Smile! In this seriously life affirming essay, Roger Housden explains how Joy is what we are here for, if only we can be trusting enough to give it the room it deserves in our lives.
The anonymous author of the following quote turns the traditional image of spirituality on its head: “God and the angels will hold you accountable for all the joys you were allowed in life that you denied yourself.”
Instead of the solemn face of the saint or the figure of a renunciate lost in contemplation, we are given the image of Joy as the gateway to heaven. The experience of Joy in this world is an indication that our spirit is shining brightly. Joy is an expression of our deepest nature, beyond all notions of right and wrong, beyond all dogma and belief, beyond any religious framework, even as it may manifest in the rituals of any religion.
Joy is a pure expression of the human spirit. It often appears unbridled, unfettered, and ultimately, for no reason. It can leap out of us not only in some recognizably spiritual context, but also at the sight of a leaf turning in the wind, in a moment of solitude, at the thought of a beloved friend, or just because. It needs no form, religious or otherwise, to set it free. It is a spontaneous expression of our spiritual nature.
Why then would we ever want to deny our own happiness? And yet we sometimes do. Think of the child — yourself, perhaps, long ago — who, full of glee at some new discovery, is told to be quiet by a parent. We learn all too easily that if we raise our voice above the crowd, we open ourselves to ridicule, criticism and the evil eye of plain old envy. That can be enough to silence us for years — for a lifetime, even. We doubt ourselves; we doubt our own voice, our inspirations, the Joy of our creative urges — all for the sake of keeping the peace and preserving the mediocrity of the social norm.
There may be a further reason that Joy does not always get its full place at the table of our lives. Pain and suffering easily draw attention and energy to themselves. Our survival mechanisms instinctively draw us to preoccupy ourselves with bad news, our own or someone else’s, rather than with stories of hope, goodness, and Joy, which pose no threat.
The classic redemption story works not so much because of the happy ending, but because of the trials and difficulties the protagonist has had to overcome to get there. That’s why the headlines are always about conflict, killings, strife, and tragedy. No one is much interested in reading about the good stuff. If they were, the media would make sure we knew about it.
Yet Joy is what we are here for, if only we can be trusting enough to give it the room it deserves in our lives. Of course we feel Joy when something occurs that we have longed for, worked for, or aspired to. Of course we feel Joy when love swoops down and claims us. Love and Joy are intimately connected; and yet like love, Joy in its most essential form comes for no reason.
And Joy, like love, doesn’t come on command. A wholehearted love is one without conditions: no dowry, no big bank account, no promising job, no plastic surgery necessary. Joy, like love, seizes us for its own, regardless of our life conditions, and like love, it fills us with an elation, a sense of life and meaning beyond and larger than our ordinary lives. Joy unites us to the full flood of life and to the deepest reaches of who we are.
“To praise is the whole thing,” the poet Rilke said. And to praise — to feel gratitude for what we have, and for what comes across our path, rather than longing for what we don’t have — is to make ourselves more prone to Joy. Ultimately, our Joy, silent or sung or spoken, is our full-blooded praise and celebration of this life we are living now in this very moment. Our praising Joy is no less than a spontaneous upwelling of the Presence that we are.
Adapted from Keeping the Faith Without a Religion by Roger Housden. Copyright © 2014 by Roger Housden. To be published by Sounds True in March 2014. Rogerhousden.com.
