Saturday, December 1, 2012

The secret to joy

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"Flow ... the secret to happiness"  is a great TED Talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "chick-sent-me-high-ee"). It should really be subtitled "the secret to joy."

I will be referring to it in my sermon tomorrow on the First Sunday of Advent.

I will also be drawing upon a book by Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height") who teaches at the University of Virginia. His book is entitled The Happiness Hypothesis.

Oh, we will also be drawing upon the Bible: Luke 1:11-23, the story of John the Baptist's father Zechariah. 

Foundry's Advent series this year is entitled "Suddenly ... joy." We are reading stories about the preparations for the birth of Christ from Matthew and Luke to learn how to have more joy in our lives.

And the Christmas tree is up! A crew of Foundry folk have been decorating the church this week and have done a great job preparing us for Advent and Christmas.



And the choirs are getting ready for their Advent/Christmas music special on Sunday, Dec. 9 Great Joy! A Gospel Jazz Christmas.

1 comment:

  1. The graph in his talk is helpful-- showing that flow happens when challenge and skills application at both at a high point. I used to feel flow more often when I was younger-- now I have more skills but maybe less challenge. Flow seems to happen most often during writing or reading but it would be great to learn to put more of everyday life into a state of flow.

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