Here is a post from my xanga that I did a few weeks back. I thought it would be nice to post here as well.

Happiness, Joy, Movies and Holiness

The other day I watched Hitch. It was a pretty good movie but it had enough of Hollywood’s morality or I should say immorality in it that it kept me from enjoying it as much as I could have and I by no means suggest that anyone watch it. However there was a point made in the movie which is how I have often felt and how I believe C. S. Lewis pictures true Joy. In the movie near the end a character named Albert makes a comment something to the effect that he feels really down but at the same time he is happy and that he has been waiting to find a girl he could love and be happy with even if she left him and made him miserable. Later the character Hitch makes the same or similar comment to the character Sarah.

Now I am going to make a few conjectures here and I don’t have a whole lot of scripture to back it up (see the next post for some scriptures) but I think it should ring true without a whole lot of verses after all, all truth is God’s truth and I believe that if you are in the scripture daily that God gives you some internal sense of discernment. Anyways back to happiness, (I will be using a happiness and joy interchangeably, some people make distinction and it needs to be made sometimes, but in this case unless I say false joy or happiness I mean true joy and happiness) Happiness, is very hard to define, in fact my favorite talk show host Dennis Prager doesn’t define it. He believes that happiness is indefinable but yet everybody knows what it is. I as a former debater think that in by at least trying to define it we can reach a clearer view of what happiness actually is and thereby make it easier to be happier and more joyful.

C. S. Lewis spent most of his life looking for true joy, and he found it in various unusual places. A garden made in a tin lid, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkries, ancient mythology. Lewis says in his autobiography Surprised by Joy, “(Joy) It might almost equally well be called a particular kind of un-happiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want.” Lewis then later writes in is autobiography, “Inexorably Joy proclaimed, “You want - I myself am your want or – something other, outside, not you nor any state of you.” So Lewis describes joy as desire. I am now going to go on and make some further extensions of this concept of happiness and joy. I believe that 1. Happiness involves time, past present and future, and 2. Happiness is not so much a single emotion but the combination of all healthy emotions. (I sat healthy because some emotions are not healthy, like rage, hatred, and lust) Now, this is where Holiness comes in. Unlike happiness and joy, holiness is easy to define. Holiness is to be set apart due to uniqueness. Now in the Bible if you want to add intensity to a word you repeat it like “verily, verily,” “truly, truly,” there are only two things in the Bible that get intensified to the third degree. Holiness, when the Seraphim and Cherubim say “holy, holy, holy,” and in Revelation when an angel flies across the sky and proclaims “woe, woe, woe.” So if anyone was to say God is any one attribute it would have to be holy, merely because He is so separate and unique from us. But what makes this separation? His perfection in all other attributes such as love, justice, mercy, righteousness. The term “holy” is really a summary of all of God’s character in an attribute form. It would be proper to say the reason God has the attribute of holiness is because of all the other attributes of love, justice, mercy, and righteousness. It is a summary attribute. This is now where we get back to happiness; I believe that happiness is a summary emotion after a good experience. Why else would we say that if I have to be unhappy to be happy I will.

I am looking very much forward to getting married, but what I am looking forward to is all of the marriage from the blissful romantic time of courtship, the rough hard times that may and generally come in the middle, the times when I have to hold and comfort my wife, to near the end when you look back at the rest of the marriage and hopefully see how good it is, and I am even looking forward to time where if I outlive my wife, I breakdown and cry remembering her. Again I refer to Lewis, Lewis said that looking back he realized that the bliss or euphoria he felt after reading mythology or hearing Wagner’s music, was merely the footprint left by happiness after the happiness and come and gone, a reminder if you will.

I believe happiness is the culmination or the summary of a wholesome experience. Most people seek pleasure in place of happiness. Pleasure is like eating junk food and happiness is like a long Thanksgiving dinner. Sure junk food tastes good for a very brief moment but that’s all it is, it is a brief moment of satisfaction. Happiness is being full after a thanksgiving dinner, sure you had to eat some of aunt Edna’s raspberry casserole, but you have to do that every year in order to make her happy and thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same without her bringing that nasty stuff. Thanksgiving dinner lasts longer and is a wholesome experience; eating junk food is short and doesn’t really add to your health. Happiness is the desire and looking forward to good things to come, the bliss of the current moment, the fond remembering of good things past. It is the summary feeling of a wholesome experience wherein all wholesome emotions were experienced and the desire for another such experience.

If you have made this far congratulations!!! Below are a couple questions that were asked about the post and my replies.

"Just curious on your holiness definition of "Holiness is to be set apart due to uniqueness" and what reasoning and scriptures support this statement?"

Here are a couple verses on holiness.

Lev 20:26

And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.

As you can see Holiness means separation!

1 Sam 2:2

There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.

Holiness as uniqueness. Different and separated due to uniqueness of character and attributes!

"What does Uniqueness mean on a daily practical basis? What are we to be seperate from? Forgive the questions, just wanted to see your heart in the matter."

No problem! The uniqueness on a daily practical basis comes from us exhibiting Christ's character and being separate from the world. The world represents a corrupt and fallen man, however we have been saved and no longer are subject to sin In the world we live in the brightest light we have to shine is good character especially if we let it shine in small areas, like taking change back if we are given to much, being on time, being dependable, being sober minded or not a partier. If we are faithful in the small things we wil tend to be faithful in the big areas. Of course you have already heard much of this but it is good to remind ourselves. A few very practical verses tied into Holiness would be

1 Pet 1:13-17 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Rom 12:1-3 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

I Jn 2:15-16 15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Titus 2:12-13 12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

John 15:19 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Here are a couple verses on holiness.

Lev 20:26

And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.

As you can see Holiness means separation!

1 Sam 2:2

There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.

Holiness as uniqueness. Different and separated due to uniqueness of character and attributes!

You have made it this far your are one amazing person!