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Huston Smith: A Religion Scholar Sums It Up — Be Happy!

Huston Smith: A Religion Scholar Sums It Up — Be Happy!

Last updated on: June 23, 2015 at 12:01 am by Barbara Falconer Newhall

Huston Smith: A Religion Scholar Sums It Up — Be Happy! 2015-06-03T11:58:41-08:00 Barbara Falconer Newhall

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Religion scholar Huston Smith signs a book for high school religion teacher Bob Zorad at the Sagrada Sacred Arts store in Oakland, California. Photo by Barbara Newhall

It was 2o12. Religion scholar Huston Smith was 93 years old and he had a point to make. He was getting on toward the end of his life, a life of studying and, in some cases, practicing the world’s great religions. And he was ready to sum it all up.

Happiness, he said. We should have more of it.

Dozens of fans and friends had crowded into the Sagrada Sacred Arts store in Oakland, California, and Smith had rolled into the store in a push wheelchair, ready to do what he does best – say something.

Smith had taught religion at MIT, Syracuse University and UC-Berkeley, and he had fifteen books to his credit, including the award-winning Why Religion Matters and the perennial The World’s Religions, which has sold more than two million copies.

Plagued as he was by hearing loss, weakened eyesight and debilitating osteoporosis, you’d think the popular author and religion scholar would be ready to take it easy.

Not a chance.

‘And Live Rejoicing’

The title of this latest book, And Live Rejoicing, says it all, Smith told the crowd. It’s a memoir, stories of pivotal moments in the author’s personal and spiritual life.

The title is taken from the eighteenth century hymn, “Oh Happy Day,” popularized by the ’70s folksinger Joan Baez.

Oh happy day, oh happy day,

When Jesus washed my sins away.

He taught us how to watch and pray,

And live rejoicing every day.

“Happiness is the human birthright,” Smith told his rapt audience. “And if we are not happy then that’s a sign that there is something wrong with what we are doing – to alert us to the fact that we must change.”

Religion scholar Huston Smith and Mary Busby, proprietor of Sagrada Sacred Arts, led the bookstore crowd in singing “How Can I Keep From Singing?” Photo by Barbara Newhall

In other words, from his vantage point of nearly a century devoted to the study of life and truth and the meaning of it all Smith wasn’t telling his fans they could have more happiness. He was telling us we should have more of it.

To live rejoicing is something of an obligation we have as living, breathing sentient beings with just enough free will to make some choices.

His happiness point made, Smith’s 93-year-old brain skipped to another topic – his years growing up the son of missionaries in the town of Dzang Zok, China. He told a favorite story about how from time to time in Dzang Zok the moon had to be saved from dying.

“What do you mean save the moon? Well, on the other side of the globe in the small town where I grew up saving the moon was serious business.” Whenever there was an eclipse of the moon, it was believed that a dragon was swallowing the moon. The townspeople would rush to save it by pouring out of their houses in the middle of the night banging on pots, pans and other noisemakers to scare the dragon away.

“The strategy always worked,” Smith noted. “The moon was saved and, come to think of it, it is still up there with us today.”

During the Q&A, someone asked whether Christianity and Zen were compatible.

Christianity, One of Many Revelations

Smith said he thought that all of the major religions – he calls them revelations – were channeled by the divine. “I do not prioritize any one of them, not my Christianity or any one of them. If that be heresy, then make the most of it.”

Still, he said, “I was born of missionary parents and that meant that I was imprinted with Christianity from the very beginning. You peel Christianity off of me and there is no Huston left.”

“And Live Rejoicing: Chapters from a Charmed Life — Personal Encounters with Spiritual Mavericks, Remarkable Seekers, and the World’s Great Religious Leaders,” by Huston Smith with Phil Cousineau, New World Library, 2012.

More about Huston Smith at “Huston Smith — Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian.” A version of this essay first appeared on BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com, where Barbara riffs on life, family, books, writing, and her rocky spiritual journey. Barbara’s newly released interfaith book from Patheos Press is Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith.

Huston Smith, happy at 93. Photo by Barbara Newhall

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