Creating Joy or We Are Made For Joy!

a sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, March 25, 2007

Recently, as I was strolling along a touristy street in downtown Asheville, North Carolina; I came upon a window that was filled with huge colorful three dimensional stars….they filled the storefront window hanging at different levels…they were like lampshades with little starlight size holes all over…I was wowed, I loved them…the color, the light, the beauty, the extravagance of it….I started imagining what it would be like to fill a corner of a room with them- or a whole room…my bedroom perhaps, or my office or how about the sanctuary??

I had witnessed gratuitous beauty, playful and without purpose. It made me feel joyous and full of energy. I wondered how people would behave and relate to one another if they had bright star shine in their lives everyday…if they had a roomful of stars.

Most summers our family takes a week at the shore. Last year at Bethany, I was out walking early, by myself. Walking along the firm sand at the waters’ edge…the sun already pretty high over the calm water…I saw a bevy of dolphins doing their graceful dance…moving along in morning jazzercise mode….leaping, swimming, cuddling, leaping again.

I kept walking and looking. There weren’t too many people about yet. Just a lot of shore birds, and those fabulously entertaining dolphins.

When exposed to mother nature’s miracles, I always get to wondering. Why do the dolphins travel right to left every morning and left to right in the evening? Do they do this everyday…whether I’m there to see it. Are they keeping an appointment of some kind…a sea world gig, perhaps? Are they having as much fun as it seems?

As I watched, more and more schools of dolphins kept dancing by…a veritable bunny hop almost. And they just kept on coming…more than I had ever seen before. I stopped to watch them…trying to count, impossible! Trying to figure out the dance. No luck!

I stood still, not quite believing my eyes, grateful that I had gotten out for that early walk on the beach. Grateful that we hadn’t polluted the oceans beyond what the dolphins needed…feeling the warm sun rising, enjoying the wind in my face…I stood still …feeling a quiet joy somewhere deep inside of me.

As joy took hold, I felt the urge to pray, or to write a poem, or to run home and share with everyone, my vision of happiness…

I knew that in this moment, I was witnessing holy creation. I was part of the holiness of creation. I knew myself to be connected to the sand upon which I stood, the waters lapping at my feet, the sky arched over my head, and the lively dancers in the sea.

Presbyterian minister, Frederick Buechner, in a sermon, describes an experience similar to mine, when watching a show of whales at Sea World, he was brought to tears…just as I was brought to prayer…

Of his experience, Buechner writes: “We shed tears because we had caught a glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom, and it had almost broken our hearts. For a few moments we had seen Eden and been part of the great dance that goes on at the heart of creation.”

He goes on, “The world is full of darkness, but what I think we caught sight of in that tourist trap in Orlando, of all places, was that at the heart of darkness, who would have believed it? - There is joy unimaginable.”

The world is full of darkness. And at the heart of the world is joy unimaginable!

As I was preparing for this sermon this week, I had first to officiate at two memorial services. On Friday, a family celebrated the life of husband and father, a man of wit and wisdom, a man who put family above all else…a man who died of a sudden heart attack at home in his living room. As the teenage daughter and the young adult son eulogized their father this room was filled with the sound of weeping.

And yet, at the dark heart of their grief, was joyful thanksgiving – they knew, without question, they had the love of their father. She knew she had had the love of her life. And they knew that his laughter and compassion and kindness would live on in them. Without a doubt, at the heart of their darkness was a confident joy. They knew how lucky they were.

Now is the moment when I need to change the title of this sermon. For as I thought about darkness and joy...I thought, foolishly, that we had to create joy for ourselves. My mom used to have a license plate that said so…”Create Joy”, it said…It was a mantra of the late 1960s. Create peace, create joy.

But Reverend Buechners’ sermon reminds me, and this wonderful family reminds me that at the heart of life – joy is what we belong to…not darkness, not grief, not fear, not cynicism or emptiness, joy is what we belong to…Joy is home…our spiritual home, what we are made for. Buechner says that his tears were homesick tears. Perhaps my impulse to fall down on my knees in front of the dolphins…was a ritual of coming home to the source.

So this sermon ought to be titled, “Made for Joy”. We are made for joy. How might that change our priorities…living each day, as if, we are made for joy!

Joy, not happiness. Happiness comes when things are going our way…when we achieve our own goals. When we are successful and fulfilled. But happiness is fleeting, happiness comes and goes…the darkness always returns.

Joy rises up simply out of being alive…being human a part of nature. When we experience the awe of a sunset, or the way the light crosses the floor in the kitchen…or the sound of a cello or a solo voice…or the color and shape of an orange… Like our reading…the smallest things can bring us joy. That is because the joy is already within us. It is always there. We are made for joy, and stars, and dolphins, and babies, and sunrises, and music…remind us of our essential nature. Joy is a spiritual quality, one that may be felt only rarely, but is always a potential.

Unitarian Universalist theology has often been criticized for being theology-light, too positive…without a doctrine of sin and forgiveness, without the threat of hellfire and brimstone to encourage compassion, kindness and adherence to a set of commandments. If everyone gets into heaven …then why be good? And if there is no hell, why worry?

But like most faiths…we too are called to witness to the good…to know the deep spiritual kind of awe and joy.

Our founding Unitarian church in Boston is Kings Chapel, the long time UU minister there, Carl Scovel, now retired…gave the Berry Street Lecture to the 1994 General Assembly in Ft. Worth. He calls the heart of his faith…the “great surmise”.

He wrote: “The Great Surmise says simply this: at the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest and to which we shall at last return. This is the supreme mystery of our lives. This goodness is ultimate- not fate, not freedom, not mystery, energy, order nor finitude, but this good intent in creation is our source, our center, and our destiny…our work on earth is to explore, enjoy, and share this goodness. “Neither duty nor suffering nor progress nor conflict, not even survival- is the aim of love, but joy. Deep abiding, uncompromised joy.

We are made for joy.

Imagine if we lived with that knowledge. How would I plan my day, if I knew that I was made for joy? How would I talk to my children, my friends…how would I lead in my role here at UUCR? Our living is intended to be joyful, joy-filled. Not something we work at creating, but a spiritual quality that is an essential and radical part of who we are.

We are made for joy.

This week on the national scene, John and Elizabeth Edwards announced that her cancer had returned, and that they would continue in their campaign for the Presidency. They made a public announcement of their intention for joy. “We look for the silver lining, she said” “That is who we are.”

Whatever we might think of their decision, and I don’t presume to know what is right for them as a family…this certainly was a moment in which they were declaring that they were made for joy. The darkness was upon them, but they were made for joy.

Joy is not always a big deal, like campaigning for president of the United States, or writing a great poem, or winning at something…no, most often it is much smaller, like three dimensional stars in a store window, or a trip to see the dolphins, or a dinner by candlelight…or a bedtime story with your child.

What might you do today or tomorrow, if you knew and accepted…that you were made for joy? You don’t have to create it, it is there for you…inside of you, outside of you, in the natural world. In the heart of creation…of which you are a part.

Henry David Thoreau asked a question: “with all of your science can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?”

The light in our soul, is a mysterious gift. It is there in the tiny infant, it is there in the rambunctious 10 year old, it is there in the excess of the teenager, it is there within each of us. The light in our soul, a gift. The joy in our being, an essential spiritual quality.

May we know and celebrate the gift of joy within. Let it shine, Let it flow, let it dance with the dolphins.

Live well, knowing that you are made for joy!

Amen/Blessed Be