Joy

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
-Karl Barth

Joy feels like an unearned gift. For me, it comes along with hearing a baby belly laugh. It comes unexpectedly, sometimes, when the warmth of the sun dispels a chill or when any kind of animal gently butts me with its head–my dog Bruce especially. Joy’s graces seem simple. They connect with the child in me–the one who used to run simply for the feel of it, who loved hard, who wept when hurt or angry or sorry for myself, who swam in the Pacific just to feel myself carried by the weight and power of the water.

Joy’s connection to gratitude makes sense. Both activities are tangled up in our response to God’s daily invitation to pay attention to the world around us and to the lives of our neighbors. Both invite us to experience ourselves connected to others. Both open us to the abundance of God’s love outpoured.

Joy is also a kind of resilient resistance to the forces of despair. This is what makes it an Easter term, friends. We live under the circumstances of resurrection-under the circumstances of God having said YES to the life and way of Jesus and NO to the power of violence and fear. When we say alleluia, we are not simply happy about avoiding a brush with death, we are celebrating death’s defeat. 

Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

-Nehemiah 8:10