For my birthday in December a friend gave me a small magazine (99 p.) entitled Cat Happiness: fill their lives with joy. The magazine focuses on different things that seem to make cats happy: catnips, indoor fountains, soft blankets, a cardboard box, hammocks, play toys, pheromones, cat trees and the important slow blink. The slow blink involves looking at the cat and making successive half blinks followed by full eye closure. Many times the cat will slow blink back at you. Studies have shown that the slow blink is a positive form of communication between people and cats, calming both cat and person in a reflective state.
As I think about this magazine and its contents I wonder what a magazine entitled Human Happiness: fill their lives with joy would contain, to whom it would be addressed, and how many pages it would take. Of course, it would include Malsow’s physiological hierarchy of needs which seem to assumed in the Cat Happiness magazine, but what other insights would it have into human happiness.
I don’t know if I’m trying to force an analogy, but other thoughts I have center around the relationship between God and humans. What insights would a Human Happiness magazine have about that relationship and finally, what does the slow blink between God and humans look like. I have experienced the slow blink with a cat. How does a slow blink with God work.? I would think for it to work, humans have to slow down and pay attention. Look. At. God. (and isn’t that an interesting idea?). I think for me the slow blink with God means I have to close my eyes and focus, opening my imagination to God’s reciprocal slow blinks.
So I leave you with these questions:
What would be the content of a magazine entitled Human Happiness: fill their lives with joy? What would be your specific content? And how would you practice the slow blink with God?
