Tag Archives: happiness

9 ENG LIT 9.45 MATHS 11 HAPPINESS

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DR ANTHONY SELDON, Master of Wellington College gave Church Times its Back Page interview this week.

… We started the “happiness classes” at Wellington in 2006, grounding them on the Positive Psychology of Professor Martin Seligman. He tried to move people from a sort of minus five state of fear and loneliness and unhappiness to a sort of OK state, and then to a plus-five kind of flourishing state. We try to build up children’s resilience, because you can’t stop bad things happening to them.

We try to change their mindset to one of being grateful — which involves things like thinking of three things to be grateful for before going to sleep. We encourage them to pay serious attention to their physical body because with a healthy body it’s easier to have a healthy mind. And we encourage young people to give to others, because the core of our model is looking after others …

Truly, there are some marvellous and extraordinary people in the world today. In the last few days alone (to keep this post brief) I’ve been awe-struck by the grace, ease and “possibilities” of – and advocated by – Benjamin Zander; by the prophetic imagination of Dee Hock and friend, David Herbert, who recognised it early; by the poetic inspiriting of the poets Rachel Mann, and Jo Shapcott and Daljit Nagra, (to whom Rachel brought my attention), and Sally Purcell (to whom Fr Roger Clarke brought my attention).

I’m still reeling from having delighted in the artistic majesty in The King’s Speech; and Maggi Dawn tweeted her friends in the direction of what will doubtless be a blockbuster, The Insatiable Moon, in British Cinemas from March.  And I see, every day, the marvellous and the extraordinary in the family, friends, parishioners, fellow citizens all around me.

And today the Master of Wellington College speaks of happiness classes, of Martin Seligman and Lord Layard. Imagine: 9 English Lit; 9.45 Maths; 11 Double Happiness. Day after day there’s something new and glorious to get stuck into. As the old hymn has it: “New every morning is the love …”

When all is said and done, there’s yet more to be done and said. Some world-changing to be brought about, some world-creating to be engaged in, some justice and peace to be striven for, some hunger and thirst to be satisfied, some shelter to be provided, wells to be plumbed, and gardens to be raised up, good earth to roam, and seas and skies to be traversed; all that is really Real. Truly, it’s a wonderful life.

SOUND OF SILENCE

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HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU HEARD SOMEONE TELL YOU that, though they’re not regular Sunday worshippers, they hugely value our church buildings as a space for silence?

I would hazard a guess that you’ll have heard those words at least as frequently as my day to day contacts illustrate a need for quiet space in all our lives … and in our worship.

How many more people would worship regularly in our churches if we didn’t crowd out the entire space with performance pieces of one kind or another?

People need quiet space, in churches, and in liturgy, because we need time to ask our own questions of God, and we need time (and quiet enough) to hear some answers.

I keep running back to Fr Timothy Radcliffe’s “What is the Point of Being a Christian?” when I need a ‘wisdom top up’. There’s plenty of wisdom and plenty of ‘quiet’ between this book’s covers …

Why doesn’t God just give us what we want: peace and justice and happiness for all?

Because He’s not “a powerful, celestial superman, a sort of invisible President Bush on a cosmic scale who might come bursting in from the outside”, suggests Fr Radcliffe (p.16): “God comes from within, inside our deepest interiority. He is, as St Augustine said, closer to us than we are to ourselves”.

So the sound of silence, and the consequent space for contemplation, needs to be granted equal status alongside (note, alongside, not without) “another round of Abba Father, please, boys and girls …”