Creative Leadership

March 27, 1952
Gloucester
to A.U.W. Meeting, worship service

I want to add my greetings and to welcome you to this important gathering of Universalists. I’m quite sure that judging from the high quality of the program and the fine spirit that has been in evidence that this is an occasion of significance for every one of us.

The task of a leader in worship is to single out some phase of life’s experience and to attempt to so stimulate your minds and touch your emotions that a wholesome tension will be created.

I have enormous respect for the power that is represented by the women of the world. In our country, surveys have revealed that the purse strings are almost completely controlled by the women. Some sociologists as they reckon with this phenomenon, as they see women directing the activities of the parent-teacher groups, as they see the power of such women’s organizations as the League of Women Voters, and as they are presented with the unmistakable evidence of the growing interest of women’s groups in almost every cultural influence, predict that America will soon be, if not actually now is, a matriarchy with the men occupying a decidedly inferior position in terms of actual power and actually leadership. Now that may or may not be over-gilding the lily. But one cannot be long associated with the church work and not recognize that without the active support of the women of the church he will soon be floundering in very choppy waters.

For that reason I venture to set before you three qualities of leadership which will guarantee not only that your leadership will be fruitful in terms of the strengthening of Universalism in all ways, but also will guarantee that morally you will be on your way to being a real person.

First of all, there is no higher tribute to your leadership than your ability to find a successor who will do the job better. Enthusiasm for a worthy goal, long and tedious hours in acquiring certain “know-how” to lead a certain committee to continuing success pays big dividends for the church and for the achievement of desirable progress.

Yet even in our desire to serve we may consciously or unconsciously tend to rebuff those who would like to work with us, who would like to know more so that they might serve better. Many hundreds of miles from here I know of a woman who was most skillful in promoting an annual dinner which had acquired some amount of local fame. But when she became too old to continue her active leadership, she jealously guarded her knowledge of recipes, quantities needed and other important data. Those who followed her in the job were unable to share her experience because she was afraid that someone else would be recognized as her superior or even her equal. Such an attitude prevents progress. Progress in a church or in a nation is constructed on the basis of constant refining of past methods. If every generation had to start from scratch we would still be in the Stone Age.

Jimmie Durango (sometimes we can learn as much from a clown as from a Hamlet or a Lear) not so long ago made a recording, singing a duet with opera star Helen Traubel. After Miss Traubel observed that “It was truly a pleasure to record with an artist whose voice sounds just the same with a bad needle as a good one,” Jimmie rejoined width, “the reason why my voice is as bad today as it was 25 years ago, is that I take care of it.” (from Sunday Supplement THIS WEEK).

There are ways of taking care of things so that they will be as bad today as they were 25 years ago. Failure to look for and encourage new leadership is one. Ego has its place in all of our lives – we do need to have it fed. Those who have read biographies of early President John Adams will recall that he had a healthy ego and was no shrinking violet. Yet some think his talent which did the most for the country was his ability to pick good leaders for important jobs. Through the Second Continental Congress he was instrumental in the choice of a Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army, George Washington. When Adams was President he appointed John Marshall Chief Justice.

In terms of the ongoing procession of achievement, if you would make your leadership of lasting importance, find the best person you can and without undue fanfare share with him your joys and sorrows, your successes and failures as a leader. If you win him to your job, it’s the highest tribute to your ability.

Secondly, “There is no limit to the good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” that’s a quotation but I cannot remember the source. Adoration of one’s own name in print is an occupational hazard common to most endeavors involving leadership. Did not the late George M. Cohan say, “I don’t care what you say about me, but spell my name correctly?” The matter is more profound than simply a superficial desire to acquire personal publicity. ( this is not to say if there that there may not be good reasons for publicity.) Basically the issue involves one’s moral approach to life. I rather think that is something of what Jesus had in mind when he spoke about “he who loses his life will find it.”

In that interesting letter in the New Testament called the Third Letter of John, we find the same question of personal standing vexing one of the early Christian Colonies. John of Ephesus (if he was the author) writing to his friend Gaius says that he has tried to get some problems straightened out by mail. But Diotrephes, who likes to be the leader, will not accept the suggestions of John of Ephesus. If the letters account is correct, Diotrephes wanted to be the #1 person regardless of the merit of the questions in controversy.

It’s possible the cause for an overemphasis to self-centeredness may be found in the reason for our being willing to serve. Is our motive the need that exists in this situation, whether that situation be one of assistance to our Japanese or Nigerian children, information for those that need enlightenment or pledges for the church budget? Or is our motivation for serving based on our need for recognition or love? When it is the latter, when the supremely important factor in our personal need for compliment, affection or applause, we are apt to fade away when confronted with a tough or ugly situation. “There’s no limit to the good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

One more thing, there’s no limit to the good you can do if you don’t mind being different. We’re living in an age where the pressure on us to conform to things as they are is greater than for a long time. There are those numbered among the Universalists who feel that it is of no importance if we fail to protect against the superficial refurbishing and renovation of all the old supernatural, inhumane, pessimistic theological doctrines. There are those good people in the ranks of the Universalists who respond with resentment when a Universalist keeps to the main line of Universalism - heresy, criticism, and a confidence that is constantly renewed that man is worthy of redemption and has the potential capacity to be the agent for that redemption. Prime Minister Ben Gurion of Israel, one of the more eminent statesman on the world scene today recently reminded the world that “the test of democracy is the freedom of criticism.”

The early Universalists who founded this church, whose names you may see on the Charter of Compact in the Ladies Parlor were not afraid to be different. For them the penalty was stoning, seizure of their goods and jail sentences. Yet because they and other early Universalists were different – were heretics – is why we are gathered here today – glad that we are Universalists.

We’re questing for the Universals in religion. We’re seeking the truths that all men can come to through exalted and sacrificial experience and every-day living. We will continue to be a minority. That is not particularly vital. What is vital is, will we be a CREATIVE minority? There are Universalists all over the world yearning for fellowship with those were different enough to recognize man’s common humanity and man’s deep need for the moral values discoverable in all ethically noble religions. Carlton Fisher stirred us deeply this morning when he told us the dramatic stories of Universalism in Japan and Nigeria. I think I can surprise him with a letter addressed to this church which was received the day before yesterday.

Let me read:

Universalist Church,

Gloucester, Massachusetts

United States America

Gentlemen:

“ Not only a long time now that I heard this Universalist church founded by honorable Reverend John Murray in your 1770, at Gloucester Massachusetts, and I am very happy when I know this church.

“In another way, I request a general information pertaining your Universalism, your Supreme Minister, address of your headquartered denomination, and etc. for I have something for it later- on.

“I’m proud to recommend that I myself is a former minister of the Universal Church of Christ in the town of San Carlos, and Canla-on province of Negros Occidental and Oriental, and I want to introduce this Universal Church of Christ to your Universalist Church happily.

“As soon as you can receive my letter, I hope that you will take good care my inquiry.

Respectfully yours,

Reverend Toribio S. Quimada,

Nataban, San Carlos,

Negroes Occidental,

Philippines.”

Because John Murray was interested in searching for more truth and didn’t mind being different, more than 182 years later a Universalist and the other side of the world seeks to know more about the possibilities of fellowship. There is no limit to the good you can do if you don’t mind being different.

The Heavenly Vision

Gloucester December 21, 1952
Bridgeport Adapted December 25, 1955

We are constantly reminded during the Christmas season of the legend of the shepherds. Carol and cartoon, anthems and art tell us the shepherds saw a heavenly vision -- heard an angel assure them: "Fear not, there are tidings of great joy."

Then the vision enlarged and the shepherds saw "a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill to men."

Most of us believe that those beautiful legends surrounding the birth of Jesus are not historical events. Rather the stories and poems are superb efforts to express the inexpressible -- to attempt the impossible -- which is to put into words the wonder, beauty, mystery and pain that the presence of new-born life brings to a world that overlooks habitually beauty, wonder, and mystery.

Christmas is a window that lets us look at a world that ....

For the years of the lives of most of us, the words "peace on earth, good-will to men" have a hollow sound. We have seen a world that has spoken most clearly in blitz, bloody battle, brutal Buchenwalds, and barbarism made fantastically precise by man's mind and man's tools. Rather our world has taken on in part the kind of personality of the convicted murderer of not long ago whose last words were, "I hate everybody and everybody hates me."

The fact seems to be that most people do not permit a motto, even one surrounded by sacredness like "peace on earth, good-will to men" make much of a dent on the surface of their practical living.

The National Geographic tells about a river in Cambodia in French Indo-China that reverses itself. During the dry season this river flows toward and into the great Mekong river. But when heavy rains swell the Toule-Sap to flood stage, the river reverses itself and flows into the great lake it ordinarily drains.

Christmas is something like that. On the flood tide of feeling, a general warmth and friendliness permeates our lives, but soon the current reverses itself and we are back to normal. Or as Franklin P. Adams once wrote,

"Christmas is over, uncork your ambition!

Back to the battle! Come on competition!

Down with all sentiment, on scrupulosity!

Commerce has nothing to gain by jocosity;

Money is all that is worth your labors;

greed from your competitors, nix on your neighbors!

Push 'em aside in a passionate hurry,

Argue and bustle and bargain and worry!

Frenzy yourself into sickness and dizziness

Christmas is over and business is business."

In the eleventh century there was an attempted practice called the Truce of God. It was part of a monastic movement and declared closed season on the wars between the feudal nobles from Wednesday evening until Friday morning in memory of the passion of Christ. As the historian remarked, "the purpose was excellent, the success only partial."

Night-club comedian and cynic, Joe E. Lewis, phrased the distorted sense of values that seems to prevail in many aspects of our lives when he wise-cracked, "what good is happiness, it won't buy money."

But for a brief time, the current reverses, the truce of God prevails, we think of other people's happiness. For a few exalted moments, among the more reverent hours of the Saturnalia we do sense the possibility, with almost an inner sob we cry inwardly, "what if we could really catch a vision of heaven with angels singing about a reality of peace on earth, good-will toward men?

Is it possible for us to acquire the new dimension of vision that suddenly transformed the world of these shepherds? Why was their thoughtful loneliness suddenly transformed into an image of heaven that not only related to praising God, but to peace among men of goodwill?

Out of the hopes and dreams of persons in all times there has grown a store of poems, songs, folk-stories, legends -- all of which consciously and unconsciously express a yearning for the Holy -- and awareness of the intensity of the relationship between our conscious selves and the mysterious, but wonderful, force which runs through the lives of all persons and all things.

You remember last week's Swedish folk story from the pen of Selma Lagerlaf, the Holy Night? When the surly shepherd discovered that live coals did not burn a man, nor fierce dogs bite him, he asked, "what kind of a night is this?" He was answered, "I cannot tell you if you do not see it yourself." When he followed to the grotto and gave the soft white sheepskin to keep the baby warm, his eyes were opened. So it is with eyes that recognize a baby's need, and hands that are willing to give what we hold dear that we catch sight of "God's Glory."

But babies grow up -- even as baby Jesus did. Then it is more difficult to get shepherd's vision when we encounter human life and human beings. The baby Jesus grew up to be an unpopular adult. He was blunt -- after telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, he said, "go thou and do likewise." His associations were not of the best. His company included the patrons of rough drinking places and prostitutes. He was fearless -- the only religious authority for him was the inner light which was to him God and father.

Could persons still catch a heavenly vision through association with this strange Galilean who had been the little baby? A few did; most people did not -- "Crucify him!" Let's consider another of the great folk stories of mankind.

Around the search for the Holy Grail, troubadours of long ages ago wove song and story. Malory, Wagner, and Tennyson all took the old threads and rewove them into epics. According to many an ancient legend, the Holy Grail was the chalice fashioned out of one great sapphire which was uses by Jesus at the Last Supper. 'Twas believed that Joseph of Arimathea brought it to England where it was preserved as a relic and adored by pilgrims. But a descendant of Joseph broke his vows of purity and the Holy Grail disappeared. Usually the legend has the pure and stainless Galahad re-discovering the Holy Grail.

James Russell Lowell in his poetic version has enlarged the moral meaning of the tale. Sir Launfal begins his quest on that gorgeous summer day so well described,

"What is so rare as a day in June,

Then if ever, come perfect days."

Then Lowell reminds us of the lesson that Launfal must learn, about heavenly visions:

"Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;

Daily with souls that cringe and plot

We Sinai climb and know it not."

The young Launfal casually flings gold to the leprous beggar at the gate and begins his quest. The years pass and he finds no grail. As suffering registers its meaning with him, he begins to have the cross in his heart as well as on his surcoat. Launfal, now an old man, returns in failure to the castle. Launful is poor. He has one crust of bread left out of the wealth he took with him in his crusading youth. There at the gate is the loathsome leprous man, still with his begging bowl. The aged, weary, defeated Launfal dismounts and shares his last crust with the sick beggar. Then the poet tells us of another vision. The wooden bowl becomes the precious Holy Grail, the leprous beggar becomes the glorious Christ, and Launfal ascends with him to heaven.

Launful found the grail at his own palace-gate because it was there he shared not of his surplus, of his excess, but of his necessities.

"Not what we give, but

what we share

For the gift without the giver is bare."

The shepherds saw the heavenly vision while at their accustomed duties. If we all at one table, no one would be hungry. Peace on earth, good will to me -- it's a grand and beautiful dream -- but neither Palestinian shepherds of two millennia ago nor heroic figures of English legend can make the dream come true. Only ourselves.

I yearn that I and every one of you will not only accept and rejoice in the second-hand experience of shepherds and crusaders, but that through our acceptance of the wonder and mystery of life -- and through accepting our responsibility -- for each of us there will be a heavenly vision created by peace and good-will among men.

The Pursuit of Happiness

July 25, 1954

Bridgeport (GL ’52)

Carl J. Westman

When the American colonists declared their right to revolt against the then existing government, they affirmed that human beings were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We live in a time when human lives are valued little in most parts of the earth, when liberty has become compromised and destroyed under the guise of patriotism in those areas controlled by the Soviet giant. Even more alarming, liberty is becoming a virtue that is questioned by many in our land where the right to freedom should be most proudly and most fearlessly upheld.

The third unalienable or right which John Hancock and his co-signers claimed was the pursuit of happiness. I want to talk about that. If life is cheap and liberty threatened, most assuredly we can state also that happiness is a condition which affects so many of the world’s inhabitants that it is no exaggeration to say that when you encounter a person who seems to be happy, something rare has been discovered. Robert Louis Stevenson once said that “there is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”

A manufacturer or retailer, whether he sells automobiles or laundry soap, never fails to portray the users of this product in the advertisements as happy people. The implication is that if one smokes a certain cigarette, drinks a certain brand of beer, wears a suit sold by a particular store, then he will be as happy as the model who joyfully displays the item.

Is not most everyone looking for happiness or more happiness? Does not everyone feel that he could be happier than he is now? The glittering neon, the stale air and the brassy hollow laughter of many places of “entertainment” are unmistakable signs that the pursuit of happiness is a very elusive quest.

The dictionary provides us with the definition of happiness. It is a “state of well being characterized by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion ranging in value from mere content to positive felicity and by a natural desire for its continuance.” The root of the word “happiness” indicates that are originally it was synonymous with luck, good fortune or unpredictable happening. Does one have to be lucky to be happy? Is it enough to be merely contented? Cows are supposed to be contented. But even if this doubtful condition were true, who wants to be a cow? Furthermore, if happiness is merely an unpredictable result of blind chance, how can we defend the founding fathers belief that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right?

Ecclesiastes, the gentle skeptic, devotes a number of chapters to this question of happiness and does not arrive at any hopeful conclusion. He discusses the number of the activities of men in an effort to discover if happiness can result.

He reasons that if work were the wish of God then surely a man’s labor should bring him happiness. But in his observation he sees many cases where work does not bring happiness. Therefore he concludes that it is vanity, that is, empty, useless.

This philosopher than argues that men have no control over the events of their lives, that everything has been for ordained by an arbitrary, uncaring power. Therefore any hope that a man can achieve happiness by his own efforts is quite useless. That too, is vanity.

He goes on describing in number of events in the human pageant which are obstacles to happiness: the difficulty of obtaining justice in the courts, the futility of trying to overcome oppression, the power of competition and jealousy to prevent happiness; the well known condition, true in his day and in ours, that riches will not buy happiness; and the difficulty of retaining wealth after one has achieved at – all these he classifies as vanity.

He comes to the mournful conclusion that man’s search for happiness is doomed to failure. Labor and toil, he concludes, are our lot, and a sorry lot at that, with no more substantial reality than shadows.

What can be said in answer to this wise skeptic, whose agnostic writings should be good evidence that the Bible is man’s word not God’s?

The second great source of unhappiness is illusion. The great illusion, or mistake, is that happiness is conceived to be something to be won, like first place in a race, or acquired an as one might acquire a Persian rug or an original by Rembrandt. Most of us will readily repeat the trite epigram, “money won’t buy happiness,” but then we feel driven to qualify the statement by adding something like this, “but it’ll buy the kind of misery that is easiest to endure,” or, quoting Sean O’Casey, “money doesn’t buy happiness, but it quiets the nerves.” Such significant remarks demonstrate that we have a haunting, vague feeling that there is something vitally amiss with the attitudes we find so common, whether expressed or unexpressed, “what do I get out of it?” “what’s in it for me?” Some time ago a well known weekly magazine described how the wives of young executives in the business and professional world must observe certain unwritten laws of behavior if the husband is to advance in his chosen job. The choice of Home, automobile, even one’s closest friends, is dictated by the demands of the particular business for which the husband works. The article, even if true only in small measure, is a savage indictment of what our modern civilization may do to the worthwhile things of humanity. To some, as to the particular group in the magazine on article, success is the key to happiness.

Success, like acquiring Persian rugs, or original paintings never seems to reach a sufficiency. Like eating peanuts, the more you consume, the more you seem to want, even though additional quantities are wholly unnecessary.

In our day, we’re very much a under the influence of what is sometimes called “gracious living.” Comfort, ease and luxury are the keynotes. There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable – unless we make the mistake of thinking that comfort is synonymous with real happiness. Dr. Ralph Sockman, whom many of you have heard, once reminded his congregation that the function of the church and its ministry was to “comfort the afflicted” and “afflict the comfortable.”

If it is part of the task of organized religion to transfer some of the burdens to the shoulders of those who are at ease in Zion, then we can rule out physical comfort as the equivalent of happiness.

Is then, poverty, sackcloth and ashes the answer? In the old storybooks there appeared the story of the king who was desperately unhappy man. He sent for his philosophers, wise men, and counselors and told them that he wanted to be happy and relied upon them to tell him how we might achieve that goal. All offered solutions which failed. Then one sage told the king that happiness could be his if he would wear the shirt of a happy man.

All the king’s soldiers and messengers were sent throughout the kingdom to find a happy man. Nowhere did they find one. All men were unhappy. Finally one was discovered – a tramp taking his ease in the shade of a tree. The king’s messenger then demanded that the tramp give his shirt to the king so that the king might be a happy man. The tramp laughed, opened his coat and showed the messenger that he had no shirt.

Perhaps because of the influence of that story, for a long time I was under the illusion that the knights of the dusty roads, the romantic characters who traveled in boxcars and cooked delicious Mulligan stew in tin cans were carefree in happy, glorying in the beauties of nature and the joys of irresponsible comradeship. Like the other youthful ideas, the glamour rubbed off of the “picturesque” hoboes when I discovered that these wanderers are among the most tragically unhappy people in our whole civilization. The reason they travel the roads is because they find a living in one place impossible for them to cope with. The incidence of crime, insanity, suicide is far greater among these so called “romantic” wanderers that among other people. To yield to unrestricted wanderlust is seldom a triumph for happiness. Most often it is an admission of misery.

If happiness is not necessarily tied in with acquiring comfort, goods, power or success; and if on the other hand happiness has no relationship to poverty and irresponsibility, then what is it? Is happiness even more of an illusion than these other experiences of life?

Happiness, it seems to me, is not one of the quantities of life. It is not a thing like an upholstered chair or a rare stamp. Rather, happiness is a quality of life. Most certainly it is not a quality of life confined to a particular social structure, whether high or low. Happiness is not the possession of any particular country or particular time. Happiness cannot be packaged – but it can be demonstrated.

Happiness can be demonstrated by an attitude toward the universe. The fears that corrode happiness can be overcome by a confidence in the WORTH of this vast and mysterious condition in which we find ourselves. The fear of death that gnaws at life’s joys need not be a burden if we accept the reality of death. If we realize, without apprehension, that the end of our bodily existence is as natural a fact as the creation of life within the mother’s body, we need not fear. We fear not the rays of tomorrow’s sun although their power will surely appear to us. The next hour may bring disaster and pain – but need we fear it now? We are limited in many ways – inability to overcome the death of the body whether through age, illness, or chance – that is one of the limitations we must recognize and accept.

In the 144th Psalm the Hebrew singer says as his closing line, “happy is the people whose God is the Lord,” In addition to the feeling of at-homeness in our universe, we need another ingredient to this mixture of life’s elements which will give us a chance for real happiness.

Happiness can be demonstrated by refusing to accept the illusion that happiness is something that can be found by searching for it, as though it were an acorn and we were squirrels. (Gumpert) in his book likens the search for happiness to an incident in World War II. During the war years there arose a report that the German Luftwaffe was treating the crews of that air force with injections of adrenal hormones which enabled them to fly without any physical interference at 40,000 feet.” The rumor was false, but when it reached Washington in 1941, the Army and Navy called on the accelerated research program for the investigation and production of adrenal cortical hormones. The end result of this stimulated interest, though not useful for the war effort, was the discovery of the powerful substance for the treatment of arthritis,” which promises so much relief for a most crippling illness. Happiness too, comes unsought. Happiness comes only when we are able to look for something else.

There used to be a song, “wishing will make it so.” But it won’t. Happiness comes only from a worthwhile loyalty to important things. If everyone tried to live the motto of the Boy Scouts, to do a good turn to someone every day, then happiness would result. The secret, if it is a secret, of happiness is what you give – not what you get. I hope I haven’t told you the story (at least not recently) about the preacher who agreed to fill a supply [sic] preaching assignment in a small church in an isolated area. The preacher took his young son with him for company. As he entered the little country church, he saw a collection box placed on a stand near the entrance to the church auditorium. Thinking it a collection box for world service or relief, the preacher, hoping to set a good example for his son, who was watching him intently, placed a fifty cent piece into the slot of the collection box and went on into the church. He conducted the service and after the concluding hymn greeted the small congregation that had come to the service. As he was leaving, one of the deacons came up to him and said, “we believe in a voluntary offering to pay for the preacher in this church,” Turning to the collection box, the deacon unlocked it, removed the cover and shook the contents into the preacher’s hand. One fifty cent piece rolled out. The preacher thanked the deacon politely, although a bit ironically. The preacher and his son went to the car and started the trip home. The boy said nothing for a time and then remarked, “you know day, if you had put more in you’d have gotten more out.” So with the quality of happiness.

I think probably the most important thing that Jesus ever said was that group of suggestions for noble living that we call the beatitudes. It may be that they represent a more detailed exposition of that most vital sentence of the master, “he who loses his life shall find it.”

The beatitudes, each of with begins with the word that is translated “blessed”, are a little clearer when we realize that in place of the word “blessed” we can substitute “happy” without any inaccuracy of translation. When we do we are confronted with the true insight that the pursuit of happiness cannot be the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of noble ideals and high conduct. The happiness must come unsought.

”Happy are those who feel their spiritual need.” Life is lived on more than one level. If we confine our efforts, our ideas, to the material, the appetites of the body, we might occasionally be satiated, but we won’t be happy. But when we feel the need to achieve spiritual and moral goals and purposes; when we live on higher levels by seeking to translate those moral goals into conduct, then says Jesus, “happy are we.”

“Happy are the mourners.” Was Jesus joking in poor taste? Can mourners be happy? I think he was saying with condensed wisdom that the fact of our mourning, if it is a sincere mourning and not the expression of guilt or hidden satisfaction, is proof that something very precious has been present. A relationship has been achieved which had introduced into life a quality of happiness that arose above the fundamental needs to breathe, eat, and sleep.

“Happy are the humble-minded, for they will possess the land.” If you are satisfied with today’s work well done, even though tomorrow you may want to achieve better, then you will not vainly pursue the foolish goals of more and more goods and more and more power, merely to attempt to satisfy a lust for wealth and power.

And so Jesus enumerated these qualities that make for happy of “blessed” living: those who are determined that justice and righteousness will prevail; the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers; the honest martyrs – all these says Jesus, are happy.

Jesus was not deceived by that seductive illusion that happiness is tied up with anything but achieving the qualities of life. And happiness can never be found if only itself is the object of the search.

Happiness is a by-product of high religion. Because if, as the psalmist told us, “happy is the people whose God is the Lord,” and if we affirm, our Universalism is concerned with moral insights and affirmations of the ethical qualities that are possible in the scheme of living, then perhaps we may devote ourselves to life and liberty. The pursuit of happiness can be forgotten, because if it comes not as a result of our dedication to the good life, and real liberty, then it can come not at all.

Amen.