Finding joy

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ (John 7:37-38) … I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11)

I’ve been laughing more lately. I think I know why, but I do not want to claim too much. The human heart is mysteriously convoluted, making dubious most claims of self-knowledge.

All I can say is that I am trying to adopt a hermeneutic of joy, more carefully noting when I smile and at what, slowing down to savor moments of affection when my heart is moved by a face, a moment, a shape or color, a soul near or even a fleeting image from the television screen.

I want to feel joy. I crave joy, which means I have a lot of company. Our whole riven world craves joy, since most of what we see and watch as the news rolls by kills our joy. But joy is something more, something deeper than happiness. Nor is it dependent on pleasant times and favorable events.

Heavens, one of the most joyful memories of my life is the day of my blessed father’s funeral. I sat with my sister and brothers behind our childhood home, drinking wine and swapping stories about a struggling man whose imprint lives in each of our hearts, along with the love we will always feel for him. There was no laughter without tears that day, and no tears without laughter. I do not know that I have ever felt more connected with my four siblings than on that day on the patio.

So, what is joy? How does it happen? Where is it found, or does it find us?

I make no pretentions of possessing answers. But these questions keep bringing me back to small, often hidden, out of the way moments when the billowing heart reaches to enfold and hold a moment, any given moment, in loving affection and appreciative delight.

Joy is not merely the pleasure of taking in the beauty of flowers on a summer morning. It is the rush of love for the wonder of beauty, for the miracle of color, form and fragrance delighting your senses in a single moment you didn’t see coming. It is intuitively knowing the beauty you see and the love you feel are not two separate things but are all part of one great love, one great beauty that for one blessed moment you finally see.

Joy, it seems, is the presence of this love filling your being and fulfilling your existence as a human soul created in Love’s blessed image. It is the silent connection I knew as Dixie and I entered the sanctuary last Sunday and took our place. Several near us knelt in their pew; one, eyes tightly closed, appeared rapt in prayer. I know nothing about them, not their names or stories, nor the hopes and needs that moved them to their knees, for this is a new place for us. But tears of loving recognition moistened my eyes for the beauty of hearts unashamed to acknowledge their need and vulnerability, hungry for a grace beyond any this world can provide. A stranger, I was at home among people in whose hearts I recognized my own.

Joy is less about being loved than it is about being love. We crave being loved, and most of us want to be loved for our own sweet selves, which, of course, aren’t always so sweet or lovable. Being loved that way is exactly what Jesus says God does and who God is, a flowing fountain of infinite love in which we are quite welcome to stand.

It is a joy to find a place where that fountain naturally splashes over us and makes us new. This is where true joy begins. But the fulfillment of our joy, the completion of our humanity, happens not in the awareness of being so-loved but in knowing this holy fountain flowing within us so that we are one with the One whose joy it is to love such as us.

Every day is a precious privilege, an invitation to open our eyes and ears to Love’s blessed flow in our little corner of the world, knowing God is eager … to share the joy.

David L. Miller