Happiness, the Dalai Lama and Katharine Jefferts Schori

A Satirical Essay

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
October 18, 2010

I want to welcome you all today to this world shaking "Interfaith Summit on Happiness" forum. My name is Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the worldwide Episcopal Church (we have dioceses in 16 nations, which of course makes us a global church). With me is the Dalai Lama and a number of other world religious leaders including Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. I am truly grateful that Emory University is live webcasting this great and noble event.

Our theme is "Understanding and Promoting Happiness in Today's Society". If I may be so bold, I want you to know that no one in the Episcopal Church is promoting happiness more than I am. I am a veritable fountain of happiness. I can stir it, shovel it and then pour it in great libations on the heads of my bishops who worship, adore and mostly fear me.

Added fear comes from my personal attorney, David Booth Beers, and my Anger Management theologian, Clay Matthews, who can take fear to unprecedented levels that even I could not imagine. He is worth his weight in pensions of bishops who no longer walk among us. But I digress.

We are here today to salute happiness. So let me tell you about my personal journey of happiness and what really turns me on. Happiness is a bit like joy, but a tad less. Happiness is not only never having to say you are sorry, it also means beating the living crap out of anyone who disagrees with me about sodomy, same-sex blessings, same sex marriages and the like.

Happiness is not seeing the end of the rainbow (or the beginning for that matter), but how the (she) god I worship is fully inclusive, endlessly diverse and who finds those who disagree with me to be narrow minded bigots and fundamentalists. Happiness means embracing the "other", whoever he or she might be, and in whatever condition they might find themselves in, especially if they are crossing borders in the dead of night without papers and whose real intent is to live out the American Dream and absorb our way of life, tax free and with free medical care.

I was cogitating on this great theme of the "other" when I happened to come across that fine, sterling biography of the late Paul Moore, Bishop of NY, entitled "The Bishop's Daughter: a Memoir" that covered his secret sex life and was written by his daughter, Honor Moore. I mean, was this bishop cool or what? He had diversity down to a used condom with multiple sexual partners while Louie Crew was still struggling to get full inclusivity into the church.

Dude, this man had 10 kids, two wives and kept a gay lover on the side for 30 years. Now is that happiness or what? While I was having a chat with Barack about this in the White House the other day, he suggested that if I was thinking the same thing, I should wait till after the November elections. He said it could be topped when they learn that some Tea Party candidates might actually be practicing Kenyan voodoo while reading their Bibles.

I told Barack that wasn't my thing. He thought my view of the "other" had become significantly narrowed and that I should think seriously about expanding it. My history of happiness, since I took this job, has been overwhelming. You will recall that I came from the bottom of the ocean looking at squid. Now I am on the 9th floor of 815 2nd Ave., looking down on everybody. It's a real rush to go from the ocean floor, where one needs oxygen, to the top of the mountain where one also needs oxygen especially if you are an orthodox bishop like Mark Lawrence.

I remember when I took Bob Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, down by declaring him guilty, getting him tossed out of the HOB and then having a trial to make it look kosher. (My apologies to Rabbi Sacks who recently gave us his enlightened view that the Torah was all wrong about homosexuality). It was an "Ah ha." moment for me. My happiness quotient soared. If you could have slapped a blood pressure armband on me, it would have been 190 over 60. (The 60 was bad thoughts I entertained about Bob that I could not put into print.)

Ever since I read that the American way was about "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", I have sought happiness. Of course, I'd like to have my cake and eat it with MDGs, but who the hell really cares about the poor? After all TEC has been grandly white, wasp and rich and we have limousine liberal down pat.

Our Messiah, some of you know him as Jesus (but we in TEC are looking for non-specific gender free language to explain him hopefully in transgendered terms), had an un-detailed relationship with "John the Beloved" and took personal happiness to new levels. After all, his Jewish mother thought he was God. We all know, psychologically speaking, what that does to a growing boy hitting puberty.

Perhaps George Washington University Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a world-renowned scholar on Islam who is with us, can tell us about his leader who married a 6-year old. The history books tell us Aisha was six years old when she was betrothed to Muhammad. I'm sure the big "M" took happiness to new levels.

So my dear friends, thank you for being here today to explore happiness with us. I am sure it has been an enlightening moment for many of you. On your way out, you can pick up a free copy of Robert Schuller's book, "The Be-Happy Attitudes", 8 different positions to a fulfilled and happy life. Enjoy.

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