"May Your Joy Be Ever True."

Rev. Sharon Dittmar.
April 30, 2000.

When I began to write this sermon, I couldn't think of any books on the topic of "joy" in my office. Truth be told, I was having trouble remembering why I thought joy would be such a good topic for a sermon. I made that decision months ago, and by the time spring arrived, I felt tired, harried, and crabby — definitely not joyful.

I ordered nine books on the topic of "joy" from the library. When I picked them up I went home and selected the smallest one to begin with, True Joy: the Wisdom of (St.) Francis and Clare. Flipping through it, I saw a section entitled "True and Perfect Joy". I went straight to it. I skipped Francis' poems and prayers, his salutations and exhortations. Inside, I demanded "Give me joy. I need joy. And you can make it quick, I'm in a hurry here." Turning to the back of the book, I found a reading that stopped me cold:

"In the middle of the night, Francis came, cold, muddy, tired and hungry, to the gates of the monastery, and asked to be allowed to enter. The guard took one look at him, and answered, `It's too late. Nobody comes in here at this time of night. Go away.' Francis asked again, and was refused again. The guard said, `You are too filthy and disreputable to come in here. Go away.' Francis asked again and was again refused. The guard said, `Go and clean up and come back in the morning. Maybe you can come in then. It won't be my responsibility tomorrow'. At this point, Francis doesn't say something `saintly' like `bless you my son'. As he tells the story, his comment on the situation is, `If I had patience, and did not become upset, there would be true joy in this."'

I can't say that I found or understood joy, but I laughed. And my laughter opened the door for joy.

Joy is the experience of delight and pleasure. It can't be read or demanded. Joy is both subtle and boisterous, and I think of it like water. There are droughts, and then it washes and sprinkles. Other times it floods. Joy is a transcendent, spiritual experience that evokes harmony, goodwill and peace. Joy comes from achievements and success, but more authentically, joy comes from the simplest moments in our lives: holding hands, catching fireflies, listening to music, watching a sunset. Joy is not a production or a financial investment. Joy is an open well inside our souls.

There are two major types of joy: internal joy — the joy we create inside of ourselves, and external joy — the joy we experience because we achieve what we desire. Of the two, external joy can be easier to achieve in the short run, but it is fleeting. In his book Talking to Ducks, James A. Kitchens explains:

[External] joy comes and goes with whatever is happening in our environment. It is extrinsic because it arises from the outside and, therefore, is not a quality that comes from within. We are powerless over this kind of joy...When the circumstances change in one direction, joy comes. When fortune reverses, this level of joy leaves. The danger in contingent joy is its seductiveness. We can be lulled into believing that the only joy we can experience comes from making things happen.

This was what I was trying to do when I raced to the end of True Joy. I was trying to get a quick fix of joy, as if joy is a drug. As much as we work to acquire this type of joy, it is a passive, passing joy.

This is what St. Francis refers to at the start of his story. He explains,

"A messenger comes and says that all the masters in Paris have come into the Order: but you must write: this is not true joy."

In modern terms St. Francis tells us,

"You receive a telephone call from a head hunter offering you a job with a promotion and extensive increase in salary. This is not true joy. You redecorate the interior of your home and it looks lovely, but this is not true joy. You are accepted into the most prestigious Ivy League school in America, but this is not true joy."

A promotion, completion of an improvement project, acceptance into a program, these are reasons to celebrate, to be proud, and they do produce joy. But they produce temporary, contingent external joy; joy that depends on circumstances lining up in just the right order over and over again. And as we know, that does not always happen.

Internal joy is different. It is harder to acquire because we must actively choose it each day. But internal joy is true joy, an active creation of delight and pleasure. True joy occurs when we live in the moment, opening the door to inspiration and meaning, especially during hardship. True joy enables us to look to the future with hope rather than anxiety. True joy springs from the interior world and its development. True joy enables us to overcome our inner emptiness and fill our empty chair with a mensch — a real person.

I've gone back to St. Francis' story every day since I first read it. It reminds me of a Buddhist koan or the parables of Jesus. It is both simple and complex, elusive and attainable, challenging yet worthy. It doesn't offer the easy answers that one might expect from a 13th century Christian saint. Joy is not found in God, in good works, in salvation, or even in kindness. Somehow joy is found in patience, in a very real, irritating moment, and we the readers are left to wonder why.

I have this picture in my mind of a cold, muddy Francis knocking on a gate and being refused entrance. Like any of us, Francis had to stand out in the cold, experience rejection and take what comes. But his comment was not "Thank you for this lesson, my child". It was, "If I had patience, and did not become upset, there would be true joy in this." True joy lives deeper than external situations. True joy springs from within and it is grounded in a profound awareness of both the joys and sorrows that are life.

The great religious and moral philosophers all seem to agree on this point — joy and sorrow are intimately intertwined. Francis of Assisi attempts to find joy in the midst of intense discomfort, fatigue, and irritation. Poet Kahlil Gibran tells us "the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain". German philosopher Friedrich Nietsche insisted that joy only exists with the knowledge of pain. Joy is not a negation of sorrow or pain. Rather the two are inseparable. Joy is the counterpart to sadness. And sadness affirms joy.

This profound relationship between joy and sorrow is lovingly depicted in the 1999 Academy Award winning Italian film Life is Beautiful. The film is set in Italy in the 1940's and features a Jewish Italian man played by Roberto Benini. Benini's character is spontaneous, creative, loving and joyful. The film starts easily enough. Benini falls in love with the woman of his dreams and he woos her away from her crusty, powerful fiancé.

He does everything to capture her heart, and ours. He crawls under banquet tables. He impersonates a Nazi, he ruins cars and fabric. The woman, too, is special and she sees that she would rather live a hardworking life with a man who adores her and brings her joy, than a wealthy life with a powerful man who owns her but does not love her. And he does not bring her joy.

Our hero and heroine marry and in a few years they have a son. Their family is charming. Italy is charming. We are charmed.

But throughout the romance we are troubled by disturbing changes in their village — harassment and persecution of Jews, and the increasing presence of Nazis. Our charming family gets sent to a concentration camp, and here the film sets out to show that joy and sorrow truly walk hand in hand.

In the camp, Benini's character does anything to protect his small son and communicate with his adored wife. He concocts wild stories. He takes enormous risks. At points it is impossible to know whether to laugh or cry, and sometimes I found myself doing both.

The movie is both honest and emotionally confusing. During the romance I wondered how much I could put aside my concern for the persecution of the Jews, and when the family is sent to the camp I wondered how much I could laugh at Benini's truly outrageous antics. A classic is certainly his creative translation of the camp guard's rules, all for the benefit of his son. Somehow he turns an intensely ominous moment into "Rule number two — no whining if you can't have a snack!"

I left this film happy, sad and confused. Was it really funny? It was, but can anyone laugh about a film set in a concentration camp? Was that insulting? On the other hand are we supposed to suffer all the time because suffering exists? Do the merits of joy stand on their own? Might even suffering call for authentic joy, because life calls for joy?

Audiences love this film because it says "Yes" to true joy, and because of this it says "Yes" to life. This begins as a film about external contingent joy. Will Benini get his love? But it quickly moves into a film about internal joy, true joy. Can joy survive when the external world shuts down all kindness, all generosity, most humanity, and all contingent joy? This film tests the existence of joy, and tells us that joy can survive even intense deprivation and cruelty. Life is beautiful.

We are starved for this message. I was surprised this film was such a hit. Its success tells me that we are struggling with this very issue. We are afraid that life is ugly. We are afraid that sorrow is winning. And yet, we want to believe that joy lives. We want to believe that a Benini exists in each one of us. He is our hero because he is our hope.

The wonder of Benini's character is his ability to create joy, even while he suffers, and he does suffer. Life is Beautiful tests the theory that suffering always calls for sorrow, that it is impossible to celebrate when there is sadness in the world. Benini's character insists otherwise. He tells us that we must authentically celebrate joy anywhere we find it. More than that, that we must choose to create joy, and that joy can be created any day.

No wonder we want to claim Benini as part of ourselves. He is a mensch. He lives with outer emptiness and the potential for inner emptiness, and still creates joy. He mixes sorrow with joy and creates wholeness.

In her book Joy, Inspiration, and Hope, Swiss psychoanalyst Verena Kast maintains that our culture spends far too much time exploring anxiety, depression, and anger, and not enough time exploring joy and hope. She writes:

More attention should be given to all emotions, but especially the emotions of elation because a great deal is said about anxiety ...Rage, too, is the subject of discussion .... Shame and guilt have received a good deal of attention, as have depression and grief. But joy, inspiration, hope, and related emotions are seldom spoken of, in spite of the fact that a major concern of every therapy — and every life — is the individual's search for happiness and high spirits.

Kast goes even farther, She believes that we distrust joy. We equate it with irresponsibility and mania. I even had some of this reaction to Benini's character. Was it irresponsible for him to be creating joy in a concentration camp? Another version of this can be guilt about experiencing joy after the death of a loved one, or the inability to feel any pleasure when others in the world suffer.

Yes, we must grieve. And sometimes joy is not possible. We must act with care and authenticity. But are we not called to be joyful when joy honestly comes, when we wake in the morning and see that it truly is a wonderful world? Sorrow is just one part of life. We are also called to foster true, internal joy so that life is good, worth living, beautiful.

There is a great difference between irresponsibility and joy. I have come to the conclusion that we are actually irresponsible when we refuse authentic joy. We cheat ourselves and those who suffer. Those who suffer need our authentic joy so that they can remember it is asleep upon their bed. And we will need their help when it is asleep upon our own. The rabbinical teachers always say "Choose life" (L'chaim). Choose life. Make room for both sorrow and joy.

Gibran reminds us that joy and sorrow are inseparable. "Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed." His words offer comfort. They area gentle reminder that joy and sorrow walk hand in hand. And when I find sorrow they remind me that joy is still asleep upon my bed.

Cry when you are sad. Talk to someone when you are depressed. Run ten miles or make a change when you are angry. But sing in the car when you're happy. Laugh long and loud when something is funny. Do a cartwheel on your front lawn just because you still can. When you've had a few at next year's Oktoberfest and you're feeling good, join in the Beer Barrel Polka. Color with your kids. In the words of the Rebbe of Nachman, "Joy is mot merely incidental to your spiritual quest. It is vital".

Joy is out there, waiting for all of us. Joy is mystical, spontaneous fun. Joy is creative, inspiring, and strangely enough, normal. In an oddly comforting way, it is easier to achieve joy from within than from without. We can't get every job we want or every home we like. We certainly can't get every family member to behave, and rarely have I been on a vacation that looked like the photograph in the brochure. But we can open ourselves to the joy that lives within each of us. Perhaps the hardest part is recognizing our own joy and giving it room to grow. Make room. There is joy without and within. Make room for it to grow.

BENEDICTION

Go out into the world in peace
Have courage
Hold on to what is good
Return to no person evil for evil.

Strengthen the fainthearted
Support the weak
Help the suffering
Honor all persons.

May your eyes see only beauty
Your ears be filled with sweet songs
Your hands hold only gladness
Your feet be dancing on the ground.

As you turn in to the morning
Bathing in the dew
May your heart burst into flower
Your joy be ever true.