Small Happinesses

Happiness is one person's emotion. No one can experience happiness for another, it comes from within the person. We presume another person's happiness by seeing their activities, peacefulness and hearing their words. Each one's happiness is unique to the person. God made all us different and our experience of happiness is different. So begins an article in Bible & Life on happiness by a psychiatrist.
 
The way we define happiness is different depending on the person asked. The writer wants to see it as the moment you want to last a lifetime. We know that this moment will not last but it is our prayer and our desire.
 
In the network of the cells of the brain are many chemical neurotransmitters.They are different from hormones but they are substances in the brain similar to hormones: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine and influence our emotions and actions. Since the neural network of our brains is influenced by these hormones—the chemical condition of our brains—many materialists and atheists see life from this viewpoint,  the writer does not.
 
All these elements which we can't see are all God's creation. God is not only with us in areas that we can understand, but in those we still have not discovered. At any rate, each neurotransmitter can directly or indirectly influence neurons in a specific portion of the brain, thereby affecting behavior. However, depending on which neurotransmitter is active, it determines which part of our brain is active or sleeping. In the state of happiness, neurotransmitters in the brain will be in balance.
 
Serotonin is connected with peace, security. Meditation and prayer are ways to activate this area, when this is not activated harmoniously we have depression. Dopamine is connected with conflict and reward. To receive a feeling of joy or a sense of accomplishment dopamine is necessary, liquor, tobacco, and gambling etc, also bring about the secretions of dopamine and the reason for addiction.

"Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way because it promises life both for the present and for the future" (I Tim. 4:8). What we lack because of the chemistry of the brain God can work in his own way. If we were always happy we would never understand what happiness meant. "When times are prosperous, enjoy your happiness; when times are bad, consider this: the one is God's doing as is the other..."  (Qoh. 7"14). Happiness is fleeting, we remember those moments of happiness in life and pray.
 
A mistake we often make in the community is to think that what I need is what other's need. With this self-righteousness, we often inflict pain on others.  God's grace is different for each. God and I both know whether my mental condition is one of peace or not. He concludes the article  with a quote: "Do not neglect the spiritual gift that  is in you..." (I Tim. 4:14). In this realm we are easily deceived. We need to find joy in God and find many small happinesses in our journey of life. 

Problems With The Loner Society

In the Catholic Peace Weekly a publishing critic writes in Diagnosis of Current Affairs column about the bright and dark sides of the 'Myself-Generation'. He begins with the short story: One-Person Dining Table. The main character registers in a school that teaches how to prepare meals eating alone. 

He found it difficult eating with his colleagues at lunchtime and the bitter memories moved him to start eating alone. The institute taught him the 5 steps necessary from the coffee shop and instant restaurants to eating at a sushi bar.

One day he sees  a fellow classmate eating alone in a restaurant. He went alone to the movies, amusement parks, walked alone, shopped alone he was an expert in living alone.

A few years ago a survey was  conducted of 1,884 adult males and females. About 20% of the respondents said that they were members of the alone generation. More than half of the respondents (68.9%) replied,they enjoyed eating alone, drinking and traveling alone. 94.0% of the respondents said they  cooked rice alone.

A college teaching psychiatrist is quoted as saying, persons who are living like loners  are normal people without mental problems. Many of these people use more than 90% of their energy to survive in their working situation. The rest of their private time they try to stay in energy saving mode as much as possible. Organizations demand so much that it dissipates the energy of the individual, consequently they want to limit unnecessary connections outside the organization that consumes their energy. Just living takes all one's energy.

The writer quotes a 'Breakdown Expert' who says the collapse of a culture is the last stage following the financial, commercial,  political and social collapse. At this stage, people are able to live with almost perfect loneliness. In a society full of loners, the connections between others are weak, making it impossible for organizations to have trust.
 
It is not necessarily negative when we have persons who value their freedom and seek to have unnecessary contact with others reduced. However, when this develops to a point where trust in society ceases, this is serious.

What Is Important In LIfe?

It's a book on the "Praise of  Laziness " (Bundo Publishing House) by Jacques Leclercq (1891 – 1971)  a Belgian Roman Catholic theologian and priest. An editorial staff member of the Catholic Peace Weekly writes in praise of the book in this week's paper. When your head is spinning and you wonder whether living this rat race is worth it, your hands need to grasp this type of book. 

Not a big book and the point of the book is stated in the title. We need to slow down the pace of life. Some will thing this is crazy talk, now  entering  the 5G era, 20 times faster than the fourth generation communication speed. The tone of the book is probably clumsily made but he hits the bullseye.

He says the intensity of  life in our time  boasts about the confusion we experience. Many of the  inventions deal with  speed rather than with acquisition of wisdom. In addition, he considers this a type of superfluity. He compares it to visitors who can not remain just for a moment of silence in front of a work of art while in a museum.  People who have their nose in a  smart phone searching for information ... In his  eyes, this sort of thing is nothing more than an addiction to speed. 

The author  was not a rural hick with a romantic disposition towards life. He became a  lawyer at the age of 20 and practiced law. He became a priest  late in life and was a distinguished scholar in the fields of natural law, ethics, and sociology. He was insightful in seeing the  truth of life . 

If you can not be lazy in this fiercely competitive society, you should slow down your pace of life. We are  accustomed to rapid speed. Because of this, "we are proud to say we are so busy we don't know whether we're coming or going." We get used to the confusion and in this life style there is no waiting, silence, reflection and calm. We can't hear the inner voice nor try to listen to it. It's not a normal condition.

It takes courage to slow down. Furthermore, some practice is necessary to not be anxious about the slow speed, walking is one such practice. Walking is a primitive travel method of 4 kilometers an hour. Humans lived their  everyday life  building civilization at that pace until they invented automobiles. However, we lost our normal  sense of speed, trapped within a civilization of  science and technology. Our walking itself continues to  atrophy

Walking is a time of silence and reflection,  walking in silence to the rhythm of our feet, the song of the heart is heard. The song of the heart begins seeing "a drop of dew falling from  the tip of a twig that shakes." Now is a good time to walk. However, let's leave the earphone in the house. When I plug in the earphone, I can't hear the song of the  heart. The machine sound that flows from the earphone can't be more beautiful than the sound of birds and wind.

Narcissism and Lowest Seats

"When in a 'high seat' one imagines leading others, revenge on one's enemies,  people are afraid and will flatter me and keep me happy. I can drop a person to the ground or raise them to the heavens. I can help people that come to me pleading their sorrowful situation. Those who receive help will praise me and like me. I will outwardly take pains to refuse the praise" D. Pantoja.  (Diego Pantoja was a Spanish Jesuit and missionary to China who is best known for having accompanied Matteo Ricci in Beijing) The first paragraph of an article on 'Lowest Seat'  in the Kyeongyang magazine by a teaching psychiatrist.
 
In our present society pride is rampant: a feeling of one's extreme importance, exaggerating one's accomplishments and abilities, a desire to receive acclaim. It's often seen in our leaders and accepted as a necessary 'virtuous trait' of a capable leader. It is not always easy to distinguish between a healthy dignity and unhealthy pride. The pride that controls us, we call in psychological language narcissism.
 
Those who are in search of worldly values are not the only ones where we find narcissism. Also, we see it with those who are fastidious in their feelings of superiority in the acquisition of virtue and laud it over others. When they don't reach their goal they condemn those who don't meet their expectations and lack toleration and understanding. They devalue others and don't realize how far they are from virtue. In the Christian tradition, pride was considered the queen of the vices. 
 
In describing personality often we use the words humble and honest. The meanings are different but they point to a similar quality. They both hate pretense and search for justice and avoid luxury and a self-indulgent lifestyle. There are many different personality types depending on those who make the studies, the writer selects the following six: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience.                   
 
From way back in history in Far East Asia, humility was an important virtue. Lowering oneself and raising the other was the attitude of the gentleman. We have thrown away the virtue. Making money and social position are the opposite of poverty and simplicity.
 
Heinz Kohut an American psychoanalyst is quoted as saying to break the hold that narcissism has, one needs to silently accept the pain and acknowledge and understand narcissism. How many are able to accept that pain? Enduring the uncomfortableness  of unhealthy self-love, makes it easy to tear down others and build up their own lying self. Shamelessly deceiving themselves and hiding in that self-made illusion.
 
What can we do to make sure humility does not disappear from the face of the earth? He recommends when we meet the humble and can do it with joy, we should secretly help them. Help them without anybody knowing even the individual.
 
We have more people who are making themselves known in our society. Bluster,  pride, boasting but we also have those who shine like jewels. Those who are in the low seats need to be raised. The rest of us need to raise them without any fanfare and unbeknown to all.

Difficult Life of Students in Korea

In the Catholic Peace Weekly, a professor with a doctorate in education reveals some interesting information on student efforts to enter a prestigious college. As a result of analyzing the successful candidates, they found the ratio of those who entered after high school in 2019 decreased and the repeaters (taking the exam one or more times because of failure)  have increased.  43% percent passed on their first try, 40,2% passed on the second try and 15.3% passed on the third try.
 
College admission experts said that the college scholastic ability test in 2019 was easier for those experienced in taking the test than those who were taking it for the first time and this showed in the results.
 
2020 academic college entrance exams are expected to be easier. The Institute that oversees the SAT test, said it will work towards this end. For this reason, students who received a low grade in the college entrance examination are attracted to the academies. These institutes were crowded with applicants and classes were filled quickly preparing for next year's test.

Those who have failed in their first try require determination and self-confidence.  If you lived with an amateur spirit during your school years, you have to become a  professional. You have tasted failure once and don't want a repeat. "If I try again will my grades go up?" According to the data analyzed by an academy, 9 out of 10 students' grades have gone up. This is a fact that those who have experienced failure know.
 
The professor gives us his own experience of failure. At that time, his classmates who passed the entrance exams and were attending prestigious universities wore uniforms and school badges on their chests. In order not to encounter these classmates from high school he took the first subway from Incheon Station to the academy in Seoul. After class, he would take the last train.
 
He remembers Mao's tactics. It was a 1-foot retreat to move forward two feet. In the end, he received a high score in the college entrance enabling him to enter the three most prestigious universities in South Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University.
 
At that time, Korea University had a special screening system based only on the grades from the SAT and he passed. The joy was too great for words. He studied hard and was at the top of his class.

However, the eyes of those in society don't look too warmly on those who have experienced this failure in their young lives. This needs to change. They are an important human resource to lead the country. The schools,  community, and the government should all be concerned in their guidance and mental health. Also a concern for those who fail and continue to fail and find it difficult to come to a decision that college is not the only future for a young person. Here we have a need to change the way society looks upon life and its meaning. 

The Humanity Craze of Our Time

In a recent article in the Catholic Times, a journalist reminds readers in the era of industrialization, the 'humanities' have been neglected but now a craze in our time. Books and lectures on the humanities are now popular.
 
The church is also involved in this opening to the 'humanities'. The organizations and groups within the church are taking a lead in its spread. Is it not possible to see it as a means of cultivating a rich life of faith?
 
What are the humanities? We can define it as referring to human origins, thought, and culture. The natural sciences approach the phenomena of nature and society empirically; the humanities— the meaning of existence—is approached speculatively. In other words, a discipline that seeks meaning so that we can live like human beings. This is the present interest in the humanities.

In the UN World Happiness Report released last year, Korea was 57th out of 157 countries. Among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, it was 32nd among 34 countries. Considering that Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) was the 12th largest in the world in 2017, the feeling of happiness has not followed economic development. Proof that many cannot find meaning in life even with material abundance.
 
President of a Catholic University said: "Study in the humanities are necessary to regain what it means to be human. I think it grows when you eat barley rice, but many have thought that it came when we were able to eat hamburgers." The study of the humanities teaches us that is not the case.
 
Today, humanities are considered to be separate from faith. But historically, theology and the humanities have been inseparable. The Fathers of the Church in their sermons on the teaching of the apostles have had a profound impact on faith and church life and are representative humanist scholars. From that time on the Church has developed the humanities and given us many scholars.
 
Thomas Aquinas said that grace does not destroy nature but completes it. Here, nature refers to characteristics unique to humans, such as reason, emotion, and conscience. God respects the human nature of each of us; God leads us by grace, we cooperate with God through the power of nature. The role of the humanities is to cultivate and enrich human nature.

A professor at a Graduate School said that the Church Fathers brought the gospel to the people in their culture and thought—indigenized the gospel to the culture. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is called one of the teachers and great humanists of the West.

Humanities are still an important tool in religious education. St. Pope John Paul II, in the encyclical Fides and Ratio said: "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth, and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth." Philosophy is the indispensable means of communicating this to those without belief.
 
In the church, educators say the humanities can be a good way to reeducate believers who have a tendency to separate life from faith. We can connect life and faith based on our understanding of humanity and ourselves. Many believers in the modern world are accustomed to rational criticism, so if we do not systematically train and cultivate faith in the humanities, many will lose interest in religion itself.

Although the importance of the humanities in education is emphasized to believers, there is a danger that if you emphasize only the humanities, you may fall into materialism and atheistic thought. According to Pope John Paul II  in  Faith and Reason— "some philosophers have abandoned the search for truth in itself and made their sole aim the attainment of a subjective certainty or a pragmatic sense of utility." Criticizing philosophical thought that accelerated the separation of faith and reason.
 
Though delicate attention is needed, fear and unconditional rejection is not the answer. It is necessary to have an attitude of dialogue, critical confrontation and respect for a difference of opinion.
 
Since the church has always played a role in embracing and protecting the humanities,  they are an area the church needs to advance. With the humanities, we can work together with all religions and all people to protect the dignity of the human person made in the image of God. We need to protect these human values.

Bringing Light to what is in the Dark

Today again we hear about a  small girl who was killed violently. Hearing this news the writer felt a blow to her breast. Who could possibly do such a deed?  She was on her way to see a scholar who has made a study of crime. The journalist has an account of her interview in the Bible And Life magazine.
 
It was vacation time and few students were  on campus. The journalist had made an appointment to meet the professor and was greeted kindly. The professor has been working with criminals for over 20 years studying their proclivities and thinking.  She is the first one in Korea to have taken up the study of the psychology of criminals. It was only in the past 2 or 3 years that she felt a need to make her studies known to the public.
 
From her studies the use of electronic tagging, criminal justice policies have been influenced. She is busy with advising those in the field of criminal justice and answering questions for the media.
 
She gave the example of stalking and the reasons for its prevention for often it results in harm to the women pursued. She uses this to show the steps that need to be taken to prevent acts that often precede the crimes.

Why aren't we able to help the defenseless children facing sexual abuse and violence. She is filled with shame and recalls the case of a criminal who violated an eight-year-old child that was playing in the morning before attending school because both parents had to work.
 
The child was assaulted brutally and even her internal organs were damaged. She was fortunate to be alive. This incident became known to the public and many things began to change: electronic tagging, making known the criminal publicly, abrogated was the need to file a complaint before legal procedures could begin. A  big step in protecting the rights of victims
 
The professor emphasized that the environment in the family is important. If we can learn why crime does not arise we will have the answer clearly for why it does. The reason I am not doing something criminal is that I am able to control myself because as a child I was taught how to do this by parents. When a child commits a crime in the United States they investigate the family and punish the family when warranted. Children are often sent to institutions that will give them the moral training they lack. The professor feels this is missing in our society.

She has made studies of thousands of prisoners and the number of sexual crimes are few and sentences from 2 to 3 years. In Korea, the average numbers of sexual crimes in a year is about 30 thousand and with children about 3,000. It is not lower than other countries. The problem is that society doesn't realize that sexual crimes are as terrible as murders. The victims have to live with the pain which society doesn't see.
 
She wanted to have interviews with those in prison for sexual crimes to understand better her studies but being a woman and a private individual was refused. She felt that she wasn't able to do everything possible and got a replacement in teaching and went to Texas in the United States where the prisons were many, to continue her studies. She prepared herself to return to Korea and begin interviewing prisoners. Results from the interviews have helped many in their work.
 
She left the ivory tower and books to hear those in prison not as a lawyer but like a mother or an aunt. She has never received a threatening telephone call and has received letters from those who have been released from prison explaining what they were doing. Her work is to help the many defenseless people in society with the knowledge that she has acquired in her work. She is speaking to those who have ears ready to hear and the interviewer prays she will continue in her work for many more years.