Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
The Surest Way to Be Happy? Take the Diamond Path

The Surest Way to Be Happy? Take the Diamond Path

Last updated on: June 9, 2015 at 8:10 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

The Surest Way to Be Happy? Take the Diamond Path 2015-06-09T20:10:50+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Pondering this story, yesterday, about how focusing less on your own concerns and more on the needs of others leads to happiness, I recalled a childhood episode worth revisiting*****:

Recently I came across two items which superficially would seem to have nothing at all to do with each other. The first was an advertisement: a religious sister was promoting a women’s retreat about “finding oneself” and “coming to a place of ‘centered’ peace.”

Highlighted within the ad was a sort of inverted pyramid using decreasing-sized fonts to illustrate exactly how Sister intended to lead these women back to themselves, and center their peace:

The second article discussed an alarming trend of teenagers debasing themselves physically, materially and spiritually on their prom nights, thanks to parents who provide the ways and means for every sort of excess imaginable, from exorbitantly priced gowns to beach houses rented (but largely un-chaperoned) by the parents so that the party can continue through the weekend.

Reading these two very different items, I marveled at how upside down the world has turned in the last forty years, and I wondered if the inverted pyramid from item one may have a great deal to do with the tawdry details outlined in item two.

Flashback, forty-some years: as my friends and I prepare to make our first confessions God is very much on all our minds, as are the notions of sin and shame and forgiveness.

Contrary to modern thinking, we six year-olds are not little dopes incapable of comprehending moral concepts. Knowing that we will soon be kneeling in a confessional and facing up to all of our smallish venial sins (“told a fib, fought wit’ my bruddah, used the good spoons for diggin’ up moss”) we decide that for the whole exercise to be really worth while, we will need an honest-to-God mortal sin on our souls.

We settle on theft, anticipating additional penance for follow-up lies, and proceed to steal a large bottle of grape juice from Mrs. Garfinkle’s fridge.

We’ve stolen juice, and even as we drink it down under a shady tree we are preparing our lies. We know exactly what we’re doing, and how wrong our actions are. In fact, the knowledge that we are both stealing and planning to lie gives the whole endeavor an added patina of glamour and sophistication. We are edgy little mavericks, brazen in our purple-lipped defiance.

Enter Zeyde Garfinkle, grandfather of our non-Catholic consort, Joey. He approaches our tribal base behind the tallest pine trees and pretends not to notice our quick maneuvering as we hide the empty bottle behind us.

“It’s chilly in the shade! What are you children doing, here behind the trees?” he asks.

“Nuthin,” we answer, convinced that we are sly.

“Nothing,” he corrects, stressing the hard g . Peering through his glasses he tsks in concern. “But you children must be cold, your lips are purple!”

Gasp! We criminals exchange wide-eyed looks, noting for the first time the shared, incriminating, violet mustaches. Tongue-tied, we can offer no plausible excuse. It requires a lie we have not planned!

I won’t describe the subsequent projectile vomiting of purple grape juice brought on by pricked consciences, overfull bellies and the workings of fully engaged sympathetic nervous systems. Suffice it to say, between that and Joey Garfinkle’s bawling admission of our collective guilt, we children learned a lesson about the consequences of sin. Our cavalier attitudes about confession disappeared too. If Grandpa Garfinkle’s gentle probings could produce such a messy, stinging rebuke to our consciences, how would we survive Fr. Valentine?

I submit the Caper of the Grape as evidence that forty years ago children were being raised with an unambiguous sense of right and wrong, and a distrust of rationalization and relativity. It was not an unusual thing for the sacred and the secular to intersect in our lives on a daily basis, and that such intersections, rather than burdening children (and adults) with excessive guilt and shame, brought us balance and insight — insight which seems to be lacking in the lives of those pitiable, spiritually impoverished prom-parents, and balance that simply cannot be achieved by an inverted pyramid.

In 40 years our society has traveled from knowing with absolute certainty that even the smallest actions could impact our spirits for good or ill, to believing with equal certainty that everything is subjective and that small stuff ought not be sweated.

But really, there is no such thing as “small stuff.” We learn right judgment in small ways, so we needn’t learn it in larger, more brutal ways.

Reading about parents who facilitated the prom excesses, I wondered if their decisions were born not of recklessness but of plain old helplessness. Parenting to the conventional wisdom, perhaps they had allowed too much “small stuff” to go un-sweated, missed too many opportunities to instill values of personal dignity and human consideration, for fear damaging self-esteem. If that were the case, how would they suddenly know how to teach boundaries?

When parents balance praise with an honest recognition of smaller errors, they help their children understand limits more readily. After all, one mild reprimand was enough to forever erase thievery from my career plans. The trick lies in knowing how to correct the young in ways that are forthright, but also spiritually and mentally healthful.

Grandpa Garfinkle was a master in healthy teaching. When we children next encountered him, he noted our discomfort and did not try to excuse us. The juice had been meant for others, and we had been thoughtless and selfish. But the old man knew how to reinforce a lesson with kindness.

“Now, listen all of you, because your priest is going to tell you this too: there is one very best way to live your life. First, you love and serve God, and you keep the commandments. Then, you look around at everyone else and see where you can love and serve them. Then, if you have any energy left over, you can think about yourself. This,” he said, raising his finger to emphasize the point, “is the way you walk on a road made with diamonds,, by forgetting yourself, and what you want. It is the diamond path.”

Image by Renata Novackova, via Shutterstock.com

*****Originally published at First Things. Reprinted with permission.

UPDATE b/c Related:
Just one year later, I had to relearn my lesson. I was a horrible child.

Parenting

Morality

Theft

Previous Post

June 8, 2015

On Happiness, Science Agrees with Jesus and the Saints

Next Post

June 10, 2015 Climb Down from a Catholic Ledge: For every Koch, there is a Sarah

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the name "Jacob" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Friend of God Full of light Supplanter Justified