Spending Money Can Buy You Happiness?

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “… forgive, and you will be forgiven; give”  And more…. This is our story as Christians…and it turns out it’s true.  We knew this, of course, but it is not the dominant story of our age. We are surrounded by an alternative story, the dominant story, that insists that the path to happiness comes from buying things, getting things, having things for ourselves.  Perhaps this video can shed a bit of nuance on the question:

Woe to us if we lose our way

One of the axioms of life in my family is that we are convinced our mother understood the deep and true nature of Thanksgiving turkey stuffing.  All other efforts to match my mother’s culinary masterpiece are vain attempts at best and heretically sacrilegious at worst. And it is not just questions about stuffing that vex us – think about the local, never-ending debates here in Tampa about what constitutes a Cuban sandwich – and that is before we even get to the question of which one is the best. We might be willing to compromise our positions on turkey stuffing and Cuban sandwiches – but what about religion? Religion and what constitutes right and true religion is as troubling a question – and that is before we consider what that religion demands of us. And woe to us if we lose our way on the question of Religion. Continue reading