Advent 2009

Dear Friends of Our Shanti Family,

Some days ago, I went to an event with the title "Happiness“, and at the end of my letter, I will also wish you happiness and God’s blessings for the New Year.
So the question is: What am I actually wishing you in saying so?
There are many books on the subject available at the moment, and so many “experts“ have commented on it – but: are they more expert than you and I? Aren’t we all experts in a way as we all (hopefully!) know some happy moments and the longing for happiness?
Only think of the children playing oblivious of all around them, just living for the moment, just having pleasure in the things they are doing!    

Then I though of a story written by Karl Heinrich Waggerl: “How a shepherd boy solaced the Christ Child“ – hoping you like it as much as I do. 

On that night, when the beautiful star in the sky appeared to the shepherds and they started on the way which the angel had showed them, there was a boy among them who was still small and at the same time so poor that the others did not want him to join them, as he had nothing which he could have given to the child of God.
The boy however did not find this right. All alone, he ventured on the long way, and he found Bethlehem all right. The others had already gone home and everybody in the stable was sleeping. Holy Joseph, Mother Mary, and the angels under the roof were asleep, and the ox and the donkey, except for Jesus the child. It was lying in its manger of straw, a little sad perhaps because of its loneliness, but without crying and fidgeting, as it was a really good child.
And the child now looked at the boy, as he was standing in front of the manger, with empty hands, nothing in it, no piece of cheese, no flock of wool, nothing at all. And the boy saw the child of Christ, having to rest there, nothing against boredom, no bell, no ball of yarn, nothing at all. The shepherd boy was deeply sorry for the child of heaven; he took his tiny fist in his hand, bent the thumb out and stuck it into the Christ Child’s mouth.
The infant Jesus never had to feel sad anymore, as the poor small boy had given him the most delicious gift you can give to a baby: its own thumb.   

This is a story which moves me because of the very small pleasure given to someone.
Moreover, this pleasure did not come from the outside, but the child had it in himself from the beginning; it only wanted to be awakened.

The boy himself – he had nothing to show or show off with at all. He was just driven by his longings, his empathy and his loving imagination. He certainly knew what would make a child happy from his own experience.
He just passed it on – making both of them happy, the child and the boy.   

What is it that makes man happy? What is the ingredient of happiness for anyone?
I think it’s the same in all countries and in any culture:
Somebody feels that he is really recognized and he finds an answer to his needs, if only for a tiny moment.