joy

joy is one of the most elusive of all human experiences.

you can't catch it when you want it and you loe it even when

you are already touching it with your fingertips.  but when you

give up chasing it, it alights on your head, like a butterfly, and

changes the world for you; the ordinary becomes extraordinary,

the drab colorful and the workaday special.  and you are taken

aback, always in surprise, because joy comes when you least

expect it.

 

joy can come from many sources.  and most of where it comes

from are ordinary and simple.  joy can come from a smile, a

kind word, the sunrise after a nightlong rain, a flower that blooms

from a plant you've cared for, a long-lost friend met in a busy

thoroughfare, a good meal, a moment of recognition.  sometimes,

it also comes from silence.  but joy comes, it does come.

 

the only condition - and this is the most difficult to arrange - is that

you yourself must be ready to welcome joy.  you must never lose

your sense of wonderment and awe, your capacity for surprise and

playfulness.  joy does not come to those who have turned stiff nor

to those who have remained but superficial.  joy comes when we are

most childlike.

 

joy comes to everyone: but it can fill us only by the amount of space

we give it in our hearts.  strangely, our hearts have been created by

God not just with the capacity for joy; God has put in them also the

longing and the yearning for you.  yes, the human heart is ever

longing to be filled with joy.

 

the joke, however, is that when we focus our attention on the absence

of joy in our hearts and if we spend our energies to fill that absence,

we never will be truly joyful.  on the contrary, our awareness of the

absence of joy even intensifies.  the least joyful persons are really

those who spend a great deal of time and energy seeking joy.

they drive themselves chasing joy but joy is always a step ahead

of them, so near and yet so far.