We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  The Declaration of Independence

When someone I respect mentions a book they read recently that changed heir life, I’m all ears. Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a non-partisan, non-profit institution in Philadelphia. He began his lecture at Chautauqua two weeks ago by saying he read The Tusculan Disputations by the Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 B.C.) during COVID. Why that book? Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton were all so inspired by Cicero’s definition of “the pursuit of happiness” that the phrase was worked into The Declaration of Independence. Rosen read Cicero’s book and it transformed his understanding of the founding documents of this nation.  

What exactly does “the pursuit of happiness” entail according to Cicero and the founders? As stated in a blurb introducing Rosen’s book The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America, “pursuing happiness meant a lifelong quest for being good, not feeling good - the pursuit of lifelong virtue, not short-term pleasure.”

Bottom line: declaring “the pursuit of Happiness” an “unalienable Right” doesn’t mean we’re each free to do our own thing – “If it feels good, do it.” To the contrary, we’re to use our Creator’s endowments of life and liberty to pursue moral excellence, striving to be ever more selfless, self-disciplined people in service of a greater good.

The Apostle Paul wasn’t an overt student of Cicero or moral philosophy (though as a learned rabbi, I bet he was conversant with both). But as a disciple of Jesus Christ, he whetted Christians’ appetites for moral excellence by invoking the Spirit-inspired fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Consider: Cicero’s virtue of self-discipline appears on Paul’s list as the ultimate fruit of the Spirit – self-control. It must be important. It is! Says Rosen, the founders “believed that political self-government required personal self-government.” We must govern ourselves before we govern others.

I jotted in my notes: Democracy requires a self-disciplined, virtuous citizenry and self-disciplined, virtuous leaders. A person who cannot govern him/herself is not fit to govern others. One who cannot exercise self-control over their own mouth, impulses, passions, actions, and temper is incapable of exercising responsible oversight of others.  

Also consider: Gentleness, the penultimate fruit of the spirit, can only be exercised by people who have self-control. Violence, hurtful words and destructive actions, is the antonym of biblical gentleness, the preeminent sour fruit of undisciplined flesh.

In an essay in Christian Century magazine, Craig Barnes, then President of Princeton Theological Seminary, recalled a wedding he did when the groom, whom he described as “a burly, muscular lineman for his college football team” spoke his vows to the bride and then added a vow no one saw coming: “I will always be gentle with you.”

Barnes says we think of gentleness as a weak or fragile thing. Far from it, he says. To be gentle doesn’t mean to be a shrinking violet, a doormat who sits quietly by as others walk all over them. To the contrary! Gentleness is a virtue exercised by people of real strength. Gentle people are secure enough in themselves that they act toward others not in a domineering way that may come with the power of their position, gender, or physical strength, but out of their inner strength treat others with dignity, respect, gentleness.

Don’t be deceived by those who fill the air with the bluster of their bruising words, who go through life throwing elbows and crushing those who stand in the way of their arrogant, unprincipled ambition. Bullies are in fact weak people who have neither self-control nor self-esteem, broken human beings who live out a fantasy of strength and self-importance at the expense of others. It’s a façade! People lacking self-control and gentleness lash out. Gentle people have self-control. When provoked, they are able to restrain themselves and, in positions of leadership, exercise restraint over others.

There is God-ordained strength in gentleness. As St. Francis de Sales put it, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” Gandhi, a gentle man who liberated his nation without violence said, “Harshness is conquered by gentleness, hatred by love, lethargy by zeal and darkness by light.” Cesar Chavez, no doormat, is quoted as saying, “Never, never is it possible to reach someone if you become angry or bitter; only love and gentleness can do it.”

When Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Andy Young, Ralph Abernathy and company crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they faced fire hoses, police dogs, and billy clubs. Self-disciplined in the way of gentleness, that Constitutional Convention of color made it all the way to Montgomery in the name of civil rights, voting rights, and the inalienable human rights of dignity, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. If Rosen is correct, their deportment is precisely what the Declaration of Independence and Constitution the founders penned and the democracy they envisioned calls forth. Neglect “the pursuit of happiness” enacted in moral excellence, self-control, and selflessness in service of a greater good, and profound unhappiness – social as well as personal – is sure to follow.   

I don’t know how many people these days equate the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of moral excellence or how many seek and aspire to be selfless leaders who evidence the capacity for self-control – strength rooted in gentleness – but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.

After all, according to another book that changes lives, it is the gentle (the meek) who “shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).