Day Nine: Joy

Word of the Day: Joy

Image of the Day: Bass Rock and the skies around

Token of the Day: "Me To You" Bear wearing lavender heart jumper - chosen name Joy, of course!

Yesterday Gail and i went to see Secret of Moonacre (wonderful! If you haven't seen it, hurry!) and then we were wandering through the mall when we saw two women running a stall in support of Maggies Centre (http://www.maggiescentres.org). We had a look and then spotted some t-shirts, one with the word HOPE and another with the word JOY. So Gail bought herself HOPE and she bought JOY for me! Bear in mind that neither of us knew which card would come out of the bag this morning!!!

Every morning before going to work Gail emails me a copy of the card i have picked and sometimes she adds some words. Today she wrote about joy:

more than being happy - a feeling, a knowing, a way of life, a sense.

Oh yes indeed! We can be depressed, unwell, poor, imprisoned, dying and yet still be filled with joy. Corrie Ten Boom, who wrote "The Hiding Place" among other books about her experiences during the Second World War (http://www.corrietenboom.com), commented on joy:

Joy runs deeper than despair

Being joyful, rejoicing are spirit-filled modes of being. "To have no joy" refers to not finding something or somebody - think of the joy of finding a lost and much loved book, being reunited with an old friend, family member, lost kitten... The word joy comes from gaudere to rejoice yet when we use the term gaudy we tend to mean too bright, psychedelic. Perhaps we are not comfortable with such external ways of showing our joy!

Today i was sitting in the X-Ray Department at the Western General waiting to have my neck and shoulder x-rayed. Pain is with me all the time, it's tiring, frustrating and frightening. I had taken a book with me to read: the wisdom of no escape by Pema Chodron. I opened it and looked at the chapter titles and found one called... Joy. I was blessed with sufficient time in the waiting room to read the entire chapter (only 4 pages). She comments:

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment... Resentment, bitterness, and holding a grudge prevent us from seeing and hearing and tasting and delighting.

Joy requires abandonment - not feeling abandonned but feeling that we can throw off our shackles, liberate ourselves from all the baggage we're carrying and simply discard all the "stuff" that is dragging us down, not placing it down, remembering where we've put it and planning to go back for it later when we've finished being joyful! How often do i put a feeling of anger, bitterness, resentment to one side only to pick it up again later on? I can be very good at that! Like letting loose tea-leaves settle only to go back and stir them up again...

I need to keep asking myself "What will happen if i let go?".

I remember the first time i went abseiling. I was at the top of a cliff (well, ok it was probably simply a large boulder but i was only 12 and scared of heights!), my harness was on, my helmet wobbling on my head and the leader was encouraging me over the edge. Leaning back as instructed i asked him what would happen if i let go with my right hand. "Don't let go!" was his response. I scrambled back up and had to be coaxed to go over the edge again. What i had to let go of was my fear of living (let go of the safe horizontal and step over the edge) rather than letting go of life itself (letting go with my right hand!). Once secure in my handholds on the rope i started to enjoy the descent, managing to push off the rock-face and delight in a sense of freedom. Abseiling is described as an activity enjoyed by those non-climbers who don't know the risks and disliked by climbers who have to use it in less-than-optimum conditions and understand how easily it can go wrong!

Hmmm, how does this relate to joy? If i know that somebody might laugh at me i might choose not to play hopscotch down the street. Perhaps they won't just laugh at me but will try to get me sectioned... Maybe i'll be seen by someone i want to take me seriously and they'll change their mind... Or just maybe they'll wish they felt free enough to tap into their joy and experience pure, simple exuberance and delight in being part of Creation! So i might want to consider what i let go of and what i hold on to (if cartwheeling, for example i would want to consider the surface my hands will land on, ensure i'm wearing trousers and a top that is not going to reveal my underwear when i'm upside down, etc!!!) and there might be times when the risks do outweigh the possibility of experiencing joy but is that life? Is that seizing the day, enjoying the precious present, giving myself the gift of now?

joy
turning cartwheels
across a public park

joy
playing Hide and Seek
with my fairy godchildren

joy
pausing in a busy street
to listen to buskers play drums

joy
being true to myself
abandoning my being to God

joy
all my senses
alive, switched on, radiant.

The image behind the words - Bass Rock just off the coast at North Berwick is a place where one can give oneself over to joy. Whether viewing from the comfort of the Scottish Seabird Centre (http://www.seabird.org/), or being blasted by wind and sea spray while standing on the cliffs and gazing out to sea or being blessed with kind enough weather so that a boat trip is possible there is no space for anything other than joy. Gannets soar overhead, dive weightlessly through the surface of the sea, reappear triumphant with beakfuls of fish; puffins are clockwork birds with painted-on beaks and mournful expressions who delight all who see them; and more often than not a rainbow arcs through the sky, a doorway to even more joy.