Joy to the World

 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I feel like the problem our society has with the concept of joy began two and a half centuries ago with Thomas Jefferson. Hopefully, you recognize the quote above as being part of the Declaration of Independence (if you do not, the educational system may be in worse shape than I think). Now, let's ignore the fact that a slave holder was bold enough to declare all men as equals. And let's gloss over the fact that, for Jefferson, any higher power that existed had stopped paying attention to their creation centuries before his time so I'm not certain how those human created rights could be considered god given. For the purposes of today's talk, the issue I have with that sentence is the word happiness. Like most political manifestos, the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is long on rhetoric but short on details or useful application. What is happiness, how do we get it and what happens if we lose it? Jefferson seems to say Beats me but you are free to go for it anyways.

In my opinion, happiness is a fleetingly fickle emotion. What makes you happy one moment might fill you with loathing the next. The things that made you happy as a child make you nostalgic as an adult (if you are lucky) but could just as easily fill you with bitterness and regret. Changes in tastes, relationships or even availability can easily turn happiness into boredom. Don't believe me? Think about something that made you happy because it was yours, no one else had it. Then someone else got it, yours wasn't so special anymore and it became diminished in your eyes. Happiness never lasts.

That's okay, I hear some of you saying. You're a grown up so you don't pursue happiness.  You are in the joy game. And joy is an emotion so much deeper and brighter and better than happiness, right?  Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. In our era of late stage capitalism, Madison Avenue as caught on to the joy versus happiness argument and pretty much rendered both words useless. It used to be that a new dishwasher/dress/cigarette brand/car was all you needed to make you happy. Now a vacation in the Ozarks/pill to cure your erectile dysfunction/new car is all you need to give your life that spark of joy you so desperately seek. 

And how about that phrase, "sparks joy"? Feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff you bought to try to brighten up your life? Hold each thing and see if it still sparks joy. If it doesn't, let it go (and if you need to replace it with something else that will spark joy, please do that right away). That fad came and went about as fast as every other attempt to fill the happiness hole in your soul. Why is that, I wonder. Just kidding. I have a pretty good idea why: we try to fill that hole with the wrong thing.

Capitalism (or more specifically consumerism, the economic sub-brand we've embraced here in the United States since at least the early Eighties), dictates that companies sell ever more products and services. Even if the balance sheet at the end of the fiscal year shows a surplus of money, that is not enough. Develop new (or at least "improved") things for people to spend their money on, the more the better. How will those companies convince consumers to spend said money? As I mentioned above, through advertising that mainly bombards our eyes and ears with the message that we cannot possibly experience joy without buying stuff. The result? We are overwhelmed with things. Just here in America, we collectively spend over 44 Billion dollars a year to store stuff that will no longer fit in our houses in places we rarely spend even a minute longer than it takes to throw another box on the pile.

But surely with the excess of items we are also floating in a continuous river of the excess joy marketers promised would come with them. Of course not. Instead, anxiety and depression are at all time highs. We have television shows like Hoarders, where we meet people struggling with deep, thing-related mental disorders (thank God we aren't like them), and Storage Wars, where we watch the cottage industry of scavengers buying up storage units worth of stuff someone was no longer able (or willing) to pay for (that one hits a lot closer to home but thank God that isn't us either... at least not this month). Americans currently pay around 12 Billion dollars annually attempting to de-clutter their homes (and yes, that is in addition to the 44 Billion spent to store it all).

Jesus has a radically different take on what will fill your happiness soul hole. It's not about things (although my wife can make a pretty good argument for dish washers). It's not about experiences (even if I'm convinced that a really good, deep tissue massage, perhaps on a beach, could be life changing). Joy, according to Christ, comes from one place: relationships.

Relationships are, at its heart, what the Bible is all about. The big one is the relationship that God desires to have with each one of us individually. The Bible constantly tells us to "rejoice in the Lord" (in other words to find joy in our relationship with Him). In Galatians 5:22, we are told that joy is a fruit of the Spirit (joy comes from having a relationship with the Holy Spirit). And what did the angel tell the shepherds when they were announcing the birth of Jesus? "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people!" No matter what part of the trinity we are meeting with at any given moment, joy is supposed to be a big part of that encounter. As I've mentioned before, God promises to take care of us and that care will ultimately fill our soul hole with abundant joy. 

But God isn't the only relationship we are charged with having. Remember that in Matthew 22, Jesus said it was just as important to have relationships with (to love) other people. He also said in Matthew 18:20 that wherever at least two people gather in His name, He will show up to the party as well. To me, that says that life is better when lived with other people. 

TO BE CLEAR: I do not think Matthew 18:20 means that God can't be experienced in a one-on-one, personal relationship. I absolutely think that developing a solid bond with Jesus through practices like solitary prayer time and the quiet study of scripture is imperative to spiritual well being. I also am sure that trying to go it completely alone is a bad idea. And I am saying this as a thoroughly vetted introvert (and a solid member of Generation X) so you should probably listen. As much as it sometimes pains me to say it, we are designed (on purpose) to need other people. If you delve into the rabbit hole of what happens to humans in isolation, you'll see that science is on board with this conclusion as well.

So, what do we do about it? Just like when I suggested that love is a choice, I put forth that joy is not an emotion but an action that we can choose to do. I've even come up with a delightfully cheesy acronym for us to remember.

Join Others to Yourself

What does this mean exactly? Find your tribe. Like to play card games? Join a bridge/poker/euchre club. Like to cook? Find some amateur chefs and cook elaborate dinners at each other's houses once a month. Like to read cozy mysteries while chugging Pinot Noir and wearing nothing but a robe and woolen socks? Unless you happen to be stuck in some kind of bio-dome type science experiment, I'm willing to bet there is a group for that near you. Even in rural areas. I grew up in a town of about 5,000 people and there was a wide variety of freak flags flying there. Granted, not all of them were on obvious display (you may need to do some searching), but they existed.

It can be for almost any reason you can come up with but, and I can't stress this enough, you have to meet with your people in person. As wonderful (and equally annoying) as technology can be, if COVID taught us anything it is that four people on a Zoom meeting will not forge the same relationships that four people sitting around the same table will. There is something God breathed about actual eye contact and several months without any, screamed loud and clear that we are built to need it. And, if it makes you feel better, you won't just be bringing more joy into your own life, you'll be saving your country, too. There is a fascinating book, Bowling Alone by Robert D Putnam, that correlates the decline of Americans' involvement in group activities to the decline of American society itself. If reading a 500+ page book isn't your thing, watch Mr. Putnam in person in his dramatically (but still to be taken literally) named documentary, Join or Die!

Astute readers will notice that I said almost any reason in the above paragraph. I shouldn't need to point this out, but if the others you find yourself joined to are engaged in activities like wearing white hoodies and terrorizing people, you are not going to experience joy. I'll grant that it is possible to feel shriveled moments of superiority or something else akin to a stunted kind of power in those situations. At the end of the day, though, not only will you not have filled your soul holes, you will feel emptier than ever. Just ask anyone who has not quite managed to totally remove their "88" neck tattoo and winces when you ask them about it. Always use discernment when you consider who you want to join to yourself.

I'm also not advocating that you run out and try to make friends with everyone you see.  You know the crowd size of your comfort level. If that is the number of people you can count on one hand, stick to intimate dinner parties. If your mantra is go big or go home, attend as many galas as you can find (just don't expect to see me there). Overloading your capacity for togetherness is a road that leads straight to burnout. If you find yourself approaching the edge of sanity, don't be afraid to downsize the next few gatherings or opt out altogether for a little while. Just don't completely stop joining others to yourself. I'm convinced that is how the most joyous parts of life will be discovered. So be a radical. Do yourself and those around you some good and forge more joy giving relationships this year. The fact that your actions might cause a bit of chaos in the minds of the powers that be, is just a byproduct we will have to learn to live with.