“Your Joy” by Howard Thurman (excerpt)
Isaiah 12:2-6
We lit the candle of Joy on the Advent wreath this morning. In this season, we’re supposed to be joyful. But sometimes the stars just don’t align, and we’re not feeling it. Joy?! Bah, humbug! “A Merry Christmas! Out upon Merry Christmas,” as Scrooge says.
It’s easy to name lots of things that are not going well, both in our personal lives and in the world at large. The aches and pains and things falling apart in our bodies. The conflict with that sibling or friend that has turned into an unbridgeable chasm. The number of places experiencing war and famine and climate change and vast numbers of refugees.
But if we live in that space all the time . . . bleah.
What if we would like to feel more joy? Authentic joy, not ignoring reality. How do we actually cultivate a practice of joy?
We can start with Howard Thurman’s question: “What is the source of your joy?” [Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations, 4th ed., 142.] He lists different possible sources: another person who is joyful can make us joyful, too. Circumstances going well can make us joyful. Some people just have joyful dispositions.
Then, Thurman says, “There are some who must win their joy against high odds, squeeze it out of the arid ground of their living, or wrest it from the stubborn sadness of circumstance. It is a determined joy, sharpened by the zest of triumph.” This may describe the joy, for example, that the people of Syria are feeling right now to be out from under the oppressive Assad regime after over 50 years. Who knows what government will come next? That’s a question for tomorrow. For today, it is enough that the regime is gone and the political prisoners freed. One man who was in prison for over 30 years is now home in Lebanon, meeting his 31-year-old son, who was 10 months old the last time he saw him. This former prisoner is getting to know his family and also just listening to the waves on the shore—a sound he hasn’t heard in all that time. His most fervent wish, the thing that kept him going all these years—to be reunited with his family and see his son again—has come true, beyond all hope or expectation. So he is experiencing profound joy. Who knows what will come next. Reintegrating into society after 30 years of brutal prison is not going to be an easy transition. But for right now: joy. Savoring the moment.
I think savoring has a lot to do with the practice of cultivating joy. When I asked Kia how she feels joy, she said, “I feel joy because I am in the world. If I can quit thinking about the things I have to do and just be where I am, it makes me joyful. I’m glad to be where I am—when I’m glad, when it doesn’t hurt.” For her, joy is about “being present in the moment where I am, which is pretty good: right now, I’m looking at the lake, watching chickens run around the yard in the rain.” That’s a lovely joy based in savoring the gifts of the moment. We can cultivate that.
What are you savoring? That’s a question we can ask ourselves every day. What am I savoring?
I know a woman who has cancer and may not be around much longer. I think she and her family are savoring their time together every day. But it doesn’t have to take cancer for us to remember to savor the blessings and gifts of each day. We can savor the gifts and cultivate joy every day. Maybe this becomes a New Year’s resolution: Cultivate joy.
There is joy in relief. The bad thing didn’t happen: the test came back negative, the house avoided foreclosure, you didn’t get laid off. Or the bad thing did happen, you figured out a way through it, and people stepped up to help.
There is joy that after a close game that could have gone either way, your team ultimately won at the last second. The fun thing about that is it’s a communal joy. If you’re attending the game in person, you’re with a stadium full of other people, many of whom were rooting for your same team, and you share in this joy.
Some people radiate joy because they have found what God calls them to do in life, and they are doing it with their whole hearts. Whether that is making music or building houses or healing people or teaching children or cleaning floors or designing the next computer chip or feeding people—whatever it is, they have found it and said a profound “yes.” Doing that work may be hard, may have all sorts of challenges, but it is their calling, and they can’t imagine a fulfilling life without it. It brings them closer to God. It gives them a sense of purpose.
Dan Buettner has researched what he calls Blue Zones: places in the world that have a higher than usual number of people living well into old age. One of the factors that he finds many of these elders have in common is something that gives them a reason to get up in the morning. They have a sense of purpose. It might be helping their grandchildren with math—or having their grandchildren teach them math. It may be walking around the mall every day with friends and then getting a cup of coffee. It may be their faith community. They belong; they’re connected to community; they have a sense of worth. That gives them joy. And apparently helps them live longer.
At Christmas we remember the good news of great joy that the angels shared with shepherds: that God became incarnate in Jesus. As I mentioned two weeks ago in talking about hope, God doesn’t send a savior when everything is hopeful and going great; God sends a messiah when things look hopeless. And as Jan talked about last week regarding peace, we don’t need that messiah as much when the world is peaceful. So in these uncertain times, we are ready for good news of great joy, and we get to practice the sense of Emmanuel, God being with us, not just at Christmas but every day. We get to center our lives in that God-with-us presence.
How do we cultivate our joy?
We connect with what is greater than ourselves: the Divine, community, the next generation. Center ourselves in prayer, drawing on that inexhaustible source of joy from God. As we will hear in the benediction the words of Paul: “Rejoice in God always; again I will say, Rejoice.” [Philippians 4:4.]
We cultivate our joy by pausing from time to time to take deep breaths and give thanks—especially on frustrating days when nothing seems to be going right. That’s when deep breaths and giving thanks are extra important: they help put things back in perspective. Justice activists are at risk of burning out if they never stop to celebrate the wins—to give thanks, to rejoice. The obstacles can seem insurmountable. But sometimes the bill they’ve been lobbying for actually passes and even gets funded. Sometimes justice prevails. Sometimes the oppressive ruler leaves and there’s an opportunity to start fresh, as in Syria. Sometimes the unjustly held captives are released, the sick are healed, the hungry are fed. And sometimes we have had a hand in making that happen. Socks for people on the streets. Food for hungry children at Stevens Elementary. It’s important to stop and celebrate. Without it, we may forget all the good things happening in and around and through us. Sometimes the good guys win. When’s the last time you put leaded gas in your car? When’s the last time you were in a restaurant or airplane where someone was smoking? Oh, that’s right: we won those. What about that coal export terminal up in Bellingham? Oh, that’s right: it never got built because we stopped it. Rejoice.
Cultivating joy from a deep place centered in gratitude means we remember and celebrate if we have a loving family, a good place to live, enough money to meet our needs and also share, work worth doing, and a body that keeps moving.
Cultivating joy might mean saying thank you. Maybe it’s a phone call or a note to convey your appreciation for a kindness. Everyone likes to be noticed, heard, appreciated. Maybe it’s telling your adult children what good parents they are.
It's easy to find the things that are falling apart. It may take practice to cultivate joy. Isaiah says, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” But I suspect you have to have been cultivating a practice of joy to even know where to find the wells of salvation. Isaiah continues:
And you will say in that day:
Give thanks to God,
call on the Holy Name; . . .
Shout aloud and sing for joy,
for great in your midst is the Holy One. Amen.