Oh Joy.

When the downstairs cat and the battery alarm on my pager woke me up at 3 am this morning,  I went back to bed with the ear buds in listening to my local news and information station.  The news was on and the lead story was that this was the two year anniversary of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.   Oh joy.

Hold it.  Today is the Sunday of Joy in Advent.  What a bizarre coincidence.

Along with loneliness, Joy has been another one of those strange curiosities of mine for the past few years.  The term does hold a number of personal traumas including my mean late aunt, Joy, whose most common statement to me was "Hush."

There is the suggestion that even if you do not feel like rocking around the Christmas tree, or decking the halls, there can still be joy.  The Christmas spirit of the secular carols does not necessarily fill the emptiness.

Nevertheless, Joy is a foreign concept to many of us in the driven 21st century.  Many of us are busy and chasing many objectives and goals and do not necessarily reflect on joy.  We tend to reflect on happiness, which is not the same as Joy.  Joy is an attitude and happiness is a feeling.

Feelings do rise and fall.  We can be happy some moments and depressed, sad, or mad at other moments.

Many people are just not happy and have good reason to be unhappy due to tragedy, disappointment, abuse, and pain.   Furthermore, despite all of the material wealth and achievement, people are still not happy and asking "Is this all there is?"  They do not have joy.

I have concluded for the moment that as an attitude,  Joy has a close association with Gratitude.
With joy there is some sense of fulfillment in the moment even in the midst of bleakness.

Joy is stronger some moments than others.  It depends on the moment and what is happening.  Joy can be overwhelming to the point of tears, and it can be enough to keep someone who is feeling hopeless from entertaining or following through on suicide.

Joy is highly existential.  What may be joy for me may not necessarily be joy for you. A person who is overwhelmed in pain and grief is not necessarily going to appreciate someone else's joy.

Joy is an individual responsibility.  It is a choice.  We can dwell on our issues, problems, and trials,
but Joy does require us to reflect on what we have and what could be worse.

The spiritual joy of the message of Christmas is that there is forgiveness and salvation. Christmas calls us to look at our spiritual condition and offers us the opportunity of joy despite how bad we feel about ourselves and our sinful condition.

There are still no easy answers about why a young man with mental illness decided to kill his mother and then massacre a group of innocent first-graders, some school staff, and then himself.  Pondering it makes me want to hug my kids right now, and I am feeling gratitude that my wife and I have children and that God has kept them safe.

However, today, I can have joy because God loved me first to send the baby to the manger, grow up to die on the cross in order to save me from my sin and give me eternal life.

Third Sunday of Advent: I know that some of you may not feel like it, but this is a day of joy.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent and it is the Sunday of Joy.  Joy is basically synonymous with happiness.   Of course, the focus of  joy in Advent is that there should be the feeling of joy in God's gift to humanity.
  
For the people reading this blog, I am assuming that "Joy" is a hard feeling to have or even reach for.  If you have had someone just die or you are having an otherwise difficult time Joy is elusive.

I think that if you have just had a loss or you are still grieving a loss, it is not a time of joy.  You are likely overwhelmed with negative feelings and physical stress, and you are not likely to feel joy.  I have a personal story seems appropriate here.

A Personal Story

I have referenced this in a prior post, but my wife had a miscarriage between the second and third weeks of Advent over a decade ago.  We were either numb or strong and we went into church and it was the --you guessed it--the Sunday of Joy in Advent.

While a few people said they were sorry, the few narcissists in the Sunday School class were matter of fact when we told them about our loss as if we had merely yawned.  It was a cheery sermon and the pastor, who was aware of our loss said in the sermon,

I know that some of you may not feel like it, but this is a day of joy.  

For several years, I could not have cared about the Sunday of joy in Advent--it turned out ironically to be a Sunday of grief for me.  I kept my manners and stayed seated and kept quiet.

Of course I was grieving and I tried to keep a stiff upper lip about it.  As I look back at today, I did think about that day 11 years ago, and I think that with the time, I have hurt less and less and I worked to look for and create joy.

Joy--it is often looked for and created.

Sometimes joy can be spontaneous in response to the positive situation, but it seems to come more from creation inside of you when there are current, negative circumstances.  We can find joy in something else if we are not feeling positive about that is in front of us.

Joy can be found in a number of actions or realizations. Joy may be a matter of "counting our blessings."  Joy can be a matter of looking at the bright side of life.   Joy can be felt from remembering what has been good in our past.

Joy as Irony

As I have sought to feel joy in my life, I have found myself working hard to reframe what is good and what I can do.  I think that finding joy in difficult times means realizing the good that came out of failures and disappointments. 

Joy in Faith

Despite real life and all of its distractions,  the observance of Advent has at least called me to realize the joy that I have in my salvation.  Many people feel lonely and unloved, but there is the love of God.    A strange concept to many is that the Bible says that all are sinners.  We all have fallen short of the mark (Romans 3:23).  We all deserve death (Romans 6:23).  But while we were sinners, Christ died for us (me included) Romans 5:8.  God loved us first that he gave his only son for us (John 3:16).

Where do you let your thoughts go?

As I have thought back over the past decade, joy is found more when you spend your energy looking for it and creating it.  I think that I have had to look for it today.  I do not think that I found it so much at church today (yes I said it), but I found it in other activities.

I also have had to limit how much I have thought back to the Sunday after the miscarriage.  I have chosen to give it minimal thought except for when writing this post. 

I have had to create joy in experimenting on that baking contest entry that flopped terribly (A death by chocolate-mint torte). I have found it in giving some picture frames to a friend who wants to try selling them on e-bay. 

As I look to close out this day, I have to say that my joy has not been ecstatic.  It has been pleasant, but not "over the top" as some might say.  I think that too many people expect joy to be an all-or-nothing proposition, and it is not.  

Closing thoughts

As I reflect on how this post has turned out, I realize that it has not been as intense as other posts have been.  I guess I would like to give a permission to not feel joy if you don't want to, and that your joy can be pleasant but not ecstatic. 

There are some people in intense pain and wanting relief from the hurt and physical stress of emotions. The reality is that that pain does not go away immediately but takes its time.  The Sunday of Joy in Advent is a day that most people going through grief and loss would rather avoid.  However, I do hope that if this has fit you, that you may find some small thing that gives you at least one second of joy.