While the specific meanings of each week of Advent may vary, there is a shared understanding that the season reflects on Jesus as Messiah, a light coming into a darkened world. So this third week in Advent, I’ll focus on Joy. This week we light the “Shepherd’s candle” representing the joy at this little baby’s birth, and the joy of the light returning. Light your first candle, for hope, your second for peace, your third for joy, then read along.
I’ve written before about joy and its distinction, especially from happiness. As I put the idea of “joy” back into my heart’s slow cooker for this week’s essay, I found myself delighted by recognizing joyful things, thinking of lists of tiny little “joys” and reckoning with the idea of joy in the midst of sorrow. Then, while tidying up our bedroom yesterday and putting freshly laundered sheets on our bed (fresh sheets-an incredibly joyful thing indeed) a memory old and saturated pressed itself through the cracked door of my heart:
“I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.
Where?! Down in my heart.
Where?!”
This Friday, the 20th is Winter Solstice, the “shortest day and longest night.” It is here we see, ever so subtly, the shift in the light. Each day, after the solstice, little tiny bit by little tiny bit, the light will return, lengthen, and stretch its hands out to us, guiding us from this protective and sleepy darkness into the warmth. But we must not rush it, we must not hasten its return, because there is learning for us in this very slow emergence, and we must protect this pace so it can be our good teacher. And that is also the way of joy.
I looked up the full lyrics to the song that crept back into my mind. “Joy In My Heart” was first written as a song for Christian campers. No wonder it’s so joyful to sing. I had forgotten about this part of the song:
And if the Devil doesn’t like it he can sit on a tack!
Ouch!
Sit on a tack!
Ouch!
Sit on a tack!
And if the Devil doesn’t like it he can sit on a tack!
Ouch!
Sit on a tack to stay!
With that reminder, my mind floated back to singing this song in school recitals. Yelling, absolutely screaming, for the devil to sit on a tack. “OUCH!” We’d yell, our little vocal cords straining to protect our joy from the devil.
It was in my nature as a child to protect my joy. And dear God am I lucky to have a mother who is a Joy Cultivator.
“Don’t let it steal your joy.” Write this one down, it’s another wise truth from my mother. Something hard would happen, and she’d anchor me, like a well-placed snatch at the back of a child’s coat about to cross a busy street. “Don’t.” “Don’t let anyone or anything steal your joy, Jesie. Not ever.” She said it as seriously as one would caution about poison or something else lethal. And I heard her.
My joy is a treasure, a prized thing, a valuable gift, something worth fighting for, securing, protecting, and keeping safe. Monitoring my joy’s location like my car keys. Do I have it? I didn’t leave it on the table at the ramen restaurant, or in that last relationship, or at that last job, did I?
Treasuring joy, planting it deep in our hearts, telling anyone who tries to thwart it they can “Sit on a damn tack!” That’s how fiercely I want to value my joy. Oh, you think my laugh is too loud? That I shouldn’t slap my knee, my whole body jerking forward in hilarity? Sit on a tack.
You think I should be burdened by the world? Consumed with suffering because there is plenty to look at?” Sit on a tack.
Mary Oliver, My Mother, and I all agree:
Don't Hesitate
by Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Don’t be afraid of its plenty. Don’t let your abundant joy be stolen. Don’t let it be a crumb.
Lay down your whole life for your joy.
For what are we here, why does The Light come back at all, why would there be a Holy Baby, if we weren’t supposed to let it all overcome us with joy?
May you fiercely protect your joy, my friends. I’ll be here next week, meeting you with ideas on Love.