The Twenty-First Night

 

We were playing our weekly round of crapaud when Nick said to me,

“I rewatched Mary Poppins last night.”

“You really like that movie, don’t you?”

“Totally love it! It just makes me feel good.”

“I like it a lot too, but it doesn’t make me happy—just cheerful.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Happiness is the lasting possession of something that truly satisfies. You watched the film, you felt good—but then something came along and drained that joy away. Isn’t that what happened?”

“Yeah… that’s exactly it.”

“Something came up, five minutes later, and you’d already forgotten the movie—and the feelings it gave you.”

“True.”

“You see how powerful my psychic abilities are?” I said with a laugh.

“Oh, I see them loud and clear!” he laughed back.

“The fact is, in this life, nothing is permanent. It’s impossible to possess anything completely, no matter how much we may wish it. Not love, not health, not wealth. Everything is always on the edge of imminent loss. In Taoism, they teach that the state of change is the only thing in the universe that doesn’t change. In truth, that concept appears in every culture across the ages, and it’s not metaphysical in itself—it’s simply observation. And yet we ‘moderns’ forget this, and keep chasing, in vain, after happiness.”

“So you’re saying we’re doomed to be sad? Unhappy?”

“On the contrary. Even the most basic rational thought about the human being tells us we were made for happiness. That’s why humanity has always sought it. The real question is: where is happiness to be found? It’s not wise to go looking for bread in a pharmacy—yet that’s what mankind is doing nowadays. If it’s true that nothing in this world can be possessed permanently, it must be that we are looking for it in the wrong place.”

“You’re talking about God again, aren’t you?”

“Yes—and don’t forget I’m Catholic. What I mean is: the whole universe moves and changes according to an order that presupposes an intelligent creator. Parts of that order we’ve even been able to translate into mathematical formulas—a microscopic fraction of the whole, of course, but still, we got there. And even that points to a designing intelligence behind the fabric of the cosmos. That intelligent entity, which is outside the universe and brought it into being, is what humanity has always called God. As you can see, I haven’t even needed to appeal to religious arguments to get there. True religion only begins with Judaism—when this entity reveals itself—and it reaches its fullness in Catholicism, when God becomes incarnate, becomes one of us, and shows us His face.”

“My head’s kinda spinning here…”

“Hang in there just a little longer—and let’s forget Judaism and Catholicism for a moment. Let’s stay with the false religions, because even in them, we find echoes of the truth, though not the Truth. Our ancestors came to the knowledge of God simply by reflecting on themselves and the world around them—and the obvious conclusion was that if we are part of a created universe, then like all created things, we do not own ourselves. We owe everything to God. That intuitive knowledge is what gives rise to our longing for happiness: a desire to belong to the only unchanging good, whose possession would make us truly happy—our Creator God.”

“You do realize your line of thought is, like… totally chaotic? My therapist would probably want you committed on the spot.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. By the way—aside from a few cheerful moments and an underlying sadness, what exactly has she offered you?”

Nick laid his cards down on the table and stared at me, lost in thought.