Happy Men

"The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden." - ILN 1-3-20

I've oftentimes compared our understanding of our faith to being crushed by a tank filled to half its capacity. If ever I found myself on the short end of a tragic situation involving improperly mounted water tanks, I would like the headline to read "Optimist Crushed by Half Full Tank". In this situation, having a positive or negative view of life doesn't change the fact that life ends, i.e. one is crushed. However, while having a positive or negative view of life does not change the way a person died, it becomes incredibly relevant in describing how that person lived.

When I first started working in the University, Chesie Galvez (now Carino) and Audrey Enriquez, asked me what I would've wanted written on my gravestone. If I remember correctly, I answered "Here lies one whose name was writ on water", or something equally pretentious (as I am no Keats) and derivative. I've learned a bit since then. In Chesterton's preface to his biography of Robert Browning, he wrote that "His happiness is primal, and beyond the reach of philosophy. He is something far more convincing, far more comforting, far more religiously significant than an optimist; he is a happy man."

Recently, my class and I just finished discussing Canto XV of the second cantica (the Purgatorio) of Dante's tripartite epic, the Comedy. It was only then that I realized how beautifully Virgil explained the concept of sharing. Virgil suggests that in the context of a loving community, the more one shares, the more there is to be shared, an observation that seems to violate the basic human realities of supply and demand. When Dante challenges this, Virgil waxes poetic regarding the role that individual human souls have in propagating the good:

"That Good, ineffable and infinite,
which is above, directs Itself toward love
as light directs itself to polished bodies.

Where ardor is, that Good gives of Itself;
and where more love is, there that Good confers
a greater measure of eternal worth.

And when there are more souls above who love,
there's more to love well there, and they love more,
and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other."

(translated by Allen Mandelbaum, Purgatorio. XV. 67-75)

Virgil proposes that if one considers good people to be like mirrors, and the embodiment of all Good as light, then when good people act in concert, more of the ultimate Good is shared. I am quite sure that there are some Dantean scholars who would take offense at my summation of Virgil's argument, but even this possible misinterpretation makes sense in terms of human experience. It is true that good people shine like a beacon in the night, and that a community of good people acting together seem to burn with the fire of a thousand suns, and that it would probably be a testament to both the goodness of the soul and the worthiness of the cause that there are moments when the aforementioned figures of speech are not considered trite, melodramatic, or simply cliché.

Which brings me back to Chesterton's observation on Browning. I have come to realize that it is both my privilege and duty to be an occasion for joy—to be a happy man, and by doing so, bring happiness to others. I have long ceased to worry about what to put on my gravestone, or of the legacy that I will leave behind when my time comes. All I know is that when my time comes, I will meet my Maker with a great big smile.