Advent: Joy

Joy.

This is what I'm supposed to be focusing on this week for Advent.

Quiet honestly, over the last few days I've instead felt annoyed by traffic, uninspired by work, heartbroken for kids in the street, frustrated with fatigue, worried over news of family falling ill and overly anticipatory about leaving Haiti for home--letting the light-splashed American landscape and the jingle-jangle-jing of holiday tune piped over Musak in airports and shopping malls overtake what my spirit should have been doing all along.

"Annoyed to the World" doesn't have the same pick-me-up that the original song gives, now does it.
Joy.

It sounds like such a BIG emotion to feel. One reserved for the occasions of party hats and silver bells.

Happiness is one thing; happiness can describe a general state of being that umbrellas all the moment-to-moment scuttle you have in its midst. But joy--joy feels to be a whole other animal. Joy, to me, is a little euphoria that takes over everything, holding you completely present. Its easy to be happy while feeling a lot of other things. But Joy demands you to pay attention to moment where eyelash to toe-tips feel abuzz in smiles. Joy means happiness all-consuming. Even if it lasts for a second, an exchange, a moment. Joy means the soul is involved.

In my Advent meditations, I get how you can make yourself HOPE in the worst of situations. I understand how you should find PEACE even amidst the chaos. But JOY? Can I really be joyful while driving through Port-au-Prince break-and-weave traffic, can I find joy in hopeless diagnoses dolled out, in the stink of sewers filled with trash, in the claustrophobia of a walled concrete world, in the frustration of cross-culture communications? Maybe it isn't to be a constant state of being, but choosing to find the joyful in a day, finding reasons to celebrate even the smallest of beautiful things.

When I think of the moments in my life when I've felt true joy, they are usually the GREAT moments of my life: Dancing at my wedding where everyone around me seemed intoxicated by the party and me feeling intoxicated by the love and future I felt with Patrick. Finishing medical school despite the odds and knowing that I earned the diploma I had in my hands more than I had earned anything else I'd ever before worked for. Helping my first baby to be born--CATCHING that baby and with tears in my eyes celebrating with all the family in the room the miracle we witnessed together. Seeing my brother be a Dad for the first time and watching the best in him rise out of himself in all its protection, humor and love. Becoming a parent myself and feeling overcome the first time Solomon stopped crying when he cuddled next to my heart.

I have experienced Joy... in the grand as well as in the moments you don't always remember to write home about.

Joy:

Falling in a snow bank with friends while snow shoeing, laughing hysterically over a joke I don't remember, but the laughter still lingers.

Joy:

Running (in a previous life) with my dog at sunrise, watching her sniff curb sides, delighting in the chase of an illusive prey. Feeling the endorphin high of exercise mingled with watching the pink and orange break of morning painting the cityscape before me.

Joy:

Reveling in Solomon's laugh, and no matter what we did to inspire it, doing it over and over and over again just to hear that hysterical, little boy belly laugh one more time.

Joy:

Sledding over frozen farm fields, bumping, wiping sleet from my eyes, tumbling off, Duke barking at our heals, falling into the kind of child-like giggles with my brother, my dad, my nephews, my sister in law, my mom that make us breathless and uncertain over bladder control.

Joy:

Sharing a celebratory moment with a patient when both of our fears were dissolved thanks to healing taking over despite our most realistic fears.

Joy:

Finding myself awake in the quiet of morning, before Solomon or Patrick have stirred, sipping the first cup of hot-brewed coffee and finding an inbox full of e-mails to open like presents.

Joy:

Looking over mountain peaks today as we traversed Haiti's western ridges, seeing mountains giving way to mountains and the life that rises up from its valleys. Recognizing incredible beauty in the world around me that so often only shows me its suffering side. A sense of knowing that despite all the doubts and fears, I'm where I need to be and its beautiful to be on the adventure.

Joy:

Sharing an inside joke with Patrick, in the middle of a group of people, trying to keep a straight face while delighting in the instant connection I feel with him.

Joy:

The anticipation of seeing the faces of friends, of family that I've missed so hard and for so long. Looking forward to hearing their voices tell me about their days instead of having to read it in print. Snuggling in to a moment, a warm, cozy, twinkly-light moment.

Joy:

Unexpected laughter. Surprise.

Joy:

Unexpected kindness.

Joy:

Unexpected resilience you find in yourself.

I'm not sure I'm advanced enough to know how to experience joy as a permanent condition, but I've learned to recognize it in moments. Those are the moments that I polish like jewels in my life's collectables

The truth is it is easy to let the realities of life diminish joy, from headlines to headaches, trivial frustrations to the kind of heart aching situations that seem too big to solve. It is all too easy to look at all that is wrong with people, the world, our governments... the endless cycle of mistakes made over again, violence and corruption.

Yet despite it all, life can be inexplicably beautiful. I'm always surprised when the beauty catches me in the midst of the messiest of places. Life springs up from dust, trash and rock.

Advent asks us to recognize Joy in our belief in all that is bigger and better in the world.

So I turn to what I have faith in.

I believe in a God that bubbles up in the laughter of a child, breathes through the beauty of a landscape, flutters on a dragonfly's wing, lives in the sweat and breath of a moment LIVED, delights in loving the person or people you are with.

I believe in a God, in life, that pulses with the beating of our hearts, blooms in the earth beneath our feet, blows through the air we breath, lights the sun and stars above. I believe in a God that is bigger than war, bigger than fear, hunger, suffering, pain. I believe in a God of hands held, who lives in us even as we die. I believe in a God of Justice, who empowers us through our very core to stand up to the wounds of this world and let His healing power work through our fingers. When it comes down to it, I believe in a God of Hope, of Peace, of Joy and of Love.

So maybe that is what Advent asks us to do... take stock in what we believe in and rejoice in what we hope, what we know, what we feel to be true. So tonight I'm pledging to take a better look of joy all around me—in the faces of children, the twitter of birds in the morning, the lights lit after dusk in the markets, the music beating from drums, in moments when I forget to take myself too seriously, in the gathering together of family and friends.

Merry Christmas.