Joy in a Jar

It's a bit amazing to me, as I scroll through my Facebook feed, how many of my friends have become marathon runners. Ladies with whom I've drunk repeatedly, cried buckets, and laughed more often than anything else have tunneled straight through the fossilizing bedrock of thirty-something crap to summit Mt. Olympus, Atalanta-style.

I'm in awe of my friends' athleticism. While fitness may be more of a side dish for me, I'm no stranger to the allure of discipline. Take Lent, which I find a particularly challenging portion of the church calendar. In all honesty I kind of dig taking on new spiritual practices and finding new ways to live without, meaning my focus generally shifts from the penitent preparation for Easter to that sweet, sweet tension in navigating desire vs. will. Every year it becomes obvious that I'm a closet competitor, and that I still have reams to learn about humility.

At any rate: I may not always be successful, but I love a good challenge. Consistently attempting the difficult is the only way to figure anything out. To whit: at the age of 34 I have a pretty good idea of the sort of person I want to be. Getting there means adopting spiritual habits that run immediately counter to the marshy sludge I suspect many of my friends have managed to side-step by running marathons. We've lived long enough in the shape of our lives and decisions to have an understanding of the impermanent, the transparent, and the mundane. What transcends? What can we develop in ourselves that's both a barrier to and antidote for the amorphous blobs of hurt, disappointment, and constant emphasis on material acquisition that hover outside on the sidewalk, eating babies?


ARRGGHHHHH BABY JUICE BLARRGGHHHH

Here's what I think. I think the answer is joy.

I also think it's fair to say that Christians believe joy rides in alongside the other graces gifted through Jesus' life, death, and our subsequent salvation. Barbara Brown Taylor puts it that "The only condition for joy is the presence of God. Joy happens when God is present and people know it, which means that it can erupt in a depressed economy, in the middle of a war, in an intensive care waiting room."

Really?

I mean, I totally get what she's saying here. If we believe in joy as a grace and believe that true joy comes from a connection to the Divine, then even the most upsetting moments dialed up by the human experience hold its potential. That latter part is supposed to be the pithy part-- the nugget that makes us think. Joy in war. Joy in sickness. Instead, I find myself dwelling on the first statement: that the presence of God is sufficient for joy.

The question is I have-- whether Taylor intends it or not-- is whether it's necessary.

It's entirely possible that I know, love, and in many ways depend on more atheists and agnostics than I do avowed believers. At this very moment in time that might be debatable, as growing more deeply in my faith has led to more faith-based relationships, but historically this has certainly been the case.

So I think about some of these runners, who have devoted themselves to a regimen as physically punishing as it is transformative, and how proud they look in those pictures on Facebook...and I think about how many of them are not religious people in the slightest...and I think about the notion that "knowing" God is present is a necessary condition for joy...and I know that there's no possible way I would ever tell them that the joy they derive from running is somehow invalid because God was present, but they didn't know it.

I guess the real question here is how to navigate human experiences like joy, or sorrow, or loss, when one's spiritual convictions or lack thereof mediate their interpretation. I can't deny that I believe God to be bound up in all of them. I can't deny my love and respect for those who don't see things that way. I can't deny my hope that everyone on the planet somehow comes to know God. I understand that my saying that is going to seem alienating or at least patronizing to many. I'm sure it seems that way to many whom I love and respect.

Is it really a Christian best practice to go around suggesting that you can't know joy unless you know God? I'm seriously asking. It's a given that it is a best practice to talk to others about why you believe. When I share my faith, I share things like what an incredible activist Jesus was. I share my conviction that following in his life and example are the best way to live. I talk about how, as an Episcopalian, I look to scripture, tradition, and reason to help me navigate questions of faith. I talk about my understanding that God lovingly created and lovingly accepts everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. I talk about how being part of a church community is such an amazingly dynamic way to both grow in God's love and set out to serve others in his name. I try to open doors to God, not close them. I have no interest in trying to stick joy in a jar with holes in the lid.

My marathon-running friends have embraced discipline. They've prioritized hard work in order to reap the rewards. I daresay their lives feel more balanced, ordered, and happier as a result of their training. I know at least some of them would call running joyful.

(And yet.

I believe in God, and believe that finding those places that bring balance and order and joy means moving closer to discovering God's will. I also believe that coming to faith can be incredibly difficult and brave, if not miraculous, and that it's often only in hindsight that we can see the hand of God at work in our lives. I think that much of the time when God is at work, no one can see it-- believers and non-believers alike.

Most of all, I'm saddened that it's entirely possible to read those beliefs as some sort of smug, know-it-all prescription I've written and dumped on the heads of dear ones who are making their capable, shining way through life without believing in God at all.)

Something to pray about.