Late one Friday afternoon I was walking across a college campus on my way to practice on an organ. The campus was very quiet, nearly deserted, and I found myself feeling lonely and vaguely unsatisfied. It suddenly seemed that my life was all work and no fun. I felt left out of something special. It was a feeling that came from nowhere, certainly not springing from any obvious dissatisfaction in my life.

Then two students passed me. They were on their way to a party. And I remembered that it was a Friday night. I remembered the excitement of college weekends. A car with its stereo system turned up, party clothes, a home basketball game, a good movie, romance—all the fun and adventure of college life. Then suddenly my thoughts were filled with typical images from advertisements, television, movies—images that hadn't even been a part of my life when I was in college, but were unsettling, nonetheless, with their lure of happy times "out there" that I was missing by going to do my practicing.

I laughed a little at myself as I sat down at the organ. I had fallen once again for "Friday night restlessness." I enjoyed having fun as much as anyone, and playing a beautiful organ was a source of great satisfaction and enjoyment to me. I wasn't "missing out" on anything. But I also started thinking about happiness in general. It seemed like a good thing to be happy. Certainly it was better than being unhappy. It seemed logical to choose careers and activities that make us happy. I thought of all the attractive smiles used to sell products and of the "happy face" stickers that were attached to everything a few years ago. We seem determined to be cheerful. The ideal of happiness is, in fact, so basic to Western culture that the writers of the American Declaration of Independence listed "the pursuit of Happiness" as one of man's "unalienable Rights."

The problem is, of course, that we aren't really sure what happiness is, or what we can do that will make us truly happy. Much as we want happiness and think of it as our right, it is often elusive. We often feel too busy to be happy. Or too poor. Or in the wrong place. Or with the wrong people.

Certainly, it can be unsettling to pursue happiness in a culture that advertises everything from shampoo and exercise machines to wines and jewelry, from robot toys and food processors to aspirin and overseas vacations, as essential to that pursuit. Educating us to have physical desires and "needs" is part of creating a market for many products; and to keep the demand high, we are constantly told that we are not yet satisfied or happy.

And while many of us become skeptical about still another claim that toothpaste or a new car will make us beautiful and successful, we may not question the more basic claim. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, a book that challenges people to question the most basic presuppositions of life, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "The fundamental error lies in the supposition that man is a material outgrowth and that the cognizance of good or evil, which he has through the bodily senses, constitutes his happiness or misery." ^{Science and Health, pp. 171–172.} Christian Science asks us to consider the question of happiness on this fundamental level.

One of the first things we can recognize is that happiness is not the same as physical pleasure. This is obvious to the athlete who willingly goes through physical hardship in order to achieve excellence; or to the humanitarian who willingly enters hardship to help others. It was also obvious to the evangelist Paul, whose unceasing work, often in extreme circumstances, is recorded in the Bible. He says of the difficulties he endured, "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." ^{II Cor. 12:10.}

To those familiar with Paul's life, his may seem an unlikely path to choose in the pursuit of happiness. His determination to spread Christianity brought constant and severe persecution. But Paul wasn't judging happiness by his bodily senses or by material circumstances and events. In his writing he often focuses on the distinction between the carnal mind (or the flesh) and Spirit. And he shows that instead of thinking of life as a choice between persecutions for a noble cause and a life of quiet ease, the choice is more accurately phrased in these words: "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." ^{Rom. 8:6.} If we think of ourselves as a "material outgrowth," we are unlikely to work very hard or be willing to face the many persecutions we may encounter as Christians. We are unlikely to resist temptation or selfishness. We are more likely to reject and ridicule strict observance of the Ten Commandments, for example, as needless suspicion of any pleasantness or as an exaggerated Puritanism. From a purely materialistic standpoint, the Ten Commandments are likely to look biologically unrealistic.

But if we think of ourselves as spiritually constituted—as the outcome or creation of Spirit—we see the reverse of the material outlook. We understand the spiritual happiness that Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount. In what are known as the Beatitudes, Jesus spoke of being blessed. It's helpful to view the term blessed from the viewpoint of a Bible commentary that points out the higher sense of happiness that the word indicates: "Blessedness is higher than happiness. Happiness comes from without, and is dependent on circumstances; blessedness is an inward fountain of joy ... which no outward circumstances can seriously affect." ^{J. R. Dummelow, The One Volume Bible Commentary (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1978), p. 639 .}

Jesus taught that the spiritually happy are those that are poor in spirit, those that mourn, the meek, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for righteousness' sake, and those reviled and persecuted for Christ Jesus' sake. ^{See Matt. 5:3–12 .}

It's hard to imagine a list more impossible to advertise and sell to the physical senses. The senses educated to physical pleasure do not see spiritual joy. In teaching us spirituality, Jesus takes some of the conditions of humanity often considered unhappy or weak and shows us what the physical senses do not see in such cases. He shows us the poor in spirit inheriting the kingdom of heaven; the mourning, comforted; the meek, inheriting the earth; those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, filled; the merciful, obtaining mercy; the pure in heart, seeing God; the peacemakers, called the children of God; those persecuted, receiving a great reward in heaven. He shows how wrongly a traditional material view of ourselves has interpreted happiness.

In the last analysis, we really do not have to choose between happiness and holiness. Jesus and Paul taught us that though holiness may change our concept of happiness, true happiness and holiness are inseparable. Pursuit of one includes pursuit of the other. And understanding this connection takes the bleakness and weariness out of trying to be always good. It takes the sting out of persecutions. It receives inspiration and refreshment from "the beauty of holiness."