The Secret to Happiness
by Rabbi Nancy KastenThomas Jefferson penned the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” as the third element of America’s creed 250
“His name is engraved in marble. His virtues in the hearts of those he helped to free from slavery and superstition.” [1]
I stumbled onto those words when I discovered the grave of the American Unitarian preacher, Theodore Parker. He is surprisingly buried in the English cemetery in Florence, Italy. The grave is inconspicuously placed near the base of a side hill, unlike that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which is featured prominently on the main path. Parker was in Florence in 1860, attempting to convalesce from the tuberculosis that took his life. He was buried there without fanfare, though his life work deserves more attention.
During the Civil War, friends and advisors of Abraham Lincoln shared liberal religious pamphlets and books with the president, among them Parker’s published sermons. A fierce abolitionist, Parker delivered a speech to an anti-slavery convention in Boston in 1850 titled “The American Idea.” In it, he described democracy as a form of government “of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people.” [2] Lincoln’s adaptation of that formed the concluding sentence of the Gettysburg Address: “… we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” [3]
This month we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which enumerates the founding ideals of a nation yet to be formed. Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg signaled a rebirth of our nation, emphasizing as it did the so-called American creed that “all men are created equal,” and that all men included enslaved men, women, and children. Our nation, he declared, was an unfinished work that we are called to complete. A new birth of freedom soon would be inscribed in law through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. These “Second Founding” Amendments protected freedom, citizenship, and civil rights. [4]
Parker also coined a phrase that Martin Luther King, Jr. paraphrased and oft repeated: “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” [5] King did not take that to mean that we could sit back and let the universe adjust itself toward righteousness. He believed human beings needed to bend the arc. A hundred years after emancipation Black Americans still had not experienced the full rights of citizenship. But the dream of a just society inspired by Parker’s vision and adopted by King became a call to action that led to another step forward in civil rights.
Parker provided the moral imagination. Lincoln then wove that vision into our national democratic mission. King catalyzed those ideals into a demand for enduring social change.
The courageous preacher was criticized for his radical ideas even by his denominational brethren. But Parker was not content to build an uncontroversial, respectable ministry. He understood that speaking the truth costs something, but so does not speaking the truth.
We find ourselves in such a time today. The stakes are again high for democracy and civil rights. Religious leaders, civil rights activists, and concerned ordinary citizens fear their efforts will amount to little against the forces of powerful politicians, media moguls, and billionaires with megaphones. The temptation to flag in our efforts, or give in to fatigue or futility, is ever present.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer recounts the lives of the hall of fame of faith from Israel’s history. The big names are listed: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. He then praises anonymous “others” who “suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.” Some were “destitute, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy.” [6] He says that though they were commended for their faith, they did not themselves receive what was promised. And yet they are part of the “great cloud of witnesses” who inspire us to persevere in faithfulness.
Parker did not live to see slavery abolished. He never heard Lincoln quote him. He never witnessed the civil rights movement. Yet his words abide.
Faithfulness is not measured by recognition or success. Some of the most consequential figures in history die without knowing the reach of their influence. Prophets of every age speak without guarantees. They rarely know which sermon, article, prayer, protest, conversation, or act of bravery will echo beyond their lifetime.
As we mark this significant national anniversary, the question is not only what our founders envisioned, but what future generations will inherit from our courage—or our silence. The task of religious leaders and followers alike is not to secure our legacy but to work toward a better tomorrow for future generations we will never live to see.
What words are we speaking today that others may one day carry forward? What uncomfortable truths are we withholding because we fear the cost? And who, unknown to us, may someday find the courage they need because we found ours first?
~ George A. Mason
[1] Theodore Parker’s epitaph appears on his grave in the English Cemetery in Florence, Italy. For Parker’s life and influence, see Dean Grodzins, American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
[2] Theodore Parker, “The American Idea,” speech delivered at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston, May 29, 1850, in The Collected Works of Theodore Parker, vol. 5 (London: Trübner & Co., 1870), 22.
[3] On Parker’s influence on Abraham Lincoln, see Richard Wightman Fox, Lincoln’s Body: A Cultural History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), 194–95; and Allen C. Guelzo, Redeemer President: The Promise and Power of Abraham Lincoln (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.
[4] Historians often refer to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments collectively as the “Second Founding.” See The Second Founding by Eric Foner (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019).
[5] Theodore Parker, “Of Justice and the Conscience,” in Ten Sermons of Religion (Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co., 1853), 84. Parker’s original wording was more expansive: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King Jr. frequently adapted Parker’s phrase, notably in his address at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march, March 25, 1965.
[6] Hebrews 11:36–12:1 (NRSVue).
Frederick Douglass’s July 5, 1852 address to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, titled What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Douglass affirmed the bravery and insight of the founders and called upon America to live up to its founding ideals.
Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes penned Let America Be America Again. It echoes Douglass in calling for the blessings of the nation to be extended to Black Americans.
Interview with Walter Isaacson about his book, “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.”
by Rabbi Nancy KastenThomas Jefferson penned the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” as the third element of America’s creed 250
Event Reflection: A public conversation on peace, reconciliation, and a future beyond division. On May 16, Faith Commons was honored