Our Choice Between Happiness or Joy?
Family and friends typically say, “We just want to be happy. What’s wrong with that?” Nothing at all! Happiness is a good thing. Like meeting an attractive person for the first time. Like attending a party where everyone seems to have a good time. It is that satisfying feeling when we have a delicious lunch or dinner. It is that sensation when we see our new car and take the first drive. Nevertheless, happiness is a “temporary feeling.” That attractive person may not be interesting after all. Our good time at the party does not last. That great meal is over, and our hunger returns, hours later. That new car ages, gets a few dents, and no longer interests us. Why is this so? Because these are temporary feelings about things. One cannot (should not) “love” inanimate objects or things, although many people still routinely misuse “love” for such transitory, fleeting things.
Progressive Society. Many people today are living in a “kind of fog.” They support a Progressive Society that embraces the Transgender Movement, where sexual orientation can be whatever one feels. Black Lives Matter, that is against families, and claims all white persons are racists. A Democratic administration that decrees ‘Equity’ shall replace ‘Equality,’ with redistribution of taxpayer funds earned by the hard work of the ‘privileged’ to ‘victimized minorities’. Woke Movement from African-American communities, promoting 'Black Liberation Theology,' which is Socialist/Marxism. (In brief, “Woke” is the term used to explain awakening to systemic racism, gender inequality, sexual and economic injustice. Open Border Policy, which exploded into a humanistic crisis for very young children. Suppression of Free Speech and abolition of free expression by Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and liberal news sources. Climate Change and Green New Deal, that cuts off fossil fuel sources, and misappropriates taxpayer funds for international treaties, currently not approved by Congress. Finally, H.R.-1 that among other radical ideas, proposes changes of voting to Federal Government away for the States.
How poor are Americans? Are “17% (50 million people) starving,” as Jen Psaki spokesperson for President Biden declares? Are most poor living on the streets? What about $90 billion worth of food stamp credit cards distributed in 2020? Did they spent it mostly for drugs and booze?
Federal spending on the country’s nutrition assistance program grew by nearly 50 percent in 2020 amid the economic shock of the Pandemic, according to the Agriculture Department. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known to many as food stamps, which cost nearly $90 billion in fiscal year 2020. That is a huge jump from just over $60 billion in 2019. This massive increase in cost is a result of two major factors: About 8-million more Americans getting benefits that Congress increased on an “emergency basis” under Trump’s administration, last spring to help blunt the effects of business and school shutdowns. There are now nearly 44 million individuals on the program, up by over 20 percent from about 36 million in 2019. The average monthly benefit per person has jumped to $161, from about $130. How many are abusing this Emergency Program?
Matthew 26:11: “Jesus said, the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”
Annual Poverty Report. "The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report. The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor. Remarkably, that is almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started. How can that be? How can government spend $9,000 per recipient and have no effect on poverty? The answer is - it is not true! Census counts a family as poor if its "income" falls below certain thresholds. In counting income, Census ignores almost all of the $943 billion in annual welfare spending. This, of course, makes the Census poverty figures very misleading.
The actual living conditions of households labeled, as ‘poor’ by the Census is surprising to most people. According to the government's own surveys, 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning; nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television; half have a personal computer; 40 percent have a wide-screen HDTV. [All have an expensive iPhone]. Three-quarters own a car or truck; nearly a third has two or more vehicles. As former Guardians ad Litem volunteers for children, we confirm this is factual from direct observation with many case visitations. (See our books “Best Interests of the Children,” or “Guardianship Realties,” on Amazon).
Are some people poor? Absolutely! However, 96-percent of poor parents state that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food. Some 82 percent of poor adults reported that they were never hungry at any time in the prior year. As a group, poor children are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and in most cases is well above recommended norms. Less than two percent of the poor are homeless. Only ten percent live in a mobile home. The average poor American lives in a house or apartment that is in good repair and not over-crowded. In fact, the average poor family has more living space than the typical non-poor individual living in Sweden, France, and Germany.
Shrinking Income Inequality. According to the Mar 24 Wall Street Journal Opinion by Phil Gramm and John Early: “The Census data actually shows that between 1967-2017, corrected for Census Bureau’s failure to account for taxes and welfare, that not only is inequity in America not growing, it is lower today than it was 50-years ago. The actual inflation-adjusted income received by the bottom quintile [of the needy], counting the value of all transfer payments received net of taxes paid, has risen by 300%. The top quintile [of the rich] has seen its after-tax income rise by only 213%. …In 2017, federal, state, and local government redistributed $2.8 trillion, or 22% of the nations earned household income. More than two-thirds of those transfer payments went to households in the bottom two income quintiles…
Americans paid $4.4 trillion a year in federal, state and local taxes [in 2017]. Households in the top two earned-income quintiles paid 82% of the tax bill….The Census Bureau does not reduce household income by the amount paid in taxes. Had it done so and counted all transfer payments as income, inequality from 1967 to 2017 would have increased by only 2.3% instead of the reported 21.4%. That’s a difference of almost 90%--a rather large error.”
Abortion Rights. Every woman, everywhere (including Mexico, among other countries) have a “right” to abortions, says fake Catholic Biden and devious Catholic Speaker Pelosi (which is against all Christian, Jewish and Islamic moral teaching). These extreme left leaders claim that they protect the ‘horrific inhuman treatment of children’ from Mexico and Middle America, while at the same time they are killing an estimated million pre-born children each year in the womb, especially minority black babies. That seems like a serious contradiction, you think.
Regressive Trends. What else does this American (Western society) disorder and chaos offer us? In this writer’s view, we have new forms of art, books (with many 4-letter words), crazy paintings, violent and porno movies and TV shows. We have unscientific (anti-science) false beliefs. (Science concerns “what?” and “how?” It never answers the “why of life?”) We have Cancel Culture, that attempts to force people out of social gatherings, cancels publications, and rescinds jobs. We have “open borders” that encourages illegals, drugs and sex traffickers, and terrorists into our society. This na?veté creates a sick society of chaos, where the “animal nature” of numerous persons forget their immortal soul.
Cultural & Spiritual Crisis. Where are the adults in the room? Where are the good political and religious leaders? We have arrived at an American (and Western) secular society that says, “God of the past was an imagined ‘warm and fuzzy Father image.’” He no longer exists in this new real world of science, technology, power and pleasure. The spirit of the anti-Christ has arrived. He proclaims that there is no eternal soul! We are now “intelligent animals,” that will evolve and become like powerful gods. Make the most of your life. Do whatever makes you feel happy! (Satan never reminds us of the finite nature of our body on earth, which averages 30,000 days (for healthy men).
Invitation to Joy. Unlike happiness, true progressiveness and joy is about eternal love of all persons, especially the love of Jesus Christ, Who promises everlasting spiritual ecstasy. Now I am not an Evangelist who preaches “doom and gloom, and the end of the world.” Besides, Christ said in the Gospels: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36; cf. Mark 13:32).
However, it seems to me that the Lord has been sending many warnings lately, such as floods (Texas, Australia); forest fires (Australia, California), the fire at Notre Dame; earthquakes (that destroyed St. Benedicts); mass riots in cities and crime waves (in America, Europe, Asia); the Pandemic that killed millions, and produced a worldwide economic crisis. Are you not aware of these unending events? Only you can determine if these events are warnings. We think they are!
Getting back to JOY, based on “Love.” The late (blessed) Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said in one of his many speeches: There are three kinds of love, known in Greek as Eros, Philia, and Agape. EROS is about friendships, the arts, the good life, and incorrectly, according to Fraud, it is about erotic sexual pleasure. PHILIA concerns love of beauty and humanity because we are made in the image of God [spiritually]. True Love is to will only what is good for another. The Lord gave His apostles a New Commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
AGAPE is the highest form of love. It is sacrificial heroic love, which is God’s boundless love of man (expressed 250 times in the Bible), even when we are sinful and unlovable. He gave His Only Begotten Son to die on the Cross on Good Friday to save us, and offer everyone the way to His Father on Easter Sunday, during the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Joy requires sacrifice; there is no easy way, you must experience the Cross of Christ. Only you, with freewill, can choose which kind of life is important for you and your family: Fleeting Happiness or Eternal Joy.
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