Category Archives: joy

Advent III: What I Sense in Three-Quarter Light

13 Monday Dec 2021

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What is this lovely fragrance flowing…?

Three candles are lighted for this week of Advent. Light is increasing, but still not fully illuminating, so as hearing and touch have been increasing my awareness of Holy Presence these past two weeks, so this week the scents of the season call my attention. In our house we have the paternal legacy of Swedish glogg as it simmers, and occasionally there are the aromas of breads or rolls, even meals being roasted for guests, so long absent from our table. There is a turning, although tentative, from the long austere absence of communal sharing of coffee and goodies into small, but welcome, breaking of bread, and porring of wine together into this bleak midwinter. And what Joy that brings!

On the third week of Advent we light the Joy candles for Gaudete Sunday, a joyful pink explosion into the waiting dark, a respite from the reality of the gloom and sadness, if even for a moment. It is promissory, but welcome , as are the smells of greenery, candles, fireplaces and hot drinks on the stove, a reminder and hope of what is yet to come. Howard Thurman, pastor and prophet writes, “I will light the Candle of Joy, despite all sadness…,” and that prompts me, when I am lighting the candles around my house, and inhale breaths of vanilla, pine, winterberry and peppermint, to sense and trust that the Christ Child is indeed coming: “Live in love, as Christ loves us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering…” Eph. 5:2

The Light is increasing, and so is Hope and Peace and Joy, even though it comes in wisps of fragrance, in shimmers of softness, in snippets of song, that are fleeting and ephemeral. I wait, and am comforted by the reminders in my senses of the One who is coming and the One who has come!

Maya Angelou tells us that, “We need Joy as we need air…” May the Joy of the Lord be our strength in these Advent waiting days!

Advent III: Joy

14 Monday Dec 2020

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There is joy is all…Anne Sexton

Joy come in a mixed bag this season. There is joy all round–worship on line with music, Word and scenes of the life of the community; decorations, a few, going up in new locations around the house; candles promising that the Light has come and is coming! But behind the Advent wreath in our worship space is some clutter, some chaos and disruption. And in our circle this season someone is leaving this life, someone is grieving mightily, and many all over the world are in despair for countless causes and reasons. How do I hold on to the Joy, while so much is so wrong?

For many reasons I have been dogging that questions in these months of upside-downness, confinement, and as our pastor preached, no script. In my pursuit, I have found that that there is a consensus on two things: first, that Joy is a gift of the Spirit: The fruit of the Spirit is…Joy! When I sing “Joy to the World” these days, I am acknowledging that the Holy One comes to us in Grace, in a Person with a promise of Presence, Hope and Love, discernible and accessible by me, and all the people of this world. In addition, however, there is a shared sense by wise ones though time, from Fra Gionvanni, to Lady Julian of Norwich, to Dorothy Day, to Maya Angelou, that Joy is something I need to choose and practice. Henri Nouwen says, Joy does not simply happen to us. We must choose joy, and keep choosing it every day.

So today this third week of Advent, I will practice choosing joy: as I rise, as I eat breakfast, as I convene a Zoom gathering, as I wrap presents for folk, as I bake coffee bread, as I listen for the phone or e-mail, in order to see how God is present in my world and the world around me and where the joy of the world is showing up this season. I am exercising the spiritual muscle that Nehemiah speaks abut when her tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything, says Lady Julian. May it be so for me today!

Mighty Clouds of Joy

28 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by in darkness, dryness, grace, joy, soul friends, Uncategorized

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I hit a wall with this pandemic. I observed the end of Lent, the services of Holy Week and Easter Day on-line with my church community, but I was stuck in my own internal musings. I could give a tacit affirmation to the holy events we were acknowledging, grateful for familiar words and rubrics, music, but could not get in touch with my own heart–there was numbness, blankness, opaqueness. Rather than try to parse it, exegete it, power through it, I decided to let it be and to see what and how it would unfold if I continued my daily practices–those that could feed my own longings and those that could reach out to others, whose apparent immediate needs were so much greater than my own.

For the first two weeks of Eastertide, my soul felt static or gray, yet I felt compelled to start and keep a gratitude list in a brand new journal, open-ended, without lines, with a whimsical cover by Brian Andreas that says, “Grateful today for the Sun & the earth & the memories of what it is to love everything life has brought me.” Some days my lists are mundane, sometimes repetitive. Some days they are short lists, other days quite ample. The practice, which I have done often in the past, was not a magic door-opener to my heart, with all my feelings becoming hopeful and joyful. In listening a friend, I heard her say that she allowed that for her right now, Thursday is just a bad day, no matter what; I resonated with that kind of sentiment.

Yet I noticed toward the end of this last week, that my sights were being lifted, that there were some breaks in the clouds, that the words I was reading were beginning to penetrate, have some meaning. Not every word, but some. I am finding that I have days when I rise with hope and ambition, prayerful and energetic, and then others when I am stuck in amber the whole day. What I do know to do is to observe the practices that daily open a way for Grace to get in–and some days I recognize it when it comes.

This is a time for discovery for me. I have not set out on a quest to learn more about myself and my spirit, but I am noticing things about myself that I would not have recognized. I am tranquil and unflappable much of the time, but in these days when I hear singing of all kinds, I feel my eyes fill with tears of longing, of memory, or wistfulness, of need. I discovered a group of gospel singers a while ago called the Might Clouds of Joy. In researching I found that most of them are gone now, but their legacy remains in recording and video, and they sing and praise and lament in a way that gives expression to my own heart: “”I’ve Been in the Storm Too Long,” “Heavy Load” and “”Pray for Me.” And as I join my heart to their song, I feel some more of the blankness and numbness dissipate even as I weep. There is no denial in their song that trauma in our world exists and has sorrowful effects, but there is also joy and hope and trust in the Holy One as well.

The days of sheltering in place, and rules and regulations continue. There is no date of expiration, which is in itself wearying. But there are also Mighty Clouds of Joy, there are gifts of Grace every day, there are communities of faithful folk who are doing everything they can to protect and care for those who are at risk, and the Holy One who hold us does not slumber or sleep or let us go. I am resting and practicing in that place on Good Days, Bad Days…even Thursdays!

Advent 4: Joy…Now and Then!

23 Sunday Dec 2018

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Basilica of St. Anne De Beaupres. Quebec, Canada (personal photo)


I gasped in delight when I visited this sanctuary last year! I had never entered a worship space that was so explicitly intended for Joy! As I wandered among all the works of art, I sensed they were pointing toward two things: the healing of body and soul and the recognition of joy in the heart, all the time, not just in festival season, but a through note in all of a life seeking and living the sacred.

And now we are about to be stunned and amazed by the celebration of that Joy, a time we call Christmastide. I love the many ways that Joy keeps revealing itself in these last days of Advent: children dressed in red and green, singing their hearts out; cookie bakers with the objects of love in their hearts creating new and familiar recipes to console and thrill the recipients; generosity poured out, both in contributions for the broken places of the world and in random acts of kindness; homes and hearts opening wide to those who can use some solace, shelter and energizing!

Then we reflect all that Joy that comes from the Holy One in our observances.We sing loudly “Joy to the World!” We remember the sacred stories from Genesis to Revelation, reminding us that we have Joy as a constant companion–through disasters, through trauma, through tragedy, through grief. We don’t always sense it, know it, feel it, but we have been and are given it by the One who came to make our Joy complete.

I have been collecting quotations and poems and anecdotes about Joy in these past months, when there are moments when Joy seems to have vanished from the vocabulary and actions of the culture. I find Joy is the wisdom of saints from John Calvin to Maya Angelou who recognize that Joy is part of the way that we know that the Holy One is operative and lively and powerful in the world. I am choosing one that invites my attention and my action this Christmas from Henri Nouwen:

Joy does not simply happen to use…We must choose Joy and keep choosing it every day!

That’s what I am choosing this Christmastide and for the year to come!










Weeping With Those who Weep

16 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in compassion, grief, joy, Uncategorized, weeping

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images-1During these hot, hot days of summer, I am needing to listen to the sacred words that call me to “Weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15 ) It’s always been easy to “Rejoice with those who rejoice;” everyone likes a celebration. But in my life this is not a festival moment; it is a time of mourning:

  • yesterday the husband of a friend died after struggling for months
  • another friend was diagnosed with an aggressive and rapid disease
  • others are in treatment over a long haul to stem the progression of invasive illnesses
  • two long-time partners have hurt each other and their connection is in peril
  • families across borders have been torn asunder by political and economic forces that are tone deaf to human spirit and blind to the image of God in each living person
  • communities around the world, so many in my state, are trying to dig out, rebuild, re-imagine life after disaster–fire and flood, seeking to discern what is irretrievably lost and what can be held on to
  • faith communities are redesigning themselves, morphing into new modes and mediums which seem to promise new life, yet, of necessity leave some faithful people as collateral damage in their wake

All of these particularities are unfolding in a landscape which for some seem like a strange land at best, a place where the call is to sit down by the river and weep.

Weeping is a holy spiritual practice, I believe. I observe it more internally than with actual salt tears. Yet my heart is attuned to those in real time tears. I have pondered how to weep with them. Many are far away, many need to focus on their task of getting through each day. How can I express my care, concern and solidarity?

I am musing on a few practices that I can use to “weep” as other weep:

  • I can express my sorrow in a way that recognizes that the grief belongs to them, not to me, and express it sparely, authentically, not in a way that leaves them needing to care for me grief.
  • I can send messages of affirmations and support–texts, e-mails, cards, phone messages–all saying that I care for them, and am holding them to the Light.
  • I can visit–face to face or electronically–if that is welcome.
  • I can pray that the Holy One would bring wholeness and healing, and ask that others who pray do the same.
  • For the wounds of the world, I can do what I can to send money to agencies who have the resources to heal, rebuild and change hearts and minds. I can let my own voice be heard in petition and voting booth.

In whatever I do, I need to remain clear that sorrow is not the only word or the last word for us. The Psalmist tells us “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b). I often notice that a time for weeping and a time for rejoicing appear together, and I want to give each one its due. But for me, for those I love, for the world, I want to practice weeping as a passage for while, in order to clear the way for the hope of life and healing on the other side.

 

 

Voices of Joy Advent IV and Christmas and New Year

29 Friday Dec 2017

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angel

A voice of joy! Advent began with a voice on one crying…in a wilderness! And we take a turn into the season with a voice of joy! I am relying heavily on joyful voices in this season, Music and words combine to life my spirit above the oppressive sounds of so much that is being given attention.

So I have heard Joy in the voice of children in productions of “Beauty and the Beast.” I have heard Joy in concerts downtown at Disney Hall, first all of the Bach motets, then the voices of Chanticleer. My Facebook community supplies me amply with music of Joy of many kinds–country western, early Renaissance, piano and cello, hundred voice choirs, a capella ensembles. On Christmas Eve by candlelight, we heard in variegated voices the story of the birth of Jesus into this world and what it means; it led us to stand and sing together “Joy to the World.”

And then we were stunned at dawn to get a familiar voice on our phone on Christmas morning telling us to go look on our front porch–and there to our shock and surprise was our complete Florida family awaiting to say Merry Christmas and to feed and love us, through this festival week. It has been followed with singular voices of Joy: laughter of cousins, hilarious remembering between siblings, excited regaling with new experiences, eager recitation of encounters with something special–all Joy! Certainly the we have shared the Joy of Christmas with enthusiastic voices this season.

I am convinced that I am to bring a voice of Joy into the new year. It is counter-intuitive if I become saturated with the voices of the world around us–news, op-ed pieces, and Cassandra like predictions of the doom to come. However, the voice of those who are seeking Spirit and intending to live with its energy are filled with hope,  perseverance, compassion and imagination because of what we are celebrating this Christmastide. Those are the choruses of which I would like to be a part. I anticipate with expectation the anthems of those who are joining their journey of Spirit with their intention to be part of the healing of the world, whether in political demonstration and action, or in service to those without resources or agency. I align my heart and voice with those who croon softly to the person in pain and despair, or to the ones who feels as if there is no place to call home. I accept the lowering registers of my own voice to calibrate it to the song I have been given to sing for now: God is here, does not leave us, nor can anything separate us from Divine Presence and Care. There is Joy in all!

Good Christian souls, rejoice! with heart and soul and voice…

In this New Year I am adding my voice to the band of angels and saints who hear and care for the voices crying in the wilderness, and then go on to bring a more hopeful, Joyful song of “Peace on earth, good will to all!”

An Agenda for This Year of Life

14 Saturday Oct 2017

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StAnnedeBeaupre

I just celebrated a Big Birthday! Somewhere in my lists of oughts and shoulds, I had been imagining that I would have a new Mission Statement with clear aims and goals for this occasion and part of my life. Instead, I was traveling for fun, coming out of an intense period of focused care-giving and attending to both daily and cosmic need. My heart and mind were muddled rather than at peace. I was delighted to be away from the daily bombardment of news of disarray and sadness, and so it was a journey toward tranquility that took us on a drive up the St. Lawrence River out of  Quebec City, devouring and savoring the beauty of the fall colors just beginning to turn.

Our first stop was the cathedral of St. Anne de Beaupre. The entire edifice is dedicated to Anne, in legend the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus, and was beautiful in every way–color, light, design. It was for us truly a sacred space. However, the great gift to me amidst the physical beauty was the inscription over the large statue of Anne, declaring: That my joy may be in you. The same inscription in French oversaw the pulpit on the opposite side. I was stopped in wonder, love and praise. I wondered when and how often I has been in a worship space, a worship community, that invited me to be in Joy. I have seen many other churches and cathedrals that have invited me to stillness, to awe, to reverence, but I could not remember such an explicit invitation to Joy.

As the journey continued, both inside and out, I became aware that the Joy comes, not in big pronouncements or agendas, even Vision Statement, but it comes in the attention to the graces and invitations that were offered to me each day. Some were sheer beauty–fields of canola and leaves turning read and yellow and purple. Some came in laughter over new discoveries and shared amazement. Some came in questions raised by what we saw in museums, on sidewalks, and river fronts. And some came in knowing my body well enough to be able to say, “I have taken in all I can accommodate today.”

It brought to mind a quotation from Marvin Hiles that I have carried around for many years: To live sweetly in the bitter days, to shape beauty among the grotesque, to exult in the littles, and to declare in the midst of brokenness a wholeness that comes now and ultimately. God’s joy in me in the daily, in the moment and in the long haul.

As I journeyed home from my trip to Canada, I found that graces and invitations were all around–a Taize service that centered me, a planning meeting that energized (!), the joining of two friends of mine who had not known each other previously in a justice project, opportunities to walk with love ones in distress. Not always joy, not always happiness, but Joy.

This week, as if to add an exclamation to my findings, these words came from Celtic Daily Prayer II, by Andy Raine: These are the days for noticing the small things, establishing trust and saying things that need no words. In the miasma and stench of rhetoric in the public sphere these days, I am cheered by the prospect of an alternative narrative, one that allows for and leads to Joy, and even invites me to be a bringer of the Joy of the Holy that is in me!

Taking Joy!

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

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IsLaMujeresJoyWords and sight prompting me to joy are everywhere around me! In the ear of my heart I hear the poetry of Anne Sexton:

           There is joy/ in all…

and she catalogues all the elements of her morning kitchen and spirit ritual which delight and inspire her. On my recent family trip when I had solitary moments, I too was able to take joy in where I was–the ocean view, the little Mexican icon in the garden, the cool water, the air conditioner, the fresh coffee, the fountain of live turtles who basked or swam back and forth, the ample time to listen to what i was reading, to reflect, ponder and wrestle with a writer from another location, re-framing questions I seem to be always asking. There is joy in all!

And joy came bursting in the door with each grandchild or grownup as they told their stories of adventure–underwater, around the coral reef, at the ruins, with iguanas, on the back of gold carts, or shopping for chess sets. Each person had a particular way of spinning a narrative, choosing syntax framed with gestures and facial expressions that were illuminating and delightful. And there was laughter and drama and amplification that made my heart spill over with wonder and gratitude. There is joy in all!

It has been more challenging to see the joy is all on my re-entry! There is a calendar of appointments, a list of fix-its, a catalogue of do’s and  don’ts, always hanging around each day. And then, when my “plan” is firmly in place, something intrudes, what Rumi calls a “visitor” to be welcomed–a phone call, a knock on the door, a letter of surprise. And the Plan gets jettisoned. So I have been “listening” to Fra Giovanni, 15th C. Italian artist and thinker:

The gloom of the world but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy!  

When a neighbor needs a ride or a groceries, I can take joy in knowing she is well fed and safe. When someone needs a consultation on a knotty problem, I can take joy in knowing that all those years of education and life experience are still being put to use. When calamity or catastrophe befalls a loved one, I can take joy is knowing that there are ways for me to help and that there is Wisdom to direct me to what those ways are. There is joy in all!

Henri Nouwen tells me, “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” That’s what I am choosing to do. That choice does not mean that I fail to notice the terrible grief in the world, the terror of those displaced and abused, the pain of those with unrelenting illness, the violence of arrogant and tone deaf leaders. But, a choice to Take Joy reminds me that those things are not the only realities in the world. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot put it out. (John 1).

So in this second half of the year I am committed to taking joy every day and in every way, wherever I can, so that as I work and pray for the wholeness of the world, for the healing of those who suffer, for the power to overcome injustice, malice and cruelty, I can see behind the shadows, the joy that comes with the Light that will shine and not be put out. I commit myself to looking for and celebrating the Joy that is in all…and sharing it!

I have been committed to a practice of bring grateful for a long time time now. Karl Barth tells me, “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” I am Taking Joy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traveling Mercies

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Travelingmercies2All summer I have been sending traveling mercies to my friends on the move. Today I pray for traveling mercies for my own moving and wandering:

I pray for peace for this anxious traveler, who worries about connections, forgotten items, anticipated glitches. Breathe your peace into my body, mind and spirit.

I pray for those who make it possible for me to travel, pilots. attendants, agents and greeters and innkeepers. May each of them have what they need to do their jobs with skill and heart.

I pray that I will embody a patient and merciful spirit with systems that have the capacity to break down, delay and confound. Help me to be one who brings compassion and tranquility to any chaotic kerfuffle that breaks out.

I pray for those I love with whom I will abide and celebrate, each with a unique and particular personality and set of needs and wants. I pray for the Spirit to make us a peaceable realm as we hang out together for these days, not just tolerating each other, but learning to love more dearly, with exciting discoveries, deep appreciation and lots of laughter and delight.

I pray that even though I will be a visiting tourist, I will also be able to see those in the area we visit with gentle and welcoming eyes and ears, that I may treat each person with respect and honor while I am given hospitality.

I pray that my heart, body and mind will be open to seeing things I have never witnessed before with curiosity and interest, with great gratitude for the variety in the  world that the Holy has made and in which we live.

I pray, most of all, that I take Joy from the Creator in each moment of living, loving, laughing, learning, trusting that the Joy of the Holy is my strength whether I am at work or at play.

I am resting in Traveling Mercies!

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Points of Hope: Signs and Symbols

24 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in beauty, grace, joy, Lent, paying attention

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Even though the Lenten journey is a serious one, leading to an intense Holy Week, I am also looking for signs and symbols that point me to hope along the way. Because Lent and Easter are so late in the calendar year this year, the days are accompanied by the signs of spring, even in our supposedly “season-less” Southern California.

My irises in the drought resistant garden are thriving, especially with the unusual rainfall. There has been a constant parade of beautiful blooms beginning in Advent (white) and continuing on with Lent, all purple, four come and gone, four to about to burst forth. The liquid amber tree and the fig tree next door have tender green leaves and shoots multiplying each day. The ornamental plum tree and the peach tree are showing their tiny flowers. All of them remind me that after the winter, after rain, after the Great Grayness there is Hope. The Creator has made each thing beautiful in its own time.

Another sign of hope has been discoveries of missing things. In my clearing out and de-cluttering, I have found things that I believed to have vanished–some pairs of socks, a quotation that I had written out on a card with decoration, some pairs of old shoes. I am reminded, even in the simple nature of the retrievals, that with the Holy One, nothing is lost, there are no final defeats. Hope can spring up.

Some signs locate me. Some creative people in the neighborhood painted the power boxes on many corners with folk art, reminding us of who we are, where we are, a gathering of people from many nations, places and beginnings. And we are people who in proximity to the freeway are people on the go, working, traveling, walking the dog. It is important to me as I journey, not to forget where I am grounded, where I am heading and whence I have come.

In the providential movement of this season, I have been engrossed by three memoirs, chosen without intentional theme, that have reflected to me a part of my beginnings that still shape me, but from which I have moved. Each writer comes from a different place than I have geographically, and each one is younger, but we have in common a shared religious heritage that gave us great gifts and enormous challenges. As I watch and listen to each voice, I am filled with hope. Thought there have been moments of pain, or disorientation, of wandering without a map, each woman has found her spiritual center, her place of belonging and her traveling mercies. I have found joyful hope in locating myself at points on each journey, and sharing moment  of  Grace.

I am finding that Lent is not only solemn and gray, but is also alive with reminders that Light and Darkness together are part of our human pilgrimage. This year it is profoundly important for me to remember that here on earth, although there is tremendous grief and suffering, there is also the whimsy, laughter, cheer, surprise of hope that manifests itself, sometimes daily–in the smile of the server, the grace of the responsive leader, the compassion of the helper, the delight of the discoverer, the unfettered laughter of old friends, remembering the way we were, and how it is Grace that has led us safely this far. I have taken on as a Lenten practice to look for those signs.

I am reminded of an old Brian Andreas drawing in which the angel appears to him in tights, he laughs and then knows that when signs appear, if there is no laughter in them, they are not for him. Nor are they for me. And neither are they for me if there is no Grace, no Joy, no Hope. On our way through Holy Week I am like the faithful one singing Psalm 126 of Ascent: ..our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy…the Lord has done great things for us, as well as small ones, in tiny but unmistakable signs. In Lent, I can rejoice.

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