RADIANCIES OF JOY, INSPIRATION, AND SERENITY
I want to radiate the healthfulness of joy. Joy is the sunshine of the
soul. Let it shine. If there is so much of it that it fills the soul, it
makes of it a luminous body that must radiate light and warmth and
health to others. The joyous man is the healthy man, and he that has
health should joy to give it to others, whenever and wherever he can. My
friend, Marshall P. Wilder, was a radiating center of joy as well as
fun. He was funny, but he was more--he was joyous. There was no enmity,
no malice, no unkindness, no cruelty in his fun; it was all healthful,
kind, sane, and joyous.
A little girl once said of a certain man: "I like that man because he
always _shines_ at me." Don't you want to shine and make glad the
innocent heart of a child, the striving heart of the young, the
sorrowful and vexed heart of the middle-aged, and the weary heart of the
old? Well did Robert Louis Stevenson say:
A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound
note. He or she is a radiating focus of good will; and their
entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.
There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By
being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain
unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise
nobody so much as the benefactor.
Make the most of your happiness, and the least of your sorrows. Use the
telescope at the enlarging end for the former and at the reducing end
for the latter, until you have learned what most of us have to
_learn_--how foolish and wrong it is to make our joys mere _incidents_
while we make our sorrows _events_.
I want to radiate a joy in the little things of to-day. Most people live
in anticipation. The things of to-day are not enough. It is, "Oh,
tomorrow--next week--next year--will surely bring me my heart's desire!"
Let us learn that _to-day_ is the fulfillment of the heart's desire.
Take to-day _all_ it brings, and it will make _to-day_ so full that you
will have no care for the joys of anticipation. Live _now_, so
intensely, so fully, that life _to-day_ will be compelled to deliver up
all its treasures _to-day_. Hence every day becomes a perfect joy.
I want to radiate _inspiration_. I do not believe the idea that the
saints of old who wrote "the Bible," are the only examples of
inspiration. God inspires every good man and good woman, and all good
in all people comes from Him, for He is the original source.
A self-centered life is a selfish life; a life that gives of itself
freely and fully to all with whom it comes in contact is a life of
inspiration--it is a radiating center of inspiration. It inspires to
courage, to higher endeavor, to larger achievement. I need all this for
myself, but I also long and desire to inspire it in others. Many a life
seems to have inspiration for the carrying out of its own dreams,
ambitions, desires, but none to give away. Yet the lives we touch may
need just the impetus, the propelling force--light or vigorous--that we
can give to enable the fulfillment in them of half dormant ambitions for
good, the attainment of noble endeavor.
What would become of the chick in the egg if the mother hen did not
brood over it? She forgets her own desires to move about in the stronger
desire to bring into active being the hidden lives within the eggs. Let
us "brood" over the souls of men and women, young men and maidens, boys
and girls, and quicken to life the dormant powers of the weak, the
tender. Aspirations may have begun in them that can only be quickened by
warmth and love from outside. Oh, for wisdom, as well as love, to
"brood" aright.
This implies a reaching out to others. It means an ability to feel even
the hidden or only half-felt thoughts of others, and love and sympathy
alone are delicate enough instruments to thus feel. The seismograph,
that registers the oscillations of the earth's crust, is one of the most
delicate of man-made instruments, yet the human heart that would respond
unerringly to every beginning of aspiration and longing for good in
every other human soul must be ten thousand times more sensitive than
the seismograph. Such a sensitive instrument let each seek to become. We
should hear the faintest beat of the human hearts near us and try to
inspire those faint beats until they are strong, regular, powerful,
certain.
Lives often possess, unknown to themselves, the germ cells of great
powers and lofty ambitions that will never be developed unless some
outside influence impregnates and vivifies them into existence. With
thousands of people the seeds of good in their souls need to be
quickened from the outside, and the help, the food, the desire to feed,
must also be given from the outside, until they are born and nurtured
into active, self-reliant existence. To be this outside quickening power
is to be a radiant source of inspiration.
In this connection I have found that every life that is growing,
expanding, enlarging, is a stimulation to every other life to grow,
expand, enlarge. I seek, therefore, to radiate growth by my own growth.
By _being_ something, _doing_ something, I want to help others _be_ and
_do_. Growth is the most natural thing in the world, but unfortunately,
men and women are far from being natural. How then can I best radiate
the inspiration for growth in them? By being natural myself--throwing
off the artificialities, the restricting and restraining bands that
prevent the best of myself from coming forth--by being real. This
demands that I think for myself, that I decide for myself, that I act
for myself. Once get into this habit and growth is certain and sure. The
storms may beat upon such a life but, like the sturdy oak, it is
thrusting its roots deeper into the soil in every direction--it is
living for itself--and storms and tempests only make it the more sturdy
and strong. This, in its turn, quickens other lives to growth, to
self-thought, self-decision, self-action. Too long the leaders have
tried to lull the power of thought in the masses. The church has said:
"We will think for you on matters of religion. Accept what we teach or
your immortal souls will be imperiled." The bar and bench have said: "In
matters of law we will decide what you must think and do. If you differ
from us your acts will be illegal." The colleges of physicians and
surgeons have said: "We will think for you in matters of health. If you
differ from us your bodies will become diseased and die." The schools
and universities have said about everything: "Think as we teach you,
for we have all knowledge and wisdom, and knowledge will die with us,"
and the result is that to find a being who _dares_ to think and decide
and act upon his own thoughts is as rare almost as to find a dodo.
Thought is for you; growth is for you as well as for all the universe of
God. Teach yourself to think for yourself as naturally and unconsciously
as you breathe for yourself. Once and forever rise up in your manhood,
or your womanhood, and say: "Henceforth I will think, and decide, and
act for myself without reference to what other people think or say or
do." And then you will begin to grow as you never grew before.
Doubtless at first you will grow "scraggly," and somewhat wild. But time
and experience will prune you. Better do that than never grow at all. It
is perfectly true that the way to learn to grow is by growing. We learn
to do by doing. Do not be afraid to reach out for growth because you
don't know how. If you reach out, and grow, you will soon learn the best
way how.
There is another view-point to this question of growth. We have within
ourselves the power to quicken or retard our own growth. Too many of us
are lazy, physically, mentally, spiritually--yes, and cowardly. We don't
want the trouble of thinking for ourselves. It requires energy and
courage. It is so much easier for some of us to accept, to drift, to
cast off all responsibility. But growth cannot so come. We must row
against the tide to develop our muscles. If we accept what others say
and do let it be because our best judgment, after due consideration and
personal thought, has decided that it is the wisest and best thing for
us to do.
Then, too, many of us do not grow because we are content with what we
have. The hindrance to life of smug and ignorant contentment, the
dwarfing power of self-complacent assurance, who can tell? This must be
shaken out of every mortal before he can grow, and this spirit is by no
means found in the ignorant and uneducated alone. Boston and New York,
Chicago and Minneapolis, are as full of it as Podunk and Milpitas, Four
Corners and Snigginsville. Indeed I do not know but that there is more
of it per capita in the great centers than in the country villages. And
how it retards growth. The complacent, correctly worded and phrased
Bostonian, the haughty and self-assertive, successful New Yorker, is
each assured that he has all there is of good to have, and that no good
thing can come out of any other place than his. Yet God made other
places and speaks to other people, and all should be humble and learn,
reverent and grow.
Some do not grow because, having something, they are either too
indifferent, too lazy, too cowardly, or too fearful to make extra
exertion, to reach out after, to strive for more than they already have.
The man who hid his talent in a napkin is a type of this class. Let us
arouse from our indifference, our cowardice, our fearfulness, and seek
to become something larger, better, more useful than hitherto we have
been. To such there is no growing old. Gray hairs may come, wrinkles may
seam the face, yet the heart is ever nourished from the fountain of
perpetual youth. The life is ever fresh and full of exuberance, and
therefore is a radiating center of youth and energy.
The older one becomes in years, the greater should become the growth of
the mind and the soul.
Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be;
said Rabbi Ben Ezra, and he spoke the truth. What radiating centers of
spiritual growth in others are old men and old women, who have learned
the simple secret of constant growth in themselves, which is the secret
of perpetual youth.
Growth means fruitage, growth brings flowers. The fruit and flowers of
life that nourish, refresh, and delight others come only to those who
grow. Roses always come on the new growth; fruit buds best on the new
branches; the best grapes are always on the new stems. And the older the
bush, the tree, the vine, the more beautiful, the more rare, the more
delicate the fruit and flowers.
The life that is growing is constantly searching for nourishment. The
leaves of the tree absorb from the sun and the atmosphere, the roots
from the soil. If the sun does not shine directly upon the leaf it
reaches out, turns around, struggles until it puts itself in proper
relation to receive all that the sun has to give. If the root cannot
reach the nutriment, the moisture, it stretches and grows up, down,
around, over, under, _through_ obstacles until it gains that which it
needs for life and growth.
Human lives are like trees. They must turn leaves to the sun, send out
rootlets and tendrils in every direction, for moisture and nourishment,
searching until they find, and demanding until they get all they desire.
And the glory of this searching and demanding by the human soul is that
there is a whole infinity of space and power, living, palpitant,
energized for it to search in. If it search it cannot search in vain. If
it demand it must receive, and receive abundantly.
Above _all_ things, and in all things, at all times and under all
circumstances I would radiate a calm serenity. There is a rich fullness
to me that is wonderfully significant in that first line of John
Burroughs' _Waiting_. Look at it and let it sink in:
Serene, I fold my hands and wait.
Few are serene, fewer still can wait. We are all in a hurry, we are all
impatient, we are easily ruffled. How rare the man or woman of
self-poise--the being who has full command of his soul, mind, and body.
Anger, jealousy, misunderstanding, backbiting, lying, slander, hate,
praise, blame--all alike have no effect in disturbing the beautiful
calmness of the serene of soul, who are affable alike to friend and foe,
helpful alike to each, sympathetic alike to each. There is no
haughtiness in serenity, as some suppose, though there is much pride.
Yet it is not the pride of conceit, the pride of power, of possession,
of superiority, but the wholesome, joyous, happy sense of a full-flowing
life, every good channel of which is healthily full--healthily flowing
to healthy ends. _That_, to me, is serenity. The self-consciousness that
"all things are working together for good," and working to the full.
There is no walking delegate to dictate the length of the hours such a
life shall work, or live. It lives for the very joy of mere living, and
living means working, giving, doing for others, more than for self.
I can see, dream of, long for, anticipate the possession of, some such
serenity, and my ideal of what it is and my reaching after it is what I
would radiate, though as yet I am but as one who seeks after rather than
as one who has already attained.
Personally I am naturally the very opposite of serene. Physically I used
to be easily disturbed. A whisper in an audience of two thousand people
would distress me greatly, and render me intensely nervous. I have many
a time "called people down," in my own audiences and by sheer force of
will compelled silence, and when at concerts, have asked people (not
always either gently or kindly) to cease their rude whisperings, yet, at
the same time, I never once lost my calmness, the possession of myself,
without intense annoyance. I longed to be able to suppress the whispers
without a ripple in my own mind or soul, by the sheer force of right,
kindliness, courtesy, serenity. The more I possess serenity the more I
shall radiate it. It is a priceless boon, to be desired more than great
wealth, and, when possessed, to be prized and treasured more than all
the jewels of the world.