A few months
ago I wrote about joy and how it is different than happiness. I said that while happiness cannot, of course, be a constant we can find joy in most of our
life.
One of my
best lessons on joy came from a former sponsor who said this: “Joy comes from my relationship
with God. So I can be Joyous even when I am not happy.”
But this
idea of joy intrigues me so I have been reading about it. Yesterday I found more
on joy written by Rollo May, psychiatrist and philosopher, who wrote the classic
book, “The Courage to Create.”
May wrote is
this about creativity and joy:
“When
creativity or discovery is underway there can be a sensation that others might
describe as anxiety but, the artist, at the moment of creating does
not experience gratification or satisfaction (though that may be the case later
when he or she has a highball or a pipe in the evening). Rather it is joy, joy
defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that
accompanies the experience of actualizing one’s own potentialities.”
That, I
think, is close to what my sponsor meant about finding joy in our spiritual
life even when we are not happy. It is close to what the artist is experiencing—that
sense of actualizing a potential. Even in pain, even in grief—if we are truly
conscious—we are growing and in that we can experience joy.
****
“You were
not meant for pleasure, you were meant for joy.”
--Thomas
Merton
