Is Joy More than Happiness?

 I have been experiencing a lot of joy this past week.  That experience is not of joy – rather, it was about joy. I have had more than a few encounters with people writing about joy.

Joy is something I have thought about and pondered in my life.  I must confess that I have had a difficult time really getting a handle on what an experience of joy actually is.  There is lots of theory and exposition about joy but if asked I would have trouble describing the direct experience of joy. I am quite able to know when I am happy but what is joy when it is experienced?

Checking out the definition of joy on-line was not very helpful.  The first source I came across defined joy in terms of happiness - simply “great happiness.”  Another was a bit more detailed, “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.”  So, can it be that joy is just an exaggerated experience of happiness or is there a difference between joy and happiness? 

Here are excerpts of some of the expositions regarding joy that came my way this week.

Dr. Barbara Holmes’ (1943–2024) makes a direct distinction between happiness and joy:

Make no mistake about it, there’s a real difference between happiness and joy. The sources of happiness are very fleeting. Buy something new and see how fleeting it is. That new car, that new house, they lose their luster in a mere few weeks. True joy is foundational. It’s a basis of God’s love for us, sealed with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Could there be any firmer foundation? 

 

Mystic and theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) writes of faith as the most secure foundation for joy.  However, he does seem to conflate joy with happiness but gives us an expanded idea of joy:  

There are some who are dependent upon the mood of others for their happiness…. There are some whose joy is dependent upon circumstances…. There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when God makes known [God’s] presence, where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement. This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death. 

 Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis also sees a relationship between joy and happiness:

Joy is that feeling of well-being, pleasure, and happiness that accompanies us as we move through life. It alters the way we see the world, its people, and ourselves. Joy tints our perspective with optimism and the confidence that we will go through the hard things, and though we might be bruised or battered, we’ll come out on the other side. Joy is the wellspring of resistance, the water of life. Now, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and smile from the inside out. There, there it is. Can you feel it? That’s joy!  

Considering all this, it seems to me that happiness is dependent on externalities.  You are happy if life brings you things that give you happiness.  However, joy seems to be something that comes from your inner being – from a deep source that is ironically from both the outside and inside. 

When thinking about joy this past week, I was able to identify an experience of joy when attending a funeral of someone I didn’t know personally – the mother of a colleague.  The funeral service ended with the choir singing the In Paradisum from Faure’s Requiem.  The music was external, but the experience of joy came from somewhere internal.  It was not happiness - it was joy.   I realized that I had experienced that many times before but didn’t recognize it s joy.  May you be blessed with joy on your journey.

Sowing Seeds Today for Tomorrow

I had decided that today that I would write about planting seeds for the future.  Low and behold the Society of St, John the Evangelist (SSJE) word for today (Brother Give Us a Word) is just that “seed”.  Here is the offering for today. 

Seed

The desire to meet Jesus directly is a good and healthy desire. It is a healthy desire to cultivate, day after day, with the seeds of prayer and work. The good news is that Jesus is already available. If you feel the desire to meet Jesus directly, that means he is already calling you. God is already at work inside of you. Br. Jack Crowley, SSJE

 

I don’t know if this is a coincidence or a case of synchronicity.  However, I am glad that it confirmed for me that this should be the subject of today’s musings.

So, the question arises, what are we going to plant today that we want to harvest tomorrow for the world we want?  I suggest that you consider planting four seeds that each represent a value which you would like to see bloom and grow and become the crop which will help the world become the one we want for ourselves and the next generations.  I chose four seeds as four is the number of wholeness and completion.  Each seed can represent a quality that you want to care for and see bloom into something wonderful in your life and the life of the world.  As Br. Jack states, “a healthy decide to cultivate, day after day.”  These can be values and characteristics that you want to cultivate in yourself as that is always the place to start. 

The four seeds that I want to plant and cultivate are, peace, joy, hope and love.  I will incorporate these values into my daily prayers and in my relationships with others.  I am not suggesting that this is easy but remember that the longest journey begins with a single step, however small. 

May you be blessed to plant seeds on your journey. 

  

Joy to the World

We continued our celebration of Advent with Sunday past being the third Sunday of Advent.  In addition to the first two Advent candles for Hope and Peace, we lit the third candle representing Joy.  This candle is different from the other two as well as the fourth candle which we will light next Sunday – those being purple/violet.  The violet represents preparation and repentance in anticipation of the birth of the Christ Child.  The third candle is pink which is the liturgical colour for joy.   This Sunday is also called Gaudete Sunday, Gaudete being the Latin word for rejoice. 

For me, joy has been a somewhat challenging concept to understand.  It’s not that I did not and do not experience joy but I have pondered what it is.  I have wondered what the difference is between joy and happiness.  I was aware there is a difference but I was not sure what that actually was.  One definition I found on-line addresses the difference:

Joy and happiness are wonderful feelings to experience, but are very different. ... It comes when you make peace with who you are, why you are and how you are, whereas happiness tends to be externally triggered and is based on other people, things, places, thoughts and events.

This does capture the sense that resonates with me.  There is a sense that joy is not related to specific experiences or events which can result in the sense of happiness.  Happiness, then is dependent on external events which may or may not result in happiness.  Joy is a reflection that state of being where you are right with yourself and with the world and, I dare say, with God.    What comes to mind as I write this is the Shaker hymn, the Gift to be Simple, “when we find our selves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight.”   To be right with myself and with God is truly joyful.   

I also came across this reflection on joy by The Rev. Kim Jackson, an Episcopal priest based out of Atlanta, Georgia:

I watched some children play hide-and-seek at a party recently. The little girl turned away, squeezed her eyes closed, and counted. Then, with a loud giggle, she spun back around. The look on her face when she turned was one of pure joy and excitement as she anticipated finding her friends.

We are invited this day to turn our hearts towards God. May we do so with great anticipation and find joy in discovering that God is ready to be found.

May you be blessed with joy on your Advent journey to Bethlehem.

Peace on Earth

Last week I began the Advent Journey - Advent is a time of preparation for the advent of the birth of the Christ Child.  It is a season of the church year which, regrettably is trampled in the rush to begin the celebration of Christmas and the material expression of what is actually a celebration of Bacchanalia in our culture with the extravagance of gift buying and giving and receiving.

The idea of giving at Christmas is, in and of itself, a positive thing.  I am sure that charitable giving increases at this time of year as people open their hearts and wallets to give to good causes.  However, if we ignore a time of preparation, we are missing what is actually central to the celebration of Christmas.   We desire the instant gratification of all the good stuff about Christmas such as beginning as soon as possible to play the beautiful Christmas music which should not actually be sung until Christmas Eve and the beginning or the real Christmas season.  This, of course, would be impossible and even Churches surrender to the inevitability of beginning the bedecking of the halls early in the Advent Season.  However, many churches still celebrate Advent with the hope that we Christians will observe a Holy Advent in preparation for the birth of the Christ Child.

The observance of the four themes of Advent is a wonderful way to actually prepare for Christmas.  The four themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love are marked with the lighting of a candle in the Advent Wreath.  They are cumulative so that we do not forget the theme me marked in the previous week(s) and are able to build on what has gone before. 

Last week we lit the candle for Hope and this week we lit that candle again and also lit the candle for Peace.  The theme of peace is, of course, an easily recognized theme for Christmas.  With the Christ Child being considered the Prince of Peace, as proclaimed in the chorus from Handel’s Messiah, which I will be part of a performance later this week (yes, I know, before Christmas):

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Well, if Jesus is the Prince of Peace, peace certainly hasn’t arrived yet.  But what would it look like if there was peace of earth as was announced by the angels to the shepherds?  Peace is not just a cessation of violence.  If all wars ceased would that mean that there was peace of earth and goodwill to all people?  Actually, no.   True peace is much more than that.  It involves justice where the proverbial lions would lie down with the lambs and all people would be treated as they truly are – children of God.  Poverty would be overcome and racism, hate and violence would end.  That is truly something to hope for.

During this Advent let us especially peace and work for a world where true peace will overcome hatred and fear.  Blessings on your Advent journey.

Joy to the World

Last Sunday was the third Sunday in Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for ‘rejoice’ and the third candle is the pink/rose coloured one (the other three are red).  But why pink?  One source I consulted notes, “Long ago the Pope would honor a citizen with a pink rose (or a rose rose?) Priests then would wear pink vestments as a reminder of this coming joy.”

I have, in the past, pondered the difference between joy and happiness and I don’t think I have a complete handle on the difference.  As far as I can determine, happiness is a reaction to specific events and joy is a state of being.  When we sing the carol “Joy to the World the Lord is come,” it means that we are declaring that the world is in a state of joy as the Prince of Peace is born.  However, he is not the Prince of Joy as that is the state we experience when peace reigns in the world. 

In any case. I have been, not surprisingly, encountering joy in many things I have read in the last few days.   The Advent reflection for December 17^th which I receive in my inbox notes that we have the anticipation of joy when we consider the birth of the Christ child:

As we move toward the manger, we sing with great gladness. The song is ancient, sung by the heavenly host and repeated by the shepherds as they traveled to see the Christ child. Glory to God in the highest. O come let us adore Him. The song carries the weight of the hope of believers through the ages. It is a song of expectation, of anticipation, of joy and wonder.

In another case, I was drawn to reading The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen which explores the painting by Rembrandt of the parable.  The painting came up in my session with my Spiritual Director.  Nouwen notes that the joy experienced on the return of the prodigal son was driven out by the resentment felt by the older brother:

But this shout of joy cannot be received.  Instead of relief and gratitude, the servant’s joy summons up the opposite: “He was angry then and refused to go in.”  Joy and resentment cannot coexist.  The music and dancing, instead of inviting joy, became a cause for even greater withdrawal. 

Nouwen notes that he had experienced a similar reaction as that of the older brother:

But my anger was so great at not being told about the party that I couldn’t stay.  All of my inner complaints about not being accepted, liked, and love surged up in me, and I left the room, slammed the door behind me.  I was completely incapacitated―unable to receive and participate in the joy that was there.  In an instance, the joy in that room had become a sense of resentment.

 So, other than giving up the comfortable feeling of resentment, how do we achieve joy?  One clue was in the prayers of the people on Sunday.  In the prayers we give thanks for many things; for being called to be the people of God, for the community of faith throughout the world, the privileged of ministering to others, and for the countless gifts of God we have received.  Giving thanks to God in all things. This will go a long way to experiencing joy. 

Nouwen notes that it can be a choice, “Every moment of each day I have the chance to choose between cynicism and joy.  Every thought I have can be cynical or joyful.  Every word I speak can be cynical or joyful.”  I believe that this is a great part of a joyful life.  However, in no way is it easy and should not be made to seem so.  I do not have a natural inclination to joy.  That is part of who I am.  I think many people are not naturally joyful and it does take a conscious effort to cultivate joy in one’s life.  Giving thanks to God in (not for but in) all things is the way to approach it, even if it doesn’t seem to come naturally to many of us.  Thanks be to God. 

Blessings on you journey and may your experience be one of joy. 

Sermon December 13, 2015 Advent 3

Today we light the Advent candle for Joy.  To me, Joy is a bit of an enigma.  When I think about it I am not sure what it actually is.  It is different from happiness but how is it different?  I did what I often do now when I have a question about meaning—I turned to that source of all knowledge—Google.  I found a website with a great number of images of joy. 

There were many different images—many different ideas and depictions of joy.  There were people jumping—this would be jumping for joy as the saying goes.  There were others who were in nature smelling the flowers; embracing nature and sunshine; there were a number of people with big smiles on their faces including one of a little baby (I especially like that one), the iconic one of Charlie Brown and Snoopy dancing their dance of joy; there were also phases such as choose joy, find joy on your journey, joy is the best makeup, awakening joy, there were even a couple of religious ones such as ‘joy comes from trusting God’, and ‘joy to the world the Lord is come’.  There were also a few surprizing ones such as one with a young woman pointing a very big gun (It’s not clear what she was aiming at) and a couple with very scantily clothed buxom young women. 

One particularly interesting one pictured a man jumping up exuberantly with the question “happiness or joy?”  What can we make of all this joy or at least these depictions of joy?  There seems to be a common thread running through many of the images.  Many were smiling with great big smiles; many more were jumping with outstretch arms; many were embracing nature exuberantly.  I’m not sure about the young scantily clothed women—perhaps they were all named Joy.  However, I think the common thread running through many, if not most, of the images was a sense of losing oneself, of reacting without constrain, of embracing life to the fullest.  There was also an underlying theme in a few of them that joy was a choice i.e. chose joy. 

It is perhaps not surprizing in today’s culture that there were so few that had a religious connecting or implication.  Here we are celebrating the anticipation of joy that was and will be born again on Christmas morning:

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,

This is the wonderful news that is proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds.  Why then is there so little association of Christianity with joy?  Shouldn’t Christians be living out the joy that was experienced with the sight of that small beautiful baby in the stable in Bethlehem?  Shouldn’t we be embracing the knowledge that Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God was born to us and walked among us and brought us salvation and embracing life to the fullest, joyfully? Unfortunately many Christians don’t seem to have gotten that message and the implications of that message.  Many Christians act as if there was no good news.  I guess they don’t understand what “Gospel” means.  Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ among us and with us.  As that one image said, “joy comes from trusting God.”   During the rest of Advent I invite you to embrace life as fully as possible.  I invite you to reflect on the joy of Jesus Christ in your life and respond in some small or some big ways.  Perhaps it is helping out the refugees we are sponsoring.  Perhaps it is serving at a community dinner at St. Paul’s.  Perhaps it is even wishing people a Merry Christmas and smiling at stranger.  Or perhaps if Christmas is not a joyful time for you because of its association with sad events and memories or loss, I invite you to participate with the Blue Christmas service at the U. C. in Grand Bend on next Sunday at 4:00 and know the comfort that Jesus can bring to people.  That too is an aspect of joy—the knowledge that Jesus Christ is with us in our sorrow as well as our joy.  We have tidings of comfort and joy.  That too is a part of the wonders of his love. 

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,

Amen