Surprised by Joy: The Joyous Defeat

There are few things harder than to preach the funeral of a convicted murder who committed suicide. Not just that he was a criminal but that he was a father of an eight year old boy I befriended. This young boy with his father in prison latched on to me at camp and I began to find myself filling some of the hole left by an absent dad. I saw the boy come to follow Jesus. He was so full of life despite his difficult circumstances.


You can read the rest of this third post out of a four part series on joy at The Neighborhood Cafe:
http://bibleconversation.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/surprised-by-joy-the-joyous-defeat/

Surprised by Joy: The Pursuit of Happiness

The summer of 2004 found me on the journey many of my generation have found themselves on, I was trying to “find myself.” More specifically I was trying to find happiness. I had been diagnosed with depression and placed on medication. While I found some relief in my meds, the depression still placed heavy chains around me.

So in a quest to figure out why I was so sad, I spent the summer engaging in the places, people, and things that had brought me the most happiness in my short life. I built docks with my dad and brother on the coast of South Carolina, I visited my mom in the Ozarks of Arkansas, I traveled across the country following my favorite band at the time, and I spent time with my friends. Each time I would taste the once distant happiness but each time the overwhelming feeling of emptiness would return, but I kept looking.

To read the rest of this second part of a five part series, go The Neighborhood Cafe.

Rejoice in the Simple Things

Joy Unfinished

This is a draft of a blog I began writing back in August of 2010.  The subject of this blog, "joy," stunned me back then and I have done much soul-searching concerning its lack in my life and the lives of those around me. I did not finish this blog because I was not finished exploring the topic of joy. So I give you this rough draft, in basically the unfinished form it was left in and wonder how you would fill in the gaps. I have come to my own conclusions and that has been a joy in itself.  

Michala, Mary Grace, and I recently visited my childhood home of Pawleys Island, SC.  While we stuffed ourselves on ribs and boiled peanuts, our sense of awe was also filled with the breath-taking beauty of the South Carolina lowcountry.  Some folks think us South Carolinians are arrogant (and they are probably right) but it is hard not to have a pride of life living in a place with such a sense of mystique.  Located a few miles north of Pawleys is an old plantation that has been reinvented as an enormous sculpture garden called Brookgreen Gardens.  Leaving Mary Grace with her Papa Johnny, Michala and I set out to continue our gluttonous consumption of beauty, and we were not disappointed. Brookgreen is larger than life, spanning 9,000 acres and several miles of coast upon the Waccamaw River.  Michala and I forgot about the 90 plus degree weather coupled with an almost surreal level of humidity as we walked beneath the limbs of 300 year-old, moss draped live oak trees.  We felt like kids again in this wonderful place, as if we had walked through a wardrobe to get to this Narnia.  Yet the one thing that most struck me, seered my soul even, was the sculpture entitled "Frog Baby" (pictured above).  In this artist's depiction of young boy's reaction after he has snared two frogs, the frog baby gazes heavenward with a smile that leaves the viewer both inwardly renewed and yet haunted to the core.  Most of the people in our group produced similar outward reation, that of laughter mixed with a hint of scoff.  Yet the boy's face has not failed to leave me alone in the three weeks since we met.  In fact it is more of a haunting than anything, the way it stays with me.  I have been left to ponder why would this expression of sheer joy be haunting? Inside each of us is alonging for true joy, but the pains of this life often choke to death any eruption of joy in our lives.

I saw that same face agian this morning upon my daughter.  As we were preparring for church this morning, I took it upon my self to dance with Mary Grace. I dipped and dunked as she held on to me, curious as to what brough on such silliness and then I spun her around.  At first her face only knew shock, but that was quickly wiped away by joy, leaving me looking into the smile of the frog baby.

A New Memory

Here we are again in the season of  Advent.  A time of waiting and hoping and celebrating and even a bit of mourning. With each season we remember the past, the times spent with family no longer with us, of dishes that no one will ever make like she did, of better times even.  In this remembering we mourn what we have lost and we hope, not in some assured, grin-soaked way, but in a maybe, a wish-upon-a-star way, that we just might create memories that will be worth missing one day.  This Thanksgiving, I missed my mom, I missed my brother, I missed grandma and her stuffing (its good enough to make a man cry), but we forged ahead as a new family, not-so-familiar faces crowded around a not-so-familiar table hoping that we were creating a new memory. 

In many ways the season of Advent is like this.  We remember the stories of our youth about wise men, a horrible king, angels, stars, a manger; and if you are like me, you mourn.  These things fail to ignite my imagination the way they once did, I guess thats the trouble with growing up.  But I see in my daughter a bit of hope.  She is not quite old enough to understand the stories, but I have never seen a face so joyous as when she sees a horse or a star or Christmas lights.  Her's is a scary face in that it is completely unfiltered by the years that have jaded us.  It is a scary face because I want to experience that joy too and fear I never will.  But I hope.  I cannot give up, I must hope to make new memories for her and hopefully myself as well.  And here is what makes Advent so special for me, we do not simply remember and mourn, but we also hope.  We hope when all the world around us tells us not to.  We hope even in the face of suffering.  It is a foolish thing to do, and yet we become fools because what choice do we really have.  Jesus is coming again and He has made us some promises, that He will give us His joy and nothing will ever take it from us again.  He is creating new memories for us, greater memories that will shine so bright that the mourning will never come again.  

It may seem foolish to hope for such things, but maybe, just maybe, God will fix this world and nothing will ever be the same again.  I sure hope so.

Advent Reflections - Part 3

Each week of the Advent season a different aspect of our anticipation of the coming Lord is emphasized. This week's focus is upon Joy. While many of us would be quick to list joy as a major Christian attribute, less of us understand it or even worse have ever truly experienced it. For some of us, we even wonder if there is anything to be joyous about at all. So what is this whole joy thing about anyway?

When I think of how joy and waiting mingle, especially during this season, I think of Christmas Eve when I was a little kid. I could NEVER go to sleep. As hard as I tried, sleep seemed to always allude me those nights, but it really didn't matter; I was just so anxious about what the dawn (and Santa) would bring. While presents were high on my list, the whole experience excited me. The glow of the tree in the low light of early morning, everyone in their underwear and jammies, hair all a mess, a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy made by my favorite chef (mom!), the huge pile of waste accumulated by the end of the unwrapping session, rummaging through what seemed like a bottomless stocking, seeing the rest of my family open the gifts I had picked out, and the afternoon trip to Grandma's for even more fun. It was the highlight of my year and sleep simply could not compare. I knew that just around the corner was a day unlike any other, a day of peace, excitement, and joy.

Yet, I grew up. I have lost much of that sense of wonder from my youth. I now know better about jolly old Saint Nick and mom is a thousand miles away. I will probably sleep quite soundly on December 24th. Often my only real hope for the holiday season is that I might actually enjoy it. Is this what we call maturity? Dear Lord, I hope not. I believe we could all learn quite a bit from our younger selves. They would tell us to play some more, to imagine, and to laugh. They would tell us to let go of our pride and shame and run into our daddy's arms when things hurt. Oh to have the faith of a child, Lord have mercy on me.

We need these lessons from of former selves because our present selves have incurred the burden of what we call "the real world." There are bills to pay, things to clean, papers to be written, calls to make, and we alone are responsible. We have awoken to the reality that life is hard. And in this midst of what used to a joyous season, we've heaped more burdens upon our shoulders: debt, stress, plans, worries, and strife. We fill the mall parking lots hoping to fill our hearts, only to find we've been lied to. We strive and strive looking for "something," waiting for "someday" that will set us free, that will awaken that sleepless child from Christmas eve. Yet the more stuff we amass and the more things we do, we still can not find it. A wise man once said "I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun."

Where are the glad tidings of joy? What will set us free from this body of decay? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

A new favorite song of mine is called "Embracing Accusations" by Shane and Shane (take a few minutes to listen to it then come back; just click the play button at the top of the right column). In this song, the singer is being attacked by the accusations of the devil : that we are cursed and that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. The singer then realizes that "the father of lies is telling the truth, that he is singing the song of the redeemed" We are indeed cursed and nothing can save us form this body of death. Yet the singer reminds us that the devil is so eloquent at singing the first verse of the song, but he has forgotten the refrain: Jesus Saves!

I, like my younger self am often in sleepless state but for altogether different reasons. I find rest hard to come by in a world like the one I know. So I wait. Not idly, but actively. I hope, not fleetingly but confidently. Just as Jesus came at just the right time, He shall come again. Lord knows that there is a day, right around the corner, that will change everything, a day of peace, a day of excitement, a day of Joy indeed! The following Scripture from Romans 8 fully embodies this Advent idea of joy in waiting.

"This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him.

That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens." (Romans 8:15-21 MSG)

The Apostle Paul knew what was right around the corner and he knew that in the waiting was joy. That deep down inside each of us (and even all of creation) there is an intense longing for "someday." In Christ, we can know that that "someday" is coming, that He is coming. And we can join all creation in singing the joyous victory song, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last!"