Yesterday’s column for the Examiner. Much easier to write than its predecessor. Hope you like it.
True Spirituality 101: What is joy?
Several years ago, the Bay Area’s adopted son Carlos Santana did an interview for Guitar Player magazine. In the course of discussing his music, he made a comment about seeing blues guitarist Elvin Bishop at a local club and the simple joy of his presentation. “I learned that the highest expression of spirituality is joy,” Santana said. “If you can’t have that, then I don’t care much for spirituality.”
What are the signs of true spirituality? Love, peace and joy.
Let’s take a look at the latter.
Joy is the misunderstood superior of happiness. Far too often, we assume to be joyful is to be happy and vice versa. Actually, the two have little in common. Happiness is a fragile entity. It comes and goes in a heartbeat, ofttimes literally in a heartbeat. That which gives us happiness can and will take it away with equal alacrity. Most everyone save the perpetually morose and self-loathing pursues happiness only to find that which they thought would bring it within their reach — relationships, wealth, prestige, power — instead offered little more than a sardonic laugh and an April Fools available every month of the year.
Joy? It’s a whole another critter.
Joy rides shotgun with faith. It penetrates the immediate and invigorates the long view of life. Joy is the still small whisper heard when the world we know is crashing around us saying it’ll be all right. It’s the morning sunrise following the longest night, a nudge and a wink as it says I told you I’d be here. Joy is the healer, a massage of the soul working out the stress even as it imparts sweet release from today’s cares. It opens the door to its companion peace in the here and now with the promise of all-encompassing peace tomorrow.
Happiness is a dandelion soon to be scattered by the wind. Joy tells the wind which way to blow.
Joy is the nail-scarred hand of Christ holding ours as we walk through life together.
It also knows sometimes we’ll go crazy if we don’t go crazy tonight.
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/u2_ill_go_crazy_if_i_dont_go_crazy_tonight.flv nolink]
In the language of the day, the “Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence means “a better quality of life.” A tree spreads out its branches to get the most sunlight, so it is pursuing a happier state of being. The tree’s “Pursuit of Happiness” is the tree’s ongoing pursuit to find a happier state of being. The human “Pursuit of Happiness” is our ongoing occupation of trying to better our lot in life, not the flighty smiley-face happiness as we use the term today.
Food for thought…
God bless.