Feelin’ Good: The Gospel According to Aristotle and Janis Joplin

Comments delivered by Dave Witke on Oct. 12, 2003,

at First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

 

 

The Reading for the Morning:

E. Burdette Backus on Mark Twain.

 

E. Burdette Backus was minister of this church from 1935 to 1938. He was a strong voice for Religious Humanism, and he was doubly pleased to serve this church because one of his predecessors as minister here, Curtis Reese, was one of the founders of the Religious Humanist movement.

 

Like Reese, Backus became a leader in the Western Unitarian Conference, the Chicago-based regional office of what was then the American Unitarian Association based in Boston. It was Reese, Backus, John Dietrich of Minneapolis, and others like them in the Western Conference, who forced the more conservative national headquarters in Boston to open up the denomination to more modern, scientifically-influenced and Humanist philosophies of religion.

 

Some church historians say it was this move toward a Religious Humanist philosophy that reinvigorated the Unitarian movement, which had, for some time, been losing members. The rejuvenated denomination once again was recognized as being on the cutting edge of religious thought and of religion’s relevance to daily life.

 

In one of his sermons, titled “The Gospel According to Mark Twain,” Backus discussed Twain’s view of true happiness. In this passage, Backus uses masculine imagery to refer to all humans, as was common at that time. Despite that confusion, the passage provides a good basic introduction to this morning’s topic.

 

Here is the quote from Backus’ sermon

 

  “One of the inexorable laws of the human machine, says Mark Twain, is that only one impulse ever moves a man to do the things he does – namely the impulse to content his own spirit. The act must do him good first; otherwise he will not do it.

 

  “No man ever sacrifices himself for others. We do many things daily for others, but it turns out upon careful analysis that the reason we do so is primarily to gratify a deep-lying demand within ourselves; we feel we will fulfill ourselves most by doing for others.

  “Mark Twain sums up his philosophy for the general betterment of the race in the following admonition:

 

   (Quote from Twain): “Diligently train your ideals upward toward a summit where you will find your own chiefest pleasure in conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure also to confer benefits upon your neighbor and the community.” (End Twain quote.)

 

  “Twain says this is the same ethical principle that has been set forth in all high religions; but he argues that this way of saying it has a distinct advantage over the usual statement of it because it is more realistic in frankly placing the contentment of self first and the conferring of  benefits on others second.”

 

Twain expressed a similar point elsewhere, in one of his pithy sayings along this line:

  Make yourself happy in such ways that, when you die, even the undertaker will be sorry.

 

(End of  the Reading)

 

 

 

 

Preliminary comments on Feelin’ Good:

 

Good morning.  I’m Dave Witke.

 

I’m up here this morning because our minister, Mark Stringer, is currently on a brief paternity leave – so members of the congregation are handling the Sunday services.

 

So, I am happy to be with you this morning.

I’m sure Mark and Susan are happy about their still impending parenthood.

And that brings us to the topic of the morning:

Are you happy?

Are you feelin’ good?

And why?   Why are you feeling good?

 

I hope you are feeling good.

And I hope that – to some extent at least –

          you know why you are feeling good.

The “why” can make a difference to you – and to the world around you.

 

We’ll get more deeply into that later in the service.

 

But right now, we are in for a treat that I’m sure will make us feel good:

Doug Hoffman will play and sing for us.

Doug ….

 

 (Doug sings and plays “Me and Bobbie McGee.”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Main comments on the topic:

 

You know how Mark often draws us into his message by telling us about a real-life personal experience he had that kind of planted the seed for his later thoughts that led to his Sunday sermon?

 

Well, the seed of this morning’s talk was planted on my first day of high school – ninth grade, 1951, Thomas Jefferson High School, Council Bluffs, Iowa.

 

On that first day, we green and naïve young freshman kids -- railroad kids and farm kids, mostly – walked in to our first class, civics class, and met our civics teacher, Mr. Frank Paluka.

 

Mr. Paluka was an older gentleman, and an old-school gentleman. He addressed us all as miss and mister and he treated us as if he expected us to have some intellect. He had emigrated from Poland to Iowa, and he still spoke with a distinct accent. He was small, tidy, scholarly-looking, and wore those small, round, thick glasses. We all recognized right away that here was a man to be respected, but we also found him a little odd – especially because, behind each ear, he had these noticeable holes drilled into his head – holes we learned later via the student grapevine had been created when his infected adenoids had been removed in his youth.

 

He was not what we were used to for our teachers in Council Bluffs. Nor was the first question he asked us that day the kind of question we were used to from our teachers.

  He opened the class with this question:

 

“Please tell me, students: What is the goal of life?”

 

Heck, we didn’t know. We just sat there with our mouths hanging open in a sort of unspoken “Hunh?”  He drew us out to venture some ideas, none of which I can specifically remember,  but I suspect they were things like “make a lot of money” and “be a good parent” and “lead a decent life” and “live by the Golden Rule.”

 

He greeted each suggestion with respect, but with a little shake of the head and a response of:  “Ah, but there is something even more basic, at the root of all these things.”

 

In the end he gave us his answer:

 

“The goal of life is happiness,” he said. “To be happy and to feel good.”

 

I think most of us were a little disappointed. His conclusion seemed a bit self-centered, far too simplistic for such a cosmic question. Yes, an interesting discussion, but a shallow conclusion. Yep, a little shallow.

 

 

###

 

Then, a few years ago, a wild and sensational singer named Janis Joplin flared onto the national scene. She had been a nice, bright, intellectual girl who found herself lonely and alienated in the small and small-minded Texas town where she grew up. She fled to the West Coast, to the rock music and blues scenes, and soon to drugs and a death by overdose.

  The first time I heard the radio play her rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee,” I was stunned by its power and its bittersweet pathos. Kris Kristofferson wrote the song, a tale of two young hobos who find each other on the road, play music together, fall in love, and lose each other. Three lines from Janis Joplin’s rendition still play over and over in my head:

   One is “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose”;

   The second is “I’d trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday”;

   And the third is, of course …… “Feelin’ good is good enough for me.”

 

That third line, “Feelin’ good is good enough for me,” reminded me of Mr. Paluka’s view on the goal of life: Happiness. Feeling good.

 

It was a fantastic song, I thought, but its philosophy – even though those lines wrenched my heart – its philosophy was …. a little shallow.

 

###

 

 

 

   About a year ago, I was reading some heavy book and I came upon a word I hadn’t encountered before: Eudaemonia. E-u-d-a-e-m-o-n-i-a.

   The word intrigued me, so I looked it up in my dictionary. Here’s what it said:

    Eudaemonia: Happiness. Specifically, the philosophical position that happiness is the goal of life. This is a basic principle in the philosophy of Aristotle.

 

Aristotle? Ain’t nobody I ever knowed what considered him shallow!

 

So, in recent months, I’ve done some more reading on the idea of happiness as the goal of life, and what I’m doing this morning is sharing with you what little I’ve learned.

  I don’t urge you to agree with what I present – just to listen and consider, take whatever might be of interest to you, and leave the rest behind.

 

I also need to offer a caution: My presentation of this information is going to be severely boiled down in order to avoid its becoming an academic lecture rather than a church service. I’ve oversimplified much of this, I know, and if you really want to delve into it at any depth you’ll want to do some reading of your own. But my goal is to present the essence of the material in order to plant some seeds of thought for you to consider.

 

First, let’s look at some of the other answers that have been offered to the question of “What is the goal of life?”

 

An ancient one, of course, is that the goal is to do God’s will. To obey God, or to worship God. This one persisted for centuries and still persists, in varied forms.

 

Jesus broadened this. When he was asked a similar question, his prescription was: “To love the lord your god with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” But then he added an amendment: “And to love your neighbor as yourself.”  Please notice that by adding this second goal – love your neighbor as yourself – Jesus added a new, human dimension to religion, becoming the first Religious Humanist.

 

The Buddha taught that the goal of life is Enlightenment -- to rise above life, to learn to escape life’s pains and chains through nonattachment, and to reach unity with the all.

 

In more modern times, Freud proposed “sexual fulfillment” and later “ego fulfillment.”

Then Adler built a case for “power.”

Victor Frankl, who survived the Nazi death camps, said the goal of life is to discover one’s own unique role in life, accept it and fulfill it. Our meaning, our life goal, he said, is within ourselves and dependent upon our individual circumstances.

 

Our own David Hurd tackled the purpose of life in a talk to the congregation last year, and he concluded that an individual’s purpose in life is simply to live it, and that the final purpose of Life with a capital L is not determinable by us, but in the meantime its purpose is to continue, to evolve, to play its part in the cosmic process, whatever that process may turn out to be.

 

David’s answer is somewhat akin to that of Joseph Campbell, who says the goal of life is to experience it, as fully as possible.

 

So let’s go back to Aristotle. Or maybe, first to Mr. Paluka. Mr. Paluka might say, to some of these answers, “Ah, but there is something even more basic, at the root of all these things.”

 

And Mark Twain would add, as in the Burdette Backus reading: “The reason we seek all these things is in the belief that they will make us happy.”

 

So now back to Aristotle.

 

  Aristotle preached happiness as what the classic philosophers called  “the Summum Bonum” – Latin for the highest good. Aristotle said that one achieves happiness by using one’s power of reason to establish noble values and then to act accordingly. By doing so, we gain personal happiness through acts that also benefit others ….. and everybody ends up happy, and the society ends up healthy. The supreme good.

 

Here’s a good time to note that what Aristotle and Mr. Paluka mean by “happiness” is not mere momentary pleasure. That’s included, and has its place in the larger overall scheme, but they also mean long-term contentment, serenity, fulfillment, satisfaction. They mean “feelin’ good” today by living in ways that will also build long-term happiness.

 

And what they’re saying, in everyday terms, is that to enjoy these things we must start with good values and act according to these values, and thus we’ll benefit not only ourselves but others as well. By doing so, we’ll feel good. And so, in a way, “Feelin’ Good” is good enough – because that’s what its all about, after all.

 

Well, interesting. BUT …  What if we are NOT happy?

 

The modern behavioral scientists say well, then, we either are not matching our actions to our values,   or else our values are not the kind that are conducive to happiness  –  because they do not benefit both us and others.

 

   This brings me to what is perhaps the crux of my remarks this morning:

   Modern behavioral experts say there are things we can do about our values, our actions and our happiness if we find ourselves dissatisfied.

 

  These scientists make three key points about this:

  First, they say there are ways we can identify our basic values in order to examine them, so we can compare them with our actions.

  Then, second, there are ways we can bring our actions into closer accord with our values, by focusing on their congruence.

  Or, third, there are ways we can change or modify our values in order to produce healthier actions.

 

  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Modern behaviorists suggest some practical ways to make that examination.

  Professional therapy is, of course, one way. But there also are things we can do ourselves.

 

  To identify our own basic personal values, they say, we should look first at our actions and see what they tell us about our values.

 A crude example: If I think I value charitable organizations, but put all my money into my own bank account, it indicates I value personal economic security more than I value helping others.

    If I value social action, but never take any, then I can conclude I value other ways of spending my time even more.

    If  someone says or does something I disagree with and I go along or fail to speak up, then I must value avoidance of conflict more than I value assertiveness or honesty.

  Often we may find that we betray a positive value because we hold a still deeper, but darker, value – such as avoiding rejection, or averting ridicule, calming a fear, or needing to feel superior.

 

  The behavioral experts also note that we hold many values at the same time, with varying degrees of commitment, and many of them even contradictory.

  We have internalized the seeds of these values from many sources in the whole culture we live in. The seeds of these values collect in us, and they can sit ungerminated or they can grow to varying sizes and varying degrees of commitment.

   What the experts want us to know is that we can exercise considerable control over which of these seeds we choose to nurture, fertilize and encourage to growth. And we can root out the seeds that grow into weeds that we want to discard. We do not have to be passive bystanders in our own values development.

 

  Sidney B. Simon, and others, have identified seven stages of a value’s development. Here’s how the experts say a value grows and becomes increasingly ingrained in us:

 

    First, we become aware of the value, through learning of one sort of another, from the culture around us. The seed is planted.

   Next, an experience causes us to consider this value as a possible basis for action.

   Third, we venture to speak the value aloud, in public or to someone else.

   Fourth, we begin to appreciate the value, based on the reaction to our having spoken it.

   Fifth, we act on the value.

   Sixth, we are reinforced in our action, by the reaction of others or by the results of the action.

   Seventh, we repeatedly invoke the value and repeatedly act upon it, gaining continued encouragement and reinforcement, until the value becomes almost an unquestioned assumption and the actions based on it become an almost automatic response.

  Each of these steps progressively strengthens that value within us and makes us more likely to act upon the value in our daily living.

 

 Okay, now, a person can thus, intentionally and by oneself, modify one’s own values or actions by practicing these steps in a program of what our former ministers Annie Holmes and Thea Nietfeld might call a personal program of “spiritual practice” or “spiritual discipline.”

 

 

 

 

   So  this brings me to what I think makes this a church service rather than an academic lecture.

   To me, our church community – with its thoughtful questioning, its supportive and nurturing approach to the development of our individual religious views – is the perfect hothouse, the perfect soil, for this process of values development to take place – individually and communally.

 

   To me, that is what this church, this UU community, is about: From ideas, to exploration, to testing, to encouragement and support, to the opportunity to speak our values, to the opportunity to act on them and be reinforced in those actions – and ultimately to re-evaluate those values and actions. 

It is what we do.

 

  And we do it not only for ourselves – we adults – but our Sunday school helps our children start with sound values, develop them, be encouraged in them, and learn how to live and act with them.

 

   Lori Allen, our Director of Religious Education, says that a quick synopsis of our Sunday school philosophy goes like this:

 

 --To help the children be happy, to have fun and to enjoy life in healthy ways.

 --To introduce them to values and ideas worthy of consideration.

 --To instill, most of all, a sense of respect for themselves and for others.

 

 --To acquaint them with the UU Principals and Purposes and help them see how these principals contribute to a positive life.

 --To impress upon them the importance of a safe place – a community where every child can be themselves and allow others to safely be themselves.

 --To live by the model of the Golden Rule.

 

--And, progressively, as the children grow older and more mature, to equip them with tools for questioning and seeking; for constructive self-examination; for evaluating information; to consider  possible consequences and the impact of their actions on themselves and others; and how to live in healthy relationships.

  --All in all, to enjoy the present in ways that will lead to a happy future.

 

  Our church and our Sunday school program are virtual laboratories of healthy values development. So my purpose in this talk is to remind us of that; and to emphasize that we, individually and in community, are in a constant state of developing and re-evaluating our values; …

   … and, finally, that doing so can help us become happier about our lives and leave us “Feelin’ good.”

 

 

 So, I offer these comments in a context of our own religious journeys here in this church.

 

Frankly, I think Aristotle would approve of us.

And I regret that sad, tragic, lonely Janis Joplin did not have the chance to grow up in a UU youth group.

 

Thank you for listening.

 

 

CLOSING WORDS (after Hymn of Valor):

  Go in happiness. Go seeking happiness. Go spreading happiness.

 

 

#############