The latest annual survey of happiest nations on earth is out.
Have a happy day!
In the happiness rankings of every nation in the world, America — God bless her — has dropped from 18th to 19th, this in spite of a booming economy and America’s greatness restored to that of the roaring 20s (which didn’t end so well).
You would think a nation that codified “the pursuit of happiness” at its inception would not have such a sinking case of the blues, but there you go.
According to this year’s survey, the happiest nation is (drum roll please) Finland, followed by the other Nordic nations of Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
(Our good neighbor Canada, where your average citizen is happy to sit at home with a Moosehead Beer and watch nonviolent curlers go at it, came in No. 9.)
Here’s a Lenten reflection for you, right out of your Good Book, which concludes with a verse on how to achieve the perpetual joy of noonday brightness in spring.
ISAIAH 58 (With my italics for emphasis)
1 Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
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as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
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Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
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6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10
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if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
