Running After Happiness

 According to Wikipedia, Adolph Kolping, who lived during the first half of the 19th century, "was a German Catholic priest and the founder of the Kolping Association. He led the movement for providing and promoting social support for workers in industrialised cities while also working to promote the dignities of workers in accordance with the social magisterium of the faith."

He once wrote, "Some people run after happiness and don't know they have it at home." I agree with him, up to a point. It can be very tempting sometimes, or even often, to get trapped in an endless cycle of "if onlys". "If only I had / was / could..." We get seduced into thinking that if only X, Y, or Z would change, our lives would be complete, and finally, finally, we could be happy.

And yes, I agree, that when our lives at any particular moment seem (or are) filled with problems and challenges, it is far more difficult to appreciate the actual minute by minute slices of happiness that may come our way. And for me, there is one outstanding example of this in action:

There is an old story, which was for long years considered to be apocryphal, about how a small group of rabbis in Auschwitz put God on trial, and found him guilty. In 2008, the Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel told an audience at a Holocaust Educational Trust appeal dinner in London, "I was there when God was put on trial." Which caused quite a stir among Jewish rabbis and academics.

It was reported in The Jewish Chronicle, who interviewed  Wiesel the following week. He said, "Why should they know what happened? I was the only one there. It happened at night; there were just three people. At the end of the tiral, they used the word 'chayav', rather than 'guilty'. It means, 'He owes us something. Then we went to pray."

At the end of its report, The Jewish Chronicle concluded, "The story is the subject of a famous midrash, or biblical commentary. Many people have assumed that the story was a way for those of faith to try to make sense of the Holocaust."

It is the final line of Elie Wiesel's testimony that touches my heart. "Then we went to pray." In spite of the horrific conditions in Auschwitz, in spite of the fact that they had just found God 'chayav' of neglecting them, "we went to pray."

Their faith was too important to them to dismiss it. So they grasped the moment of happiness they could find in that moment, which is what the Kolping quote is about, and went to pray.

I believe that even in the hardest situations, there is always a sliver of happiness to be found, if we are awake enough and aware enough to see it. And that running after future happiness simply doesn't work - all it does is to make us ignore what is happening in the present moment. Which I believe is the only instant when time touches eternity, when the Divine makes itself known to us.