I, and you - would like to see more "happy" in our lives.  We know that in this fallen world, there's far too much pain, despair, and plain old unhappiness that we deal with every day.

I had lunch today with somebody who'd just lost a job we'd celebrated him getting only a year ago.  Every day this week, my father, who suffers from senile dementia, has had miserable spells in which he couldn't remember anything about Mom, me, or our family.  I imagine you have news from your family and friends that could be even worse than mine.

Happiness?  No!

A lot of my Republican friends are elated with the results of this past Tuesday's elections, but political euphoria has to be one of the most transitory, temporary, and easily-destroyed sensations on the planet.  Just two years ago, Democrats were giddy at what appeared to be the prospect of a severely crippled GOP.  Tides can turn quickly in a democracy, but pundits on both sides of the aisle tend to forget that.

As quickly as it stormed our national consciousness, Ebola appears to have suddenly evaporated as a major crisis for America.  Even in Africa, experts say the number of new Ebola cases appears to be declining.  Yet it's hard to get happy over that, because 99.99% of us don't know anybody who got sick or died from it.  The only people who may be happy about Ebola's apparent downturn likely are the ones who let the media make them panic about it in the first place.

You want happy?  Real "happy"?  So do I.  But I'm not going to over-drink or over-eat to get some sort of pseudo-happy thing going on in my body.  I can't bring myself to read celebrity websites so I can indulge in a bit of schadenfreude when reading about the romantic misfortunes and fashion flubs of famous people.  I don't have the money to go out and splurge on clothing, technology, or exotic travel that may not be bad for me, but that could only give me a brief high of consumeristic gluttony.

Happy?  Happiness is what so many people want, and spend their lives searching for.  Happiness is one reason people invest their time, energy, and money on religious pursuits, or following a favorite sports team.  The search for happiness is something that can drive athletic people, since endorphins are created naturally by our bodies when we exercise.

Meanwhile, aside from my faith, I tend to find my happiness in things that can't really be purchased, or even earned.  I'm no environmentalist quack, but I can honestly say that big trees with broad canopies make me happy, especially on sunny summer days here in Texas!  Any summer day is usually a happy kind of day when I'm in Maine.  Laughing at a good joke makes me happy.  Admiring classic cars, listening to children play nicely with each other, and listening to really good music can also make me happy.

Sometimes, I write about these experiences with happiness.  But, no, not that often; I know.  Most of the time, I write about things that could make us happy, but that have somehow gotten corrupted by our human penchant to abuse otherwise good things.

So, in a way, I'm still writing about happiness, but I'm writing about it in its absence, rather than its presence.

Okay, that's taking the whole thing too far, isn't it?  Of course, there's no happiness in reading about how happiness is corrupted!

Which brings us back to needing more "happy" in our lives.

"Be ye happy" is not in the Bible.  But that's not a good enough reason not to write about happy things more.  Nevertheless, I can honestly say that when I see "happy," I'll try to write about it.  But it won't be fluffy, or cute, or hollow.  I just can't do fluffy, cute, or hollow.

And when I don't see "happy," I'll be writing about that, too.  Not to be depressing, necessarily, but to point out where we might have had "happy" instead of whatever we got.

Let's say that most of the happiness about which I write is a work in progress!

As for getting more "happy" in your life, the next time you pass by a big tree, slow down and admire it. 

Unfortunately for him, Ronald Reagan has been quoted as saying that "a tree's a tree.  How many more do you need to look at?"

I prefer Martin Luther's take on trees:  "Every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver."