CAROA is the acronym for The Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas and includes both men’s and women’s Anglican/Episcopal monastic orders from the U.S. and Canada. Each year we have a week-long Leaders Gathering to discuss important issues concerning our monastic life as well as hearing from guest speakers. An added element is hospitality where we can relax the bow a bit and socialize. During the hospitality hour one evening I was sitting with Brother David, who was there representing the Holy Cross Priory in Toronto. As we sat taking in all the fun and fellowship, I remarked to Brother David that a particular brother just seemed so full of Joy. He looked at me and said: “Joy is a mark of holiness.”
In today’s Gospel lesson from John, we hear the second installment of Jesus’ teaching on abiding – abiding in him, abiding in God, abiding in love. Today he offers us abiding in joy saying, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” Circling back to Brother David’s comment about the connection between joy and holiness, what if we heard this scripture as “I have said these things to you so that my holiness may be in you, and that your holiness may be complete.”
Some of you may be aware of a wonderful book that was published some years ago titled The Book of Joy. It chronicled one week in April of 2015 when Archbishop Desmond Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday. During that week together, these two great spiritual masters reflected on their lives and considered a single burning question: How can we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?
Surely, there are many obstacles along the path to joy. We live in a world that is stricken with violence, war, and terrorism, not just on the global scale, but here in our own homes and on our own streets. These create stress, anger, frustration, and a sense of powerlessness. Some people are plagued with personal issues like addiction, depression, and health problems that foster sadness, loneliness, and fear of death. Sometimes the avalanche of breaking news seems too much to bear. How do we not allow ourselves to be dragged down? Where is the path? How can we touch the joy of holiness that Brother David talked about?
The Book of Joy offers The Eight Pillars of Joy as antidotes to what afflicts us: Perspective, Humility, Humor, Acceptance, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Compassion, and Generosity. You may be wondering where one even begins to realize these virtues. Good question. There is not enough time in this brief reflection to dive into them all. But I encourage you to read this book from these two holy men who have been through the fire of exile and the soul crushing violence of oppression. They have found the way to joy, and we can too. One message that came from that week in Dharamsala was that no dark fate determines our future. We do.
There is a distinction between joy and happiness. Happiness is, to a great degree, dependent on external circumstances, whereas as joy is not. Joy resides in the deeper regions and gently springs forth from our innermost being. Many things that can bring us happiness cannot bring us this abiding joy. To be sure, happiness is a wonderful human emotion that we should celebrate. But in the long run we should not settle for anything but the abiding joy that Jesus speaks of. It is our birthright. But it is also a choice we must make for ourselves. Even amid the cruelties that swirl around us we have the power to chose joy. Suffering will always be part of the human experience, but how we respond to that suffering is our choice.
Edgar is a friend that I first met in 2007 while he was incarcerated in the L.A. County Jail awaiting trial. We have remained close friends in the seventeen years that he has been imprisoned. Sister Greta tells of a day in those early years while he was still in County Jail. While visiting Edgar that day she asked him what he missed most in the years since his incarceration. Edgar said: “I miss the sun on my face.” Greta describes how afterward she stood outside of the enormous Jail facility and turned her face upward to the sun. She was enjoying it for Edgar. For years that story has inspired me to do the same. When I am somewhere enjoying myself – whether it is at the beach, or driving through the countryside, or enjoying a meal or a movie; I am often aware that I am enjoying those moments for all my incarcerated friends who cannot be there.
Our friends in prisons often speak of joy, much more so than of happiness. They also speak regularly of gratitude, which is one of the eight pillars of joy that Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama speak of. Gratitude is also a cornerstone in a life of recovery. Often when those of us are feeling restless, irritable, or discontent, we encourage one another to make a list of things we are grateful for. It comes as no surprise that a quiet sense of peace always follows. Here is what our friend Jessica wrote in a recent letter from prison: “You mentioned gratitude as being the gift that keeps you steady, and I agree. Gratitude has made my life so much more filled with beauty, love, and light. And of course, my newfound joy is the byproduct of gratitude.”
I could tell a thousand stories of people like Jessica who have found joy in a place you might least expect it – in prison – because they have chosen it for themselves. I am constantly amazed at the grace, the peace, and the joy that breaks through circumstances set up for heartbreak and despair. But not even the oppression of prison can take away the freedom to choose the response of joy.
We too, can choose joy. We can choose our responses to what is happening around us. And we can do that not despite the conflicts that trouble us, but because of them. We can hold in paradox both the pain and suffering around us, as well as our own inner abiding joy. We can posture our hearts for compassion, humility, and forgiveness with and for others in the world until they can hold then for themselves. We can choose to be an example of God’s abiding love and joy for our world that is desperate for a spiritual and moral compass. And if that makes us holy people, well … Thanks be to God.
Brother Dennis
REFERENCE: The Book of Joy – The Dalai Lame/Archbishop Desmond Tutu/Douglas Abrams – Penguin Random House 2016
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