Joy - Fruitless or Fruitful?

March 6, 2005 Joy - Fruitless or Fruitful? - Service Leader: Rebecca Judd - What is joy and how do we cultivate it? How important is joy to our Unitarian faith? Join Rebecca Judd, Society President, in exploring the meaning of joy and the place that it holds in our lives.

Most of the content of the service appears here for your reading pleasure:

Morning Poem
By Mary Oliver

Dedicated to Marye Gail Harrison

Every morning
The world
Is created
Under the orange
Sticks of the sun
The heaped
Ashes of the night
Turn into leaves again
And fasten themselves to the high branches –
And the ponds appear
Like black cloth
on which are painted islands
Of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
To be happy
You will swim away along the soft trails
For hours, your imagination
Alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
Carries within it
The thorn
That is heavier than lead –
If it’s all you can do
To keep on trudging –
There is still
Somewhere deep within you
A beast shouting that the earth
Is exactly what it wanted –
Each pond with its blazing lilies
Is a prayer heard and answered
Lavishly,
Every morning,
Whether or not
You have ever dared to be happy,
Whether or not
You have ever dared to pray.

Naomi Shihab Nye
"So Much Happiness"

It is difficult to know what to do with so much
happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to
pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs
or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house,
singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree
house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records...

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of
you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

And now let us gather ourselves in the spirit of prayer, meditation and reflection.

As we do so this morning we lift up our own silent and prayers to that part of life that listens.

Spirit of Life,

Be with us as we gather ourselves again, as we do all too infrequently.

Help us to know that we are not alone,

And that we are all much more alike than different.

Give us the strength to know joy,

Even when all we think that we know is pain.

Help joy find its way back into our hearts again,

An unexpected guest at the table of our life.

May we let life burst open our hearts even as we believe that it is broken.

To let go of the pain, just a little, and take in the love that is waiting.

Help us to mother and nurture ourselves and the light within us all.

To pay attention to the joy in our soul –

The flicker

The flame

Or the bonfire

Whatsoever the case may be.

May we always remember to be big enough

To life up that same joy in all others.

Amen

Joy - Fruitless or Fruitful? - Service Leader: Rebecca Judd
3/6/05

When Terasa first asked me to do this service today, I said yes, of course I would do it. But to tell you the truth, at the time that I agreed to do it, I had no idea what I would talk about. At first I thought about talking about the “state of the church” and then I thought – no, there are other places to do that. Then I considered talking about how I try to integrate our Unitarian Universalist principles into my life, but that wasn’t it either. I just trusted that if I let it incubate for a while, it would become clear to me. And it did. One morning as I was driving, the whole sermon just started coming to me – and it was all about joy.

What is the purpose of joy? How do we cultivate joy?

For me personally, joy is what sustains me. It’s what gives me the energy again and again. To get up. To be a Mom. To be the President of our Congregation. To do the things that matter the most to me. Without joy, I would be exhausted. I just wouldn’t have the energy or the caring to keep on doing those things that matter the most to me.

But it hasn’t always been this way. In fact, joy is something that I had very little concept of for a long time. I had a very difficult childhood that was filled with a lot of pain. Joy was not something that was part of my life for much of my life. What I want to share with you today is how this has changed over the years, and what I have learned in this process.

Joy is very unique. It is different than happiness or peace or contentment. Joy is full. Joy is big and it usually needs to be expressed and shared. Joy can be loud or it can be soft. It can come as a shout, or a bounce in your step or a tear on your cheek. Joy is organic. It is alive and it has it’s own pulsation. I can feel joy in my body as much as I can feel hunger, or pain or fear. At times it can feel as though my heart is literally overflowing or that it may burst from the experience. My daughter and I call these times “waves” She’ll say to me, “Mommy, I’m having a wave…”

When you feel joy everything and everyone around you is affected. Things lighten up. Things move. Insights happen. There is room for the breath and for life.

And it is like that – joy comes on like a wave, it crescendos and then ebbs back onto the shore of your daily life.

What is it that really brings you joy? I mean really? Not what should bring you joy, but what does? Walking in a pond barefoot and feeling the mud between your toes? Good jazz music? Summer nights sitting on a porch with those you love? Holding a newborn baby, or watching two puppies wrestle? Maybe it’s watching a Monte python movie or eating a hot fudge sundae.. Who cares? You do. It’s an experience unique to you. No one else but you can know what truly makes your heart feel joyful.

I want to share a story with you…when I was 21 years old and a few months out of college, I was in a workshop where the seminar leader asked us all to write down ten things that we loved to do. Ten things that made us happy. Well, I couldn’t write down one thing. I had no idea what made me happy, or what I loved to do. Now mind you, I had always been a good kid. I knew exactly what I should do, what was expected of me, what was the right thing to do, but I had no idea what made me happy.

That was a pivotal point in my life. In many ways, the last 18 years, have all been about my finding out what made me happy. What brings me joy? Today, I can write down many more things than 10 that bring me joy. And it’s about a lot more than just things. It’s people. Places. Smells. Songs. Books. And much more. The last 18 years have been a process. A very difficult process at times. One filled with a lot of pain, tears, learning and personal work. Joy didn’t come easily, but it has been so worth the effort!

Over these years, I’ve come to believe that experiencing joy – allowing ourselves to experience the miracle and grace of joy - is one of the most important things we can do in our lifetime. Experiencing joy is amazingly healing, productive and restorative. It takes great courage I believe to feel joy. In many ways, it’s easier to just go along, kind of here but not really fully alive.

As I reflect upon my process, I see three things that have been key in helping me learn how to feel joyful. The first has been to truly know myself. To be authentic you could say. The second has been courage, a lot of courage at times. The third has been paying attention and living with an open heart. Let me share with you more about each of those three qualities.

The first step in cultivating joy, I believe, is to really know yourself. And to be really honest with yourself. I mean really honest. Joy responds to authenticity. It grows with self-truth and withers in deceit. So, as a friend of mine once told me - drop the “shoulds” Stop "shoulding" on yourself and start learning about yourself. Cooking maybe “should” bring everyone joy, but let me reassure you that it doesn’t! Cooking does not bring me joy. On the other hand, teacups – their size, shape, texture, weight, how they feel in your hand and the wonderful kinds of tea that they can hold - and unique writing instruments – those things bring me joy!

When I was about nine years old, I spent the summer with my Grandmother. She and my grandfather lived on a lake on Cape Cod. One night after dinner, she said to me, “Come on Becky, put on your bathrobe, we’re going to the lake” I said “what?” “It’s dark, it’s nighttime,” She said, “Just come on” and to my grandfather she said, “you stay here, we’ll be back”

So down to the lake we went, flashlight in hand. When we got there, she stripped off her robe, and in her birthday suit, not her bathing suit mind you – she dove into the lake. Let me tell you that there is nothing to compare with skinny-dipping in the dark with your grandmother on Cape Cod when you’re nine. Nothing. It was pure joy. So I guess I did have one thing that I could have written on my list when the woman asked me to write down ten things that made us happy.

So also, who? Who are those people with whom your heart just opens up? You know those people – you just feel good when you are with them. I am prone to just spontaneously saying to my friends, “I love you!” (At first they are a bit shocked, but they get used to it) Times like that are when I just have to express my joy at their being alive, and being in my life.

Being authentic and really true to yourself cultivates joy.

The second thing that feeds joy is courage. The courage to speak your truth. Saying no when you mean no and yes when you mean yes. The courage to be vulnerable and to take the risks that come in living your truth. In many ways, this has been the hardest thing for me. When I was a Senior in College, I applied and got accepted to join the Peace Corps. I was all signed up and ready to go to Thailand. I can not describe to you the joy that this brought to me. The prospect of going to Thailand, of helping other people. It brought incredible joy to me. And then, I got scared. Really scared. All of my shoulds came roaring into my thoughts. “I should get a job” “I should go on with my life and make money, do something valuable.” Well, my should’s won out and I withdrew my name and got a job. Yes, my job was in the non profit sector and it has been ever since. But when I said no to that dream, and to that a joy, a part of me just shut down and died. I’m going to join the Peace Corps yet… It takes courage to follow your joy and let joy into your life. Joyful people are brave people.

The third thing that feeds joy is paying attention and being open hearted. Enough to let life touch you. To laugh out loud. To cry. To see and to appreciate. You know people who live this way. There’s just something about them. You can often see it in their eyes – a certain twinkle or aliveness. It’s palpable and yet hard to describe. But you know that there is something about them.

The most important thing that I started doing once I started on this quest for joy 18 years ago, was to pay attention. I started paying attention all of the time. How did I really feel as things were happening? When was I “shoulding”” myself into doing something that I didn’t really want to do? It’s been like following a thread into my soul.

And it doesn’t stop with paying attention; you then need to respond to what you notice. Do things differently because you notice. I don’t watch TV. I chose my friendships and things I give my time to very carefully.

My biggest guru when it comes to paying attention is my six year old son, Jacob. Jacob loves live. Everything is a joy, and everything is something just waiting to be explored. He could write a book about the 1,009 things to do with an empty toilet paper roll. Did you ever realize how much joy there is in an empty toilet paper roll? It is the highlight of Jacob’s day – until he discovers an empty Wild Oats Bag.

Jacob teaches me every day to pay attention and to delight in the little things– at least those days that I take the time to really be with him and pay attention.

Most of the time, these days my heart knows joy. Oh, it’s not certainly all that I feel by a long shot, but it is at the core of my life view and my spirituality. Finding my joy has been about so much more than finding joy. I have found my heart, I have found meaning and I have found a way to make sense of the world. I am so grateful for that woman who asked that fated question years ago “What makes you happy?” I don’t even know her name, but wherever she may be, I thank her and bless her often.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that last Sunday, my grandmother, Virginia Bryan died. My grandmother as you may have picked up in my skinny-dipping story was one of the most important people in my life. My aunt, who was with her in her last few minutes said that they laughed and they sang “Spirit of Life” probably 23 times. She was one of the most joyful people that I have ever know, and having her and her love in my life was a life line to me.

So I dedicate this sermon to her, as I dedicated my life to joy. She knew that I was doing this sermon today, and although she is not hear to get the full report, I know that she would laugh out loud with me as I shared how my knees are shaking. I stand here holding an almost unbearable gried at her loss, and a joy that sits right beside it.

To create a life that cultivates joy – to live authentically, with courage and to pay attention with an open heart. To say “I love you, often” and to fill your life with those things and people that bring you joy. To let joy energize and restore you so that you may be fully here and fully alive. This and more I wish for you all. Amen

And now if you’ll join me in singing hymn number 361 “Enter, Rejoice and Come In” and as we sing let us invite joy into our lives.

Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (revised 3/07/05)