Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand “Positive Thinking”

Happiness sells. So do books promising a way to help you be happier—especially when they carry the designation “Christian.” In her 2009 book Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Under­mining America, social critic Barbara Ehrenreich traces the genealogy of positive thinking ideology back to religious Americans: for example, Norman Vin­cent Peale, author of the 1952 best seller The Power of Positive Thinking, and Mary Baker Eddy, the 19th-century founder of Christian Science. Positive psychology is now profitable quite apart from any religious associations, but one need only peruse Amazon best sellers in “Christian Living” to see that it remains popular in American Christianity.

Books promoting a Christianity driven and defined by positive thinking do not belong exclusively to the corpora of authors like Joel Osteen, Marianne Williamson and Joyce Meyer—all heavy on miracles and material blessings. Ann Voskamp, who describes herself as “just a farmer’s wife,” has created an impressive brand with her best-selling book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are and its companion journals, DVDs, devotionals, photo-illustrated gift books and iPhone apps. Her teaching is simple: start a running list of little things you’re grateful for—“a high pile of freshly grated cheese,” “moonlight on pillows,” “new toothbrushes”—and identify them as gifts from God. Then even tragedies will be transformed into “seeing-through-to-God-places.”

If this sort of thinking leaves you cold, British journalist Oliver Burke­man’s The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking will be for you just what the title promises. Burkeman introduces a different way to think about happiness: although happiness may be a “worthy target,” he writes, “aiming for it seems to reduce your chances of ever attaining it.”

{This is the beginning of a review I wrote for The Christian Century. Continue reading here.}

Vegan? Vegetarian? Flexitarian? Compassionate Carnivory?

Recently I came across this quotation from the novelist and essayist (and, I believe, genius) Marilynne Robinson, given in a 2008 interview with the Paris Review:

“I’m generally a vegetarian of the ovo-lacto type, minus the ovo, yet I’m keenly aware of the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian. When he visited Mussolini in Italy he rejected the state dinner. He didn’t drink or smoke. I hold him up as an example of how an aversion virtue can be a negative sign.”

What I think Ms. Robinson is getting at is that certain virtues trump other virtues: you don’t get ethical points for being a vegetarian if strict adherence to vegetarianism means you’re going to seriously snub someone. I tend to agree: I don’t like to eat factory-farmed meat, and will avoid it if I can do so politely, but generally eat what is put in front of me if rejecting it means rejecting someone’s hospitality.

(On the other hand, when it comes to factory-farmed ground beef, I’m willing to risk being perceived as a little rude on behalf of my kids; the scary strain of e.coli can wreak tragic havoc on small bodies.)

I strongly respect people who, for various reasons, take a stricter approach to ethically-motivated dietary preferences, and take on projects like vegan Thanksgiving side dishes for my aunt and her partner with delight. It’s fun to figure out how to swap out animal-based ingredients and still make something delicious. (Sweet Potato Casserole WORKS with coconut milk, I am telling you!)

And, though I am pretty much omnivorous these days (thanks largely to living in a place where the meat is NOT factory farmed and I can afford it), I have had very long stretches of vegetarianism and near-vegetarianism. But I think the case for eating LESS and BETTER meat is pretty strong.

For all that, though, to the extent that I will ever speculate about what, exactly, God’s kingdom in its complete perfection looks like–which isn’t much–I do feel pretty sure that it is wholly nonviolent, and, yes, that we’ll all be happily vegetarian, if not vegan.

But that’s not a present reality, or one that is even feasible or optimal for certain people in the world. Inuit people traditionally take almost ALL their calories from animals, and there’s not really another sustainable, affordable option. People living on tight budgets get protein from government cheese and SPAM.

How do we think through these issues theologically and biblically? I have some ideas, which I’ve shared elsewhere on this blog (for example, here) and which I’ve written about in this piece at the (truly lovely) indie online magazine, Catapult.

(And, of course, in my book.)

You may also like:

“There’s Really No Such Thing As Eating Guilt Free”

“From Vegetarianism to Fasting” (by Steve Thorngate at the Christian Century)

On Paper Towels and Bacon and Veganism” (by Katherine Willis Pershey at Any Day A Beautiful Change)

 

“the best food money can’t buy.”

I was intrigued to read this week of a huge new Utah storehouse for taking care of Mormons and others in times of natural disasters.

{source: Deseret News}

From The Christian Century:

“Since its inception, the LDS Church has viewed looking after its members’ well-being as part of its core mission. During the Great Depression, when unemployment ran 30 percent among members, the church formalized its welfare system. It opened the first regional storehouse in 1937 in Salt Lake City and began to buy orchards, farms and cattle ranches to provide commodities to redistribute to those in need.

The church buys many items it keeps on hand today at the storehouse — from wheelchairs to sugar and rice. But the system works much the same way it did at its start: It begins with a call from a Mormon bishop seeking help either for his congregants or his community.”

Read it all here.

Read a general (wiki) piece on the LDS tradition of storehouses here.

Have a beautiful weekend! Peace.