Happy

When I worked in my first assignment as a youth pastor, I had a young Catholic boy (yes, who was part of a UMYF group) ask me if atheists were ever happy.  I paused and thought.  Yes, atheists were probably happy, but atheists would never know joy.
I learned in seminary the subtle difference in the Hebrew understanding of those two words.  Happy is a transient feeling, but joy is eternal.  Happy will come and go, like hunger or tiredness. Joy is a state of mind that looks at the big picture. Joy is an understanding, an assessment, a conclusion. 
I'm sitting here in a hotel room with only moments before I must wake the children and we'll be on the road again to one of the most beautiful places in the United States: the Rocky Mountains. 
When I hit the Colorado border, I am usually overwhelmed with tears, because it is so beautiful.  It makes me happy to see beautiful things. Yet, when I look at the big picture, I feel joy...that I lived long enough, and had the chance, to see such a wonderful thing.  It is not the thing itself that brings me joy, but the knowing...that creation is so diverse...and often to hard...and that we have many reasons to be good to each other.  
Heading to Colorado in the midst of yesterday's tragedy...I am still a bit shell shocked by what has happened. The killing of 12 and over 50 injured.  And in Colorado...one if the most beautiful places in the country.  Again. I recall the April 20th shooting in Columbine...in Colorado...I drove around Oklahoma City yesterday, and remember the bombing of the Federal Building...it is all kind of surreal.

My gut response to this horror, these horrors...was that...of the existential loneliness these people must have had to commit such horrible acts of anger. I wonder if they every understood, or knew about joy.   They were incapable of seeing the big picture...and they may have felt no one was listening.

People are listening now.  I think of all the lives lost...and how nothing will be the same for any of those people who were there. I realize that stories would have to be told, again and again, until the healing is complete...and joy will be found again.  I wonder in sadness why these perpetrators could not find someone to listen...so that the bottle that popped inside them might not have made such a big noise...and lives could have been saved. Was it possible to stop the evil before it started?  How many people have that much pain?  Have we stopped the evil before? How many are waiting in the wings, with their own desperate plan to be heard?  How do we  help? How do we hear their suffering? 

These are the things on my mind.  An impossible task for only a few, a manageable task for the many who know what love is to some degree and know how to share it. 

I beg you to be brave and listen to those around you.  They need to talk, to speak the unspeakable so that it will not destroy the joy that lives in them.  The light has not gone out, but for some, yesterday will dim their lights to a place where they can barely be seen...or heard. 

I ask you, those who can, to stay away from the dark side, where we can blame and hate with ease...and yet not hide from the truth. Yesterday was a dark day for many.  But if you have the courage, listen authentically to the people you meet. Do not think you can fix them, or convert them...do not tell them what to do to feel better. Just listen. And remember your joy. Help others to remember theirs. There will always be hardship and sadness in this world. There will always be suffering.  There will always be the poor, the oppressed. There will always be wars.

But recall John 16:33
In this world you will have hardship, but have courage, for I have conquered the world!

Got to get the kids up.
Love, Cindy