It is the very
pursuit of happiness
that thwarts happiness.
~ Viktor E. Frankl*
So, God,
where did some of us get the idea that happiness is our
birthright? We spend so very much of our lives chasing after it and
even worrying about how to get it. How many of us have said: If
I can just have that car, if we can live in that neighborhood, if that
promotion comes through, if I can win the big lottery, then I'll
be happy. We waste life looking back crying about "if
only ___ had been different" and looking ahead thinking "if only
___ can happen" that we completely miss today. I want to
stop missing now by spending my time wishing to change the
past while dreaming about my wants in the future. Please, Lord, while I know it's useful and responsible to make plans and work toward fulfilling current and future goals, at the same time help me see that this moment
I'm in as the place to fully be and live with
whatever is happening.
As the child who finds joy in blowing the seeds of a dandelion into the
breeze, let me experience the present as the fruit of the past
and the seeds of the future, completely grounded in You and completely in right
now. amen.
*Viktor Frankl, [1905-1997] an Austrian neurologist and
psychiatrist, focused some of his early studies on depression and suicide and
set up a youth counseling center in Vienna that successfully reduced teen
suicide. Later he set up a suicide prevention program in a psychiatric hospital
for women from 1933 to 1937. Being Jewish, he was required to close his
practice as the Germans annexed Austria and he was interned in the Nazi
Holocaust of concentration camps for three years losing his wife, his
mother, and his brother. His seminal work, Man's Search for
Meaning, chronicles his imprisonment. It was through this unimaginable
time he realized the importance of finding meaning in all forms
of existence even under the most difficult and even
horrible experiences and finding reasons to continue to live. As he said,
crisis offers new opportunities to live as if for the second time. He
authored many other books including Yes to Life In Spite of Everything, 11
months after his liberation from Auschwitz.
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