by Jennifer Schnayer, Summer Minister

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

When I lived in Chicago during my seminary training, my apartment was on the north side of town while the school was on the south side.  I worked almost full time as the acting development director for the school, plus was a full time student.  You might think, with all the time I spent on the corner of 57 and Woodlawn, that I'd want to live on that same corner for convenience.  There was student housing on this corner, and I did live there my first year—a quick walk across the street and I'd be in class—and I only had to walk downstairs to get to work (funny that I could still manage to be late from time to time!).

But my second year of seminary I moved 15 miles north.  Past Chinatown, past the Loop, past Downtown, all the way to 2400 N. Southport.  Why?  I needed breathing room.  If I was going to work and go to school full time at the same institution, in the same neighborhood, I needed a place to retreat to.  Yes, it was sometimes hectic getting to or from work in the midst of snowstorms or Cubs games.  But as I drove away from Meadville Lombard, I felt as if I were going to my corner of the city, where I had no responsibilities except to take care of myself—and get all my homework done!

People would ask me, “Doesn't the drive get to you?  It must be so hard being so far away!”  Clearly, these people didn’t grow up in Southern California like I did, where my round trip commute to work was 75 miles!

Don't you get stuck in traffic?  Isn't it awful?

I loved my drive to work.  It was beautiful.  I would get on Lake Shore Drive and, on the first part of my drive, I headed directly toward downtown, with the lake to my left and the Drake Hotel in front of me.  Then I'd go past the yacht clubs, and Grant Park, where the road is pretty much right next to the water.  And on down to the south side, with the trees lining the Drive the whole way.

The first time I drove to work from my house, I knew that this would be my daily commute, my morning ritual for the next two years.  And when I turned onto the Drive that morning and saw the beautiful buildings and the trees and the Lake, I was so filled with joy.  This is what I get to look at while I drive to work.  This is my city!  I love it here!

To be honest, I was a little taken by surprise by the joy in my heart—all this because of my commute to work?  It certainly was unexpected.  But I think a lot of things came together at that moment: where I was living, what my work and scholastic life were like, all of that coupled with the sheer beauty of the place I called home.

What that day reminds me of is that joy is not something we can plan for.  It happens.  Often when we least expect it.  Joy comes when we allow the blessings that are alive in our hearts to break through.  And with joy our spirits are restored

Joy has come to me in many ways.  It has come quietly, as a sense of connection.  It has come deeply, bringing gladness to my heart.  It has come powerfully, as I am humbled with gratitude for the blessings in my life.  It has come beautifully, with music, art, nature, movement, or even silence.  Joy can be so many things, but no matter the cause, joy leaves renewal in its wake.

Helen Keller wrote, “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm, and our intelligence aglow.”  Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm, and our intelligence aglow.  I think joy is holy fire, a fire that can enkindle our soul, fuel our minds, make our hearts burn, and ignite our flagging spirits.  Joy feeds us.

There are times in our lives when we need to be restored.  Joy is an agent of restoration.  It requires us to be open and to be aware of the present moment.  To be still long enough to appreciate our blessings, to notice the beauty in our midst, to connect with another person, and to be with that experience long enough for the joy to come up and wash over us.

But we are a hard working people—the good Puritan work ethic is alive and well four hundred years later.  Our culture is goal oriented.  We are not encouraged to be in the moment, but rather to be plotting our next achievement.  It is easy to be consumed by what we are not, what we don't have, how we are lacking, or are suffering or are in pain.  So to experience joy we have to be a bit counter-culture.  We need to be aware of the present, to be still for periods of time and just be open to the beauty, the wonder, the mystery that surrounds us all of the time.

These past few weeks have been especially busy for me here at the church.  I have been returning phone calls, looking in on people who are in the hospital, teaching a class, going to meetings and in general tending to the needs of the church.  I have rushed in and out of my office countless times these past months.  This Tuesday I was in the office working on the order of service and choosing the readings for today.  When I was getting up to go get a book that I needed, I turned back for some reason and I noticed how much the things in that little room mean to me.  I have filled it with things that are close to my heart.  My grandfather's picture is in my paperweight.  A hollowed gourd a friend gave me from his trip to Argentina sits on my shelf.  There is a chalice that the kids at my home church made for me for teaching their religious education class, and there is another one that my husband gave me.  There are cards and booklets of poetry that some of you have sent me during the year.  It struck me that the space I work in is filled with love, and I had one of those moments when the joy leapt up in my heart.  I was seeing what was there.  I was giving myself time for joy to come in the midst of my busy day.  Joy does not always come on a grand scale.  Sometimes it is comes in small doses.

Whether in small or large doses, I know that we Unitarian Universalists like to have things come in a balanced, even controlled, way.  In fact, much of what we strive for in our religious life is to find balance. a balance between the life of the mind and the spirit, a balance between a life of work and a life of rest and reflection.  We seek to find a balance between our public and private spheres.  We come to church to worship, to be restored, to be challenged.  To find comfort, to develop friendships.  And on and on.  But one thing I think the liberal church does not do easily is to make a space for praise.  We are called to consider, to contemplate, to examine our beliefs.  We are asked to do good works.  And we acknowledge the Mystery, we honor the Spirit.  But it is not easy for us to praise creation, to adore that which is holy, to rejoice in an unabashed fashion.  We feel a bit self-conscious when we do this sort of thing.  But praise is part of the religious experience.  We need to say alleluia for the gift of life.  All creatures of the earth and sky, come kindred lift your voices high—alleluia, alleluia.

Despite what our rational faith and our Puritan work ethic may indicate, we need to take time for praise.  Life is glorious.  We are surrounded by beauty.  I hope that something about your time during worship each week reminds you of that—the organ fills this space with magnificent sound, as do our voices.  The flowers are lovely.  We are able to gather together.  And when we leave here, the sky above us will be full of color and the sun will be warming the earth.  It is just as important to take the time to praise creation, to give thanks for our blessings, and to express our joy in living as it is to carefully consider and reflect upon our religious beliefs and values.  We need both for a full and balanced religious life.

And when we offer our praise for creation, for life and its blessings, we do so because we know full well that all of life is not joyful.  Life can be filled with pain and loss.  Creation can just as easily give rise to hatred as love.  Both forces are alive and well.  We need to take the time to praise, to let the joy in, no matter how much work still needs to be done.  No matter how much pain is alive in our world.  Because pain and joy are related.  It is our great sorrows in life that teach us to honor the joy.  And it is the unendurable moments that are the soil from which our joy can grow.

The darkest period of my life was during my college years.  I was in a relationship with a man who was very cruel to me.  I think the hardest part of those years was that, for so long, I was unable to find the strength to end that relationship.  When I'd stop to consider my life, it was a painful experience.  Where was the strong, vibrant, stubborn young woman I'd been?  This new person was afraid, belligerent at times, angry and pretty confused.  I was also ashamed of the fact that I was being treated so poorly—sometimes in public—by my boyfriend.  It was a lonely time, a sad time.  Yet those years taught me something important—I learned the value of my own sanity, the blessing that true friends are in my life.  When I look back on those years, I don't think of them as joyful years, though I know there were moments where the joy shined through.  Those moments were reminders of what life could be, a bittersweet taste of what was not my daily experience.  And there were even joyful times with my boyfriend.  The good times we had were all the better, it seemed, for all the bad times.  I finally ended that relationship during my senior year.

A few weeks later, I was walking into a restaurant with my best friend.  We went to the same place every week.  That week, she stopped short as we went in.  “Jennifer, you've grown almost a foot in the last few weeks.  You're walking tall again.”  And I had grown.  The burden of that relationship had been shed; it was as if I'd been carrying all that pain on my shoulders, and with it gone I could stand tall.

My heart was lighter too.  Slowly, my spirit began to unfold from where it had been cowering for so many years.  It was like someone turned the lights on in my soul.  “Look—life is here!  It is good to be alive!  It is good to be me!”

Zora Neale Hurston captured how I felt after the end of that relationship:  “I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots.  Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hand.”

I have heard people tell me about healing from a serious illness, or surviving a crisis or loss in their family with some of the same sentiment.  The harp and the sword in our hands are gifts of the sorrow.  And our souls find a way to be on mountaintops wrapped in rainbows.

The years in that relationship had taught me how to seek out joy—it was an act of survival for my spirit.  The year that followed the end of that relationship was one of the most joyful I have ever experienced.  I had an appreciation for the gifts in my life, for the beauty around me, for the real love that surrounded me as I began to heal from those difficult, abusive years.

Beauty, truth and love all play a role in bringing joy to life.  But so do sorrow, grief and pain.  As Rose Kennedy said, “Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?”

Joy is a constant undercurrent in life, coming at unexpected times, and teaching us in large and small ways about gratitude and praise.  Joy is interwoven with sorrow. 

Joy also is a passageway to transformation.  It is a passageway to transformation because at its most intense, joy brings us into communion with the divine, with the transcendent.

In the heights of joy, our ability to express with words or actions what we are feeling ends.  We are left with tears or silence.  These are moments in life when all of the boundaries seem to fall away and we are at one with all of creation—with life—with existence.  For most of us these moments come oh-so-rarely, if at all.  For their rarity they are all the sweeter.

When do such moments come?  I cannot know.  Perhaps when we are making deep and soulful love with our partner.  Perhaps when we are walking alone in the woods.  Perhaps when we hold our newborn baby in our arms.  Perhaps at a moment of profound connection during our spiritual practice.  Or, perhaps in the most ordinary event that is somehow transformed by our awareness and attention at that moment.  There are countless ways for these times to come.  But I think what is common to them all is that we are being attentive.  Transformation requires our reverent attention.  Even our invitation.  We find ourselves in communion with the Divine, with the Oneness of Creation, only when our spirits, our hearts and our minds are open and inviting of such an experience.  We are not transformed kicking and screaming.  We have to open ourselves to the experience.

However we go about it, I know that we all could take more time for Joy.  It is always there—a gift from the Mystery, from the Holy.  It comes to us in many forms: from the small, everyday joys that come to us in color and fragrance of a flower, to the joys of knowing the love of another, to having great music make our hearts swell.  Take time to enjoy it.  And take time to bring it to others.  You never know how your small kindness might change another person's day.  My wish for you is that you make time, that you take time, in your life for joy.  The simple pleasures, and the deeper spiritual communion, bring more satisfaction with our daily living, and are important parts of a full religious life.

Every Christmas, my family reads the same poem.  It is called “Take Joy” and is by Fra Giovanni:

I salute you!

There is nothing I can give you which you have not;

But there is much, that, while I cannot give, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.

Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.

Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet, within our reach, is joy.

Take Joy.

And so, [at this Christmastime], I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

May it be so for you.  AMEN.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, be with us in our dark hours and in our moments of joy.  Help us to discover and rediscover the blessings in our lives, and to marvel in the grandeur of creation.  When life brings us unbearable pain, may joy shoot through and remind us of all that life can be.  May we be sustained in our dark hours, and may we come again and again to know great joy.  Be with us as we reach for joy, bringing a Divine light to our lives, blessing us all our days.  AMEN.

BENEDICTION

Go now, and may you be touched by joy this day.  Please take a moment to reach out and greet your neighbor.  Go in love and go in peace.  AMEN.  AMEN.  AMEN.

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Copyright 2001, Jennifer Schnayer.  All rights reserved.