Joy Is Connection
Luke 1:46-55
I am very uncomfortable when I think about trying to define what Joy is. It is both an elusive concept, but also someting that is inherently simple. It’s one of those “you know it when it happens” kinds of things.
Attempting to qualify joy always seems to slightly miss the mark. Joy involves happiness, but goes deeper. Joy is not just a feeling, but a way we live our life—even if that can look like countless different things. Joy might not always mean we are smiling, but it always means that we are fully living.
When I think of Joy, I think of how I feel when I am in the middle of a group of people singing in harmony. It lights my brain up. I can feel the synchronized breathing and sound waves in my body. And when it is challenging and my face is screwed up in concentration or even frustration if I miss a note or a rhythm, I still feel this sense of joy: that I am fully into what I am doing and enjoying the moment as it happens.
When I think of Joy, I think of the process of cooking something that engages my senses and helps me lose track of time. I get into the details of the process: knifework, planning out which steps happen when, measuring spices and wet ingredients, opening new bottles of olive oil, tasting freshly diced bell peppers, smelling a soup in progress. When I am cooking (most of the time), I am fully into what I am doing and enjoying the moment as it happens.
I dont think Joy is a feeling. I don’t think it is necessarily a verb either. The best way I can describe joy is connection. Joy is connection to the present moment. Connection to a community. Connection to a cause or mission. Connection to one another. Connection to God and the stories of our faith.
Joy is connection! Still an elusive concept, still simple… but I can perceive it more clearly when I think of it along those lines.
And when I think of Joy as connection, it makes a lot of sense to me why there is so much bitterness in our world. We are surrounded by things meant to disconnect us, aren’t we? Streaming subscriptions, social media that connects us to our screens more than the people we are supposed to be connecting with online, zoning codes that have resulted in insular neighborhoods and closed off communities, politics that connect us more to personalities and goals of winning elections rather than solutions for the problems in our community… there are tons of things driving us to disconnection.
And there is so much bitterness in the world. Life feels less lively. Our conversations are less deep. Our politics are overwhelmingly toxic.
This Advent, I hope we can find ways to reconnect. Reconnect with our story of faith in anticipation of emmanuel. Reconnect with the courage God gives us modeled by Mary who sang courageously about justice after learning she was pregnant with Jesus. Reconnect with one another so that we can be present in the moment rather than mediated through screens, or politics, or other shallow versions of connection. Reconnect with ourselves and grow in our awareness that we are inherently beloved and called by God.
Joy isn’t happiness; it is connection. And I think true human connection is a part of how we move forward with hope.
