However many years anyone may live, let him rejoice in them all. Ecclesiastes 11:8 (NIV)
Practice It Together – Finding Joy Series – Part 5
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
Joy can seem to be an elusive, temperamental entity, but I think that’s got more to do with our ability to see it and hold it. We get so preoccupied with our to-do lists and our pursuit of happiness and our addiction to comfort and security and our want for better things and the attention we get from our tears and complaints – joy often goes unnoticed in the background, drowned by louder, more insistent voices.
This is one reason why rituals are important. It brings something to our utmost attention. All the feasts on the Jewish calendar? Amongst other things, they are primarily the practice of celebrating together.
Joy can be practiced, both in a ritualistic and repetitious sense. You can train your heart to see joy. You can also practice seeing it. The two go hand in hand.
In Nehemiah 8, the prophet told the people to “Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don’t have anything: This day is holy to God. Don’t feel bad. The joy of God is your strength!” (Neh 8:10).
Practice joy.
In what most would consider the most depressing book of the biblical text, the overarching theme of Ecclesiastes is to practice joy:
I know that there is nothing better for people than to rejoice and do good while they live. (3:12)
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to rejoice in his work, because that is his lot. (3:22)
So I commend rejoicing in life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and rejoice. (8:15)
However many years anyone may live, let him rejoice in them all. (11:8).
When the author of Ecclesiastes talks about the meaninglessness of life, he doesn’t mean it a pointless, empty, or futile way. The word he uses is ‘hevel,’ and it means ‘a shallow breath.’ The book is a meditation on mortality. Because life is so beautifully frail, we should practice the most redemptive work we can:
Joy.
Gather around the table and look into people's eyes.
Listen to children laugh and tell their crazy, impossible stories.
Go for a walk without headphones in – heck, leave your phone at home.
Close your eyes and listen to the sound of the day.
Hold hands.
Sing at the top of your lungs.
Wear the shoes, dance in the supermarket, read till 2 am, get up to watch the sunrise…
Find joy in the everyday moments and savor it like it's the best wine you’ve ever tasted in your whole life.
And then, let the tears fall, because after all, “Grief is love's souvenir.” (Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior). And there’s joy to be found even in that truth.
Let go of the anger and the chasing and the anxiety and the fear.
I know, I hear you… it’s all easier said than done, right? I know that just as much as anyone. But that’s why we practice; ritual and repetition.
And as we talked about back in part two of this series; in the Torah, Simcha (joy) was not an individual experience, it had a collective quality. It’s not something to be won, but something to be shared. For the ancient Hebrews, joy was not something you could have on your own. It was always a collective experience. Even the Psalms express joy as being an exchange between the Divine and his beloved. For us to practice joy, we must practice it together.
The great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore once said:
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Practice makes progress.
Go to Part 6 – Pay it Back With Grace »
Written by Lizzy
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