Joy

 Prayer from BCP "Stir up your power, O Lord..."

Why is God's power different? What makes the stirring of it joy filled? What makes us joy filled? These are the questions I've entertained this week. The ones in which we try to look more deeply at what makes this true, especially deeply known inside.

Years ago the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote a book together on joy. Why joy isn't something which comes easily. It is our choice and our spiritual practice can powerfully point us to joy. Today we have it in Mary's Magnificat. She is so filled with joy after meeting her cousin Elizabeth, who is also mysteriously pregnant, that she breaks into this song. The one in which she lifts up all who feel low. Which in turn should lift us as well. 

It is the turning of power on its head. This answers why God's power is different and fills us with an awe, or joy at the heart. It is not something which comes to take domination over someone, but one in which we are told we are remembered. Each and every one of us. What we have done and what has happened to us doesn't matter. It matters that we realize the power in this world doesn't work to heal us, but God's does. And this stirring is for us to choose. We can choose to invite this in. Just like Mary chooses to have things be as they are to be. She could've said no and we would be no further in this story of joy, but she chose to say yes. Today's song is the stirring of it in her heart.

This leads us to what makes this stirring joy filled. It is joy filled because we choose this. We can choose to wallow in our feelings of inadequacy our feelings of not being enough. Now this is not to say that those who have a medical condition choose to feel. They have other things at their heart and may not feel and don't choose to feel depressed. The rest of us though can change our focus. We may have a day or a moment, but we can choose to change that focus and realize the joy around us. 

Sometimes this is in enumerating our blessings. Sometimes it is in a song we sing. Sometimes it is in just choosing to turn off the news. Anything which changes our focus onto the good that happens around us is a choice for us to make. This choice not only brings joy, but focuses us back on hope.

Yes, joy is the wellspring of hope. Think of it. Just sing a bit. Let it all freely hang out. There is great joy in singing. Songs refocus us to joy and hope. Even the most sad song takes us and sweeps us into joy. There is an Elton John song which talks about tuning into the sad songs because tuning in when all hope is gone the sad song says a lot. It speaks to our feeling and helps us know others have been there. 

Isaiah's song today is not always in focusing on the good, but that there has been bad and after that the good will come. It brings a bright hope. This is the same with In the Bleak Midwinter. We know the cold and dark and we know the hope of spring and light. We know it endures but a moment and then will be gone. 

Hope and joy exist inside one another. This time of year focus on the song. Hear it in the night sky dark and sing it with abandon.