FROM THE EDITORS February 22, 1993 Issue

FROM THE EDITORS

The Editors

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding." For many people, these words from the Bible probably don't define the way they've learned to view happiness. Instead of material pleasures and self-indulgence, the Bible points to a deeper satisfaction. Could real happiness be something that is actually God-given?

When we divorce happiness from spirituality, something odd happens. A recent study printed in a prominent medical journal, for example, concluded, "... once the debilitating consequences of happiness become widely recognised it is likely that psychiatrists will begin to devise treatments for the condition and we can expect the emergence of happiness clinics and anti-happiness medications in the not too distant future." (No, this was not a satirical article.)

For most people, however, happiness is associated with health, well-being, harmony, goodness, fulfillment, and so on. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes "Unselfish ambition, noble life-motives, and purity,—these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute individually and collectively true happiness, strength, and permanence."

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