Here's another excerpt from the book project i am working on...chipping away at it, one word at a time hehehehe...let me know what you think....
I enjoy a good laugh as much as the other person. We belong to a culture who loves to laugh – even in inopportune times, we laugh. As a people, we like no better than to sit back and have fun. And why not? There is something musical about the boisterous laughter shared by friends and family. There is something divine in the shared times of joy among loved ones. For in the midst of abundance, at the vortex of giddy happiness, in the gut of a belly laugh, we sense a Being whose mirth is the source of all that is good, beautiful, and humorous. We recognize that this is His gift to us – the gift of laughter. Laughter enables us to be glad about His goodness- that there is much to celebrate, to feel good about this world, His creation, no matter how bleak, how gloomy it can be, it still is a place worth enjoying.
In a sense of merriment, all that is good and refreshing spills out in pure and sweet notes of hilarity – a love song of sort, offered up to Him who allows us to have this sense of wonder and delight. To laugh is to appreciate His ways – it is to celebrate His abundance.
Laughter allows us to see the ridiculous in us, the absurd, the foolish – and with laughter, we sense that there is nothing wrong with being ridiculous, to be comical at times. We are not too twisted, too cynical so that we are unable to acknowledge life’s little jokes.
Laughter harks back to times when we were more innocent, unblemished –holy. Laughter is holy. An absurd notion, but when you consider it, it is in laughter that we sense purity, and a sense of separateness from a world that has become too dour, too serious. Perhaps, one of the marks of holiness is to be able to appreciate, and indeed offer peals of laughter to Him who created everything, and created everything good.
But what happens when the laughter stops? What if humor runs dry, because much as we don’t want to be killjoys and sourpusses, there will be times when there darkness will come, and tears will flow? What happens when the reason there is more reason to cry than to laugh?
This is why we come to the virtue of joy.
Joy is a sun that shines and permeates our existence. Even when the storm clouds cover it, its golden rays will soon seep through the dense haze, and allow us to bask in the warmth and the life-giving abundance of its splendor. Joy is the sun that allows us to weather through the most difficult circumstances. Joy is the rhythm we hear, and the music that plays in our hearts no matter what the circumstances are. Joy is the spring that allows us to step up and move forward in the many challenges of life, even when it is difficult to laugh. It is a virtue for joy is a treasure whose value will not diminish in the midst of a crisis.
But joy is sometimes described as elusive. In this dark, hostile world only the unrealistic can expect joy. And yet, I have a sneaking suspicion, that if we only look hard enough, if we only truly see, this joy – this most hidden and most surprising of all God’s gifts isn’t so hard to find after all. Of course, this is not to say that life will always be sunny or rosy. Being joyful does not mean being out of touch of reality, or being naïve fools that expect happy endings all the time.
Joy is so much than just fairy tale happy endings grandly produced and aired nightly in telenovelas and romantic stories we read. In fact, joy has nothing to do with the shallow schemes or unrealistic expectations. Even when there seems to be no happy endings, joy will not be lost, nor diminished. Joy comes from somewhere deep, somewhere truer. It comes from the Giver of all joy.
This is where abiding joy comes from – from the wells of the ever refreshing presence of He who finds delight in us. He is life – He is the source of all that is good and beautiful. The result of our being where He is fills us with a joy that lasts even in the gloomiest of times. He is our joy. His presence – strong and mighty, tender and loving, terrible and kind – brings the deeply-felt sense of security and belonging. His strength is our joy – even when the crops fail, and the dark last longer than it should. This brings to rest the notion that joy is about the ups and downs of life’s circumstances. It rejects the very idea that our joy can easily be lost in the gloomy passages we sometimes have to pass through.
Because He is our joy, the very idea of being in his presence brings warmth to us. It is in finding ourselves and declaring ourselves desperately dependent on Him that we find this elusive treasure of joy. Scripture lets us on the secret: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (Jn. 15:10–11)
“The joy of the Lord is our strength”
I enjoy a good laugh as much as the other person. We belong to a culture who loves to laugh – even in inopportune times, we laugh. As a people, we like no better than to sit back and have fun. And why not? There is something musical about the boisterous laughter shared by friends and family. There is something divine in the shared times of joy among loved ones. For in the midst of abundance, at the vortex of giddy happiness, in the gut of a belly laugh, we sense a Being whose mirth is the source of all that is good, beautiful, and humorous. We recognize that this is His gift to us – the gift of laughter. Laughter enables us to be glad about His goodness- that there is much to celebrate, to feel good about this world, His creation, no matter how bleak, how gloomy it can be, it still is a place worth enjoying.
In a sense of merriment, all that is good and refreshing spills out in pure and sweet notes of hilarity – a love song of sort, offered up to Him who allows us to have this sense of wonder and delight. To laugh is to appreciate His ways – it is to celebrate His abundance.
Laughter allows us to see the ridiculous in us, the absurd, the foolish – and with laughter, we sense that there is nothing wrong with being ridiculous, to be comical at times. We are not too twisted, too cynical so that we are unable to acknowledge life’s little jokes.
Laughter harks back to times when we were more innocent, unblemished –holy. Laughter is holy. An absurd notion, but when you consider it, it is in laughter that we sense purity, and a sense of separateness from a world that has become too dour, too serious. Perhaps, one of the marks of holiness is to be able to appreciate, and indeed offer peals of laughter to Him who created everything, and created everything good.
But what happens when the laughter stops? What if humor runs dry, because much as we don’t want to be killjoys and sourpusses, there will be times when there darkness will come, and tears will flow? What happens when the reason there is more reason to cry than to laugh?
This is why we come to the virtue of joy.
Joy is a sun that shines and permeates our existence. Even when the storm clouds cover it, its golden rays will soon seep through the dense haze, and allow us to bask in the warmth and the life-giving abundance of its splendor. Joy is the sun that allows us to weather through the most difficult circumstances. Joy is the rhythm we hear, and the music that plays in our hearts no matter what the circumstances are. Joy is the spring that allows us to step up and move forward in the many challenges of life, even when it is difficult to laugh. It is a virtue for joy is a treasure whose value will not diminish in the midst of a crisis.
But joy is sometimes described as elusive. In this dark, hostile world only the unrealistic can expect joy. And yet, I have a sneaking suspicion, that if we only look hard enough, if we only truly see, this joy – this most hidden and most surprising of all God’s gifts isn’t so hard to find after all. Of course, this is not to say that life will always be sunny or rosy. Being joyful does not mean being out of touch of reality, or being naïve fools that expect happy endings all the time.
Joy is so much than just fairy tale happy endings grandly produced and aired nightly in telenovelas and romantic stories we read. In fact, joy has nothing to do with the shallow schemes or unrealistic expectations. Even when there seems to be no happy endings, joy will not be lost, nor diminished. Joy comes from somewhere deep, somewhere truer. It comes from the Giver of all joy.
This is where abiding joy comes from – from the wells of the ever refreshing presence of He who finds delight in us. He is life – He is the source of all that is good and beautiful. The result of our being where He is fills us with a joy that lasts even in the gloomiest of times. He is our joy. His presence – strong and mighty, tender and loving, terrible and kind – brings the deeply-felt sense of security and belonging. His strength is our joy – even when the crops fail, and the dark last longer than it should. This brings to rest the notion that joy is about the ups and downs of life’s circumstances. It rejects the very idea that our joy can easily be lost in the gloomy passages we sometimes have to pass through.
Because He is our joy, the very idea of being in his presence brings warmth to us. It is in finding ourselves and declaring ourselves desperately dependent on Him that we find this elusive treasure of joy. Scripture lets us on the secret: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (Jn. 15:10–11)
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