Overflowing Joy

At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness.”

                                                                                                    Luke 10:21

I would have loved to see Jesus overflow with joy. I don’t recall having read such a description of Jesus elsewhere, but I can imagine it. Can you? 

This verse is part of the story of the seventy-two who have been sent out and have now returned to share their experiences. Imagine the excitement they brought, and Jesus, in the thick of their excitement, exclaiming with joy to God! It is a glimpse, surely, of what heaven must be, and the overflowing joy that is part and parcel of eternal life. 

I’ve had those moments of overflowing joy, and I’m sure you’ve had them too. Last weekend, I was in the North Georgia mountains, and one morning, as I sat outside in the crisp, cool air, I saw the sun strike the mountain in front of me. It brought tears to my eyes, a moment of overflowing joy. We experience such moments, and most of them take place in events of everyday life. Something clicks, and we are present in a way that is hard to describe. If we do try to describe it, we cannot adequately convey why it is such a moment for us.

Maybe such moments are when we actually experience the world with childlike wonder. Jesus speaks of things being hidden from the wise and intelligent and shown instead to babies. To overflow with joy requires that we lay aside being “reasonable” and embrace imaginative delight, that we receive God’s kingdom, which is everywhere, all around us, as a child.

Are you open to experiencing overflowing joy? Are you willing to let go of stiff, stuffy adulting to see the ordinary as extraordinary, with the eyes of a child?

Live!

Being saved from death is

not the same as saving

a life. What good is it

to survive, if you don’t live?

I don’t mean, of course, having

a pulse, breath, the daily

maintenance of eating, sleeping.

 

I mean feeling wind on your skin,

savoring chocolate, a glass of wine,

the wonder of seeing a sunrise

or a dear friend’s face.

 

I mean, of course, the way

your heart beats wildly

with joy when something thrills

you, or beats with fear

when you risk yourself or

feel pain. You see, living is not

playing safe, staying behind fences

or locked doors. That may let you

survive, but already you’re dead.

 

Life wants to be lived,

   out loud,

      no holds barred,

         all in.

Then

when death does come, it comes--

an exclamation point at the end

of life’s story, a cause for

celebration.

Hostility vs Joy

While Jesus predicts that people will die of fear “as they await what menaces the world” (Luke 21:26), he says to his followers: “Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36). After I gazed for a long time at [Andrei] Rublev’s Trinity [icon] these words spoke to me with new power, “Praying at all times” has come to mean “dwelling in the house of God all the days of our lives.” “Surviving all that is going to happen” now tells me that I no longer need to be victim of the fear, hatred, and violence that rule the world. “Standing with confidence before the Son of Man” no longer just refers to the end of time, but opens for me the possibility of living confidently, that is, with trust (the literal meaning of con-fide) in the midst of hostility and violence.     –Henri Nouwen

There is so much hostility and violence on display in the world. War, violent crime, oppression against groups of people—these may be the first things that come to mind when we think of hostility and violence. Social media though, increasingly reveals to me that hostility and violence are not just “out there” in other countries, in certain neighborhoods, and perpetrated by dictators, gang members or others that might fit our definition of “likely suspects.”

The perpetrators of violence I am most familiar with are people of comfortable means, church goers, business leaders—the folks we work with, worship with, play tennis with, travel with. Hostility, violence and hatred show up in what is posted or shared on Facebook and Twitter. What such postings reveal to me is that many who would claim to be Christian are not interested in living with confidence in the midst of hostility but would rather participate in promoting hatred, hostility and violence.

I’ve been thinking about St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is October 4. He saw God’s light in creation. He found joy in what others bemoaned as paltry. He reached out in love to those who practiced a different religion than his. He let go of the values and culture of his family and joyfully embraced a life outside the mainstream, eschewing status and wealth and instead embracing poverty and simplicity.

He could do this because he had nothing to protect or defend. He was dwelling in the house of God while living in a world of hostility and violence. He trusted God to be God for him. He lived the gospel of Jesus, and his rootedness in God’s love meant he poured love out wherever he went.

In the midst of a society that is more interested in bringing a kingdom of hostility and violence than in bringing the kingdom of God I want to emulate his joy, his vision, his way of dwelling in the house of God. We need the spirit and theology of St. Francis.

Birthday Reflections

I celebrated my birthday this week and I certainly know I have much to celebrate. I am living in a place of fullness, joy and peace that I could have never imagined for myself. Some people use the expression “living the dream” sarcastically, but I use it with sincerity. Friends of mine have heard me say that truly, I am living my dream. I am grateful for the way my life has unfolded to bring me to this place of deep gladness.

Frederick Buechner says this: The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. When I first heard this quote, I was in a season of discernment about what I sensed as a call for my life. Following that call took me from what felt comfortable and predictable and set me on a journey that defied any effort at making a five year plan. Even if I had made such a plan, the events that unfolded along the way were ones I could have never predicted.

Fullness of life doesn’t mean rainbows and unicorns. I went through the hardest season of my life thus far in the years between following this call and now. In fact, there were days dark enough and circumstances unsettling enough that I questioned my worth and my call. But God’s love was manifested to me in the love, companionship and encouragement of friends. I likewise realized that the consistent practice of centering prayer and lectio divina had led to a sense of God’s presence that sustained me. I was grateful that I never felt abandoned by God, even when I questioned everything else about my life.

As I reflect on life at the conclusion of another trip around the sun, I can’t think of anything I’d wish for if I had birthday candles to blow out. I am grateful for each moment. I am grateful for my friends. I am grateful for the communities to which I belong. And yes, I am grateful, supremely grateful, for the season of struggle, the pain and the people whose words and actions hurt me. Without them, I would not be where I am today. I would not have learned and lived the truth of death and resurrection in such a palpable way.

So I celebrate that I have been born and that I have been reborn. Life is good. Thanks be to God!

Union

Today I was a bird, singing the song

   Creator gave me to sing.

I was a tree, bearing fruit nourished

   by roots deep in God’s soil.

I was a brook, babbling and sparkling

   in the sun, making its way

   naturally, beautifully.

Today I caught fire. I was all flame,

   fully alive in the flow of grace.

One hundred percent who I was created

   to be,

      like bird, brook and tree.

Today I knew union, not in ecstasy,

   but in living completely surrendered,

   bursting with the gifts of my true self

   the way a fully ripe grape bursts between the teeth.

Gifts

This has been and continues to be a meaningful Advent season for me, but not in the way I have experienced it in previous years. In the past, I have found meaning in different Advent devotional books, which I’ve read in the early morning darkness each day. And while I’ve read Advent devotions this year, the meaningfulness of this Advent has been found in relationships.

Reflecting over Advent thus far, what shimmers forth for me are the experiences of laughter, hugs, meals shared, worship, work done together with gladness and conversations that help me to know others better, that open doors to deeper connections. These have been for me the gifts of Advent for me this year. I am grateful for each of these experiences, which represent God’s lavish gift of love and koinonia.

What I’ve received so richly cannot be contained in a box, cannot be tied up with ribbon, cannot fit under the largest tree. The gift of relationships that incarnate God’s love is what I treasure this season.

Forty

Forty. It’s one of those biblical numbers. Forty years of wilderness wandering led by Moses. Forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Forty days from Jesus’ resurrection until his ascension. And others.

This forty wasn’t biblical, though. It was a forty I could hardly believe. Forty years since I graduated high school. At first, I thought the math was wrong. Surely we were getting ahead of ourselves! But then I did my own math and realized that it was really true that I graduated forty years ago, class of ’77.

I almost didn’t go to the reunion. I hadn’t seen anyone from my graduating class since our 20 year reunion, except for one classmate that I ran into at a book signing several years ago. I was friends with just a few on Facebook, but since I no longer live in my hometown, and had not attended one of the feeder elementary schools for my high school (which deepened relationships among many of my classmates) I was ambivalent about attending. Plus, I’d come out of the hardest couple of years in my life just a few months earlier. I wasn’t sure I was up to the conversation in such a large group that I hadn’t connected with in so very many years.

But I went. And I’m glad that I did. One of the unexpected gifts of the wilderness journey I went through and have come out of has been reflecting on who I am and where I’ve come from. Not necessarily where I geographically came from, but a looking back at my life, and deeply looking within, both with the aim of helping me to know myself more fully, and at the same time, know God more fully and how God has been present with me in the various seasons of my life. I’ve learned a lot, though there is still much more to learn.

I learned a little more this past weekend as I joined some of my classmates for the reunion. I was reminded of how our group shares a common geography. We all lived in a not too big area of East Point, Georgia. We were solidly middle class, for the most part. No country club memberships, no cotillion, no multi-week summer camps (at least I wasn’t aware of any of these among my classmates). I’m not criticizing any of these, and my children were the beneficiaries of some of these in the city I live in now, but it was not a part of my growing up years, nor that of the classmates I spent the most time with.

Maybe because of what we shared, I felt a bond with those who gathered, even the ones I had not been close to in high school, even the ones I didn’t get a chance to talk to at the reunion. As I drove the hour-plus drive home afterward, I reflected on my history. I’ll do more of that over the coming days and weeks. And I won’t let twenty years pass before I reconnect with the classmate-community that shaped my teenage years and influenced my life in many ways.

One of the elements missing from most of my adult life was that connection to high school and college friends. When I journeyed a difficult path I came to a greater appreciation of my friends. Friends were my lifeline when life’s circumstances seemed overwhelming. Gathering with my classmates, celebrating where we came from and where we are now, I know my web of relationships has grown. I look forward to deepening the friendships I renewed this weekend. I certainly claim the truth of Proverbs 18:24: There are persons for companionship, but then there are friends who are more loyal than family.

Yes!

2 Corinthians 1:19-20

Christ is risen and so am I:

   my first thought on waking today.

What great surprise—

   the powers that rule are overthrown

   not by force but by love.

Greed, jealousy, hate, fear outwitted.

Peace, joy, grace, abundance flow

drowning the armies of small-mindedness.

Sing, dance, praise the God of life,

the God of love,

the God of YES!

Songs of Praise

Psalm 148

Rambling robin song greets me in the early morning darkness.

Wrens and mockingbirds belt out their praise and I wonder—

how does the wren bring so much volume from its tiny body,

how does the mockingbird remember all the songs it sings?

When I’m lucky, I hear the soft lament of the song sparrow,

reminding me that lament is also praise.

And in the morning light the starlings’ song makes me smile.

Each bird sings its praise using its unique voice, and so it is with us.

What song am I given to sing?

What song is yours?

Bless the Lord

Psalm 78:1-4, 52-55

Bless the Lord, O my soul

for God, the faithful

does not leave me alone,

but is always with me

through storms and sunshine.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

for God, the nurturer

led me through my darkest hour

so I could endure my trial

and emerge with stronger faith and love.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

for God, my advocate,

who knows the truth of who I am,

and surrounds me with friends who know this truth

so I can claim it for myself.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

for God, the merciful,

who does not hold my failures against me,

whose memory of my sin is short

and whose love is long and generous.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

for God, the playful,

who fills my life with laughter,

who revels in relationships

of mutuality and depth.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

for God, the creator

of coffee, chocolate and wine,

of sunrises, oaks and sparrows,

of color, music and mountains.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Visual Praise

Psalm 147

Sing songs of praise to God

   for the glory of creation!

Do not keep silent

   in the presence of God’s diversity!

Birds and bugs, fish and flowers,

   trees and their fruit, seasons and weather,

stars and soil, vegetables and oceans,

   animals of every color, shape and disposition,

and people of every hue and size and belief—

   you made and love them all!

We all reflect your glory,

   though some would deny it in themselves and in others.

May I see you today

   in every bird and everybody,

in every leaf and in my food,

   in sun and clouds and wind,

in water and blossoms and bugs,

   even in the small, the irritating and mean.

May I see you today in every moment and person and place.

Give me eyes that praise you

with love and adoration for all you have made.

Celebrating What Is

It’s a week where we are reminded to be thankful. Many of us will gather with family or friends to share a meal (or two or three). There will be laughter, stress, tears—a whole gamut of emotions. Maybe we’ll go around the table and ask folks to name something for which they are thankful. The responses will vary, and some will be predictable.

Being grateful is easier sometimes than others. But gratitude should not hinge on the acceptability of our circumstances. Gratitude is a way of being. When we are grateful people we see the world with different eyes. Grateful people still see the pain and suffering in the world and in their own lives. They feel it deeply. They hurt—both for themselves and for others. In fact, because they are grateful people, they can more acutely hold pain and suffering than those who blind themselves to their own hurt or that of others.

Grateful people are faith-filled people. They can hold the pain because they know there’s a bigger picture, a larger scenario than the pain they know. It is those who deny, numb, or ignore pain and suffering who cannot truly be grateful. When you numb yourself to pain, when you pretend it doesn’t exist, you cannot be fully present to great joy and gratitude.

To be truly grateful is to celebrate what is, to live fully in the present moment, whatever it brings, with faith and trust and thanksgiving. It is to recognize that being human means being present for all of life. Habakkuk captures beautifully what it means to celebrate what is:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails,

and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold,

and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will exult in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

Advent Words

More than any year I can recall, this year I have resonated deeply with the words of Advent. The lectionary texts have inspired me, particularly those that speak of one who will come and make things right, who will overcome evil and bring rest to the weary, who will upend the world’s values of power and influence and bring a kingdom where gentleness and goodness prevail. The recurring encouragement to not be afraid has been what I needed to hear.

Each week as I’ve reflected on the words accompanying the Advent candle for that week—hope, peace, joy and love—the themes have worked their way into my spirit. Daily I’ve considered what they mean for me, particularly with regard to the unsettledness in my life and in the world this year.

And the words of two Advent hymns have been on almost continuous loop in my head: Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus and People, Look East. The first speaks to my own desire to be freed from the fears that arise in difficult times as well as my longing for Christ. The second hymn, People, Look East has been a recent find for me, and, probably because I like birds so much, the third verse has been a favorite:

                Birds, though you long have ceased to build, guard the nest that must be filled.

                Even the hour when wings are frozen, God for fledging time has chosen.

                People, look east and sing today. Love, the bird, is on the way.

The reminder that God comes in unlikely times and seasons encourages me to remain hopeful and watchful, because God doesn’t work in predictable or even reasonable (as we think of reasonable) ways. After all, it was an unwed young woman that God chose to be the mother of Jesus, and an elderly woman was chosen to be the mother of John the Baptist.

When life is difficult, when we earnestly try to live a faithful life only to be misunderstood, criticized or bullied, we truly cry, “Come, Lord Jesus!” When illness, vocational uncertainty, death or broken relationships weigh heavily on us, we long for the coming of a savior to guide us, heal us and comfort us in our sorrow. And even if things are good for us now, we hear the message of Advent for those who are not in an easy stage of life. Savoring the words of Advent prepares us to celebrate Christmas with deep joy and faith, to know that God’s inbreaking in the world changes everything.

Showing Up

As a participant in the Two-Year Academy for SpiritualFormation, I became acquainted with the ancient concept of praying the hours, also known as the Daily Office or fixed hour prayer. Rooted in scripture, and not unique to our Judeo-Christian tradition, the Office is the act of setting aside specific times of day for corporate prayer. Psalm 119:164 says: I praise you seven times a day for your righteous rules.

Many monastic communities set aside seven times a day for the entire community to pray, with a set order of worship for each Office. In my Academy, we gathered for morning, evening and night prayer each day. By the end of my two years, this rhythm of corporate prayer had worked its way into my spirit, so that even when I did not have a community to gather with for these times of prayer, I added my own voice to voices all around the world who pray the prayers that have been part of our history for centuries.

Sometimes I approach this time of prayer with great anticipation. I have experienced God’s presence in wondrous and affirming ways and it is a joy to say thank you by reciting the canticles, prayers, psalms, and scriptures for the day, the Office and the season. Many of the prayers and canticles I know by heart, a treasure trove of praise and prayer to God.

Other times, when life is hard, or I am tired, it seems that the best I can do is simply to show up, to keep the worldwide cycle of prayer going. On those days, when my heart is heavy, I am grateful for the familiar prayers, because I don’t have the words to pray.

In Ezra 3, when the foundations of the temple are laid, there is both weeping and joyful shouting. Those who remembered the former temple wept but others shouted with joy. Weeping and shouting mingled together. I wonder if that’s what God hears when we participate in the great river of prayer that is the Daily Office. There are the joyful, who are grateful for the privilege to offer their sacrifice of praise, and there are those whose offering is simply showing up, reciting the psalms and prayers from a heart of brokenness, but offering them nonetheless.

This is the communion of saints, weeping and praising together, unending, unbroken throughout the centuries, in times of persecution and times of plenty, in seasons of blessing and seasons of brokenness, in places of war and places of peace, in want or in plenty. We come with what we have to offer. We show up. 

Saturday at the Ball Field

Although Lent is over, I've been out of town on retreat so I thought I'd share another of my Lent poems this week, one that speaks of living in the present moment.

The day after the first

day of spring

I am at the baseball fields

where two young friends

are playing.

A beautiful day and memories,

laughter and folding chairs,

snacks and a toddler

keep me fully in the present moment.

No worries,

no to-do list.

What if every day could be lived

like this one?

The Dangers of Having

“You are enslaved by the verb “to have”. . . The very mainspring of your activity is a demand, either for a continued possession of that which you have, or for something which as yet you have not: wealth, honour, success, social position, love, friendship, comfort, amusement. You feel you have a right to some of these things: to a certain recognition of your powers, a certain immunity from failure or humiliation. You resent anything which opposes you in these matters.”

                                                --Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism

In this season where gift-giving and receiving is the subject of almost every advertisement and many conversations, it may seem antithetical to consider that “having” is something to beware. If you have children, you may at least be aware that it is dangerous to fulfill their every desire to have, but there are more subtle aspects of having, which Underhill mentions, that may escape our notice.

We are a discontented culture. That discontentment not only manifests in our consumerism but also in our voracious appetite both for experiences and self-improvement.

Back when I had an accounting practice, I remember reading a book that advocated for creating customer experiences, because it wasn’t enough simply to satisfy customer expectations. Business owners needed to craft a unique experience, something to thrill and excite those who came into contact with your company. We see how this is manifested in the growth of extreme sports, in worship that places an emphasis on entertainment, and in restaurants that create thematic atmospheres of jungles, medieval banquets or island beaches, to name a few.

Underhill says we feel we have a right to comfort, amusement, honor and love. We don’t enjoy failure or humiliation, but do we have a right to be exempt from these?

What if we were to see failure and humiliation as gift? If we could welcome the disappointment of not having, and see it as good? What if our appetite for having was replaced with reliance on God and the recognition that Christ alone is enough for us?

If we can begin to see everything as gift, then our compulsion to have diminishes. We can celebrate all of life, even the hurts and failures, recognizing that in all things, God is present with us, sustaining us, holding us, bearing the pain with us. We are never alone. That’s the best comfort, the best experience of all!

Free To Be Joyful

What makes a sunrise or sunset memorable is the presence of clouds. Clouds capture the purples, pinks, oranges and gold of a sunrise or sunset. Because of clouds, we can be stopped in our tracks by the breathtaking beauty of dawn or dusk.

In life, however, we prefer an unclouded sky. The clouds of difficulty, disappointment and loss aren’t something we welcome with gratitude when they show up in our lives. And yet, those clouds are what make the good times especially sweet for us.

I believe that is what happened on Friday of our week in Guatemala. We were in the village an extra day, drilling a second well after the first well failed. While water poured out of the new well with vigor, praise poured out with equal vigor from Estella, the homeowner who had donated the land for the well and who had endured all of us using her latrine, filling her yard with mud, gravel and equipment, and the constant noise and activity of the drilling project. After experiencing the disappointment and possibly wondering what she had gotten herself into, Estella was a picture of pure, unbounded joy, soaked in fresh water from head to toe! Seeing her joy was the best moment of the trip for me.

The freedom to express praise and joy must make God happy. Children are quick to express their joy but I confess I haven’t always been as free in celebrating God’s generosity toward me. Something about the week in Guatemala seemed to flip a switch within me, for even before Estella’s joyful celebration on Friday, I found myself more willing to discard “appearances” to simply be fun and have fun. That freedom seemed to bubble up from my heart, leading me to think that maybe I was catching a glimpse of what it means to have the uninhibited faith and joy of a child.

Estella’s unbridled joy was the exclamation point on the nudges toward freedom I experienced during the week. By Friday, I wasn’t simply wading into the water of joy and freedom; I was soaked in it along with Estella!

Psalm 36:7-9 expresses a life freed for joy: Your faithful love is priceless, God! Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the bounty of your house; you let them drink from your river of pure joy.

Estella drank from the river of pure joy the Friday we finished the well. God’s faithful love should be sufficient cause for me to live a life of pure joy.