Joy does not always seem like it comes with the morning. Or at least in my experience. And it's not the joy I saw illustrated on Sunday School felt boards. Back then joy always looked like some ancient middle-east man or woman dancing with a tambourine in a long gown. If that's joy, I'm pretty sure I didn't act that way all the time. Fortunately, I don't really think that's joy. Maybe we should work harder at redefining what joy looks like.
Then there is sadness.
There was a time when I was going through serious depression, and I hated morning even more than I normally do. It reminded me that I had a whole day to endure. As some of you who have had depression know, getting out of bed is a herculean feat much less doing anything else.
And when you are grieving the loss of someone, the morning seems to serve up Polaroid instant images in your face of this loss. There are a few seconds of amnesia, and you forget the loss, and then all of a sudden it floods back in. And it feels like it will suffocate you.
While I think the Psalms might have been speaking figuratively of joy arriving in the morning, it implies that joy does eventually arrive. And I do believe that. However, I should clarify that statement.
Happy and sad events in our lives do not equal each other out. You don't get a bout of sad events followed by a super jolt of happy events. This may have happened to some people, and I'm sure it's happened to me, but it never really feels like that. It's not an accurate way of looking at these natural reactions.
No, I think sometimes sad events happen one after another until a flotation device still won't keep you from being eaten alive by sharks.
But I think this illustrates a distinction between sad and joyful events and a deeper sense of joy and sadness that follows us daily. There can be a life event that triggers a joyful response. And this response usually looks like happiness. I don't really consider happiness and joy on the same level, though. Happiness is fleeting. Joy lasts forever.
Unless of course you have no joy. And then you are acquainted with despair. And that makes me sad.
I prefer to call this type of sadness melancholy. It's a sadness for the darkness and despair within our world. It's a sadness for poverty, injustice, sickness and death. I feel intense sadness when I think of the many homicides here in Chicago. I also experienced quite a bit of sadness when reading about the event in Rwanda back in the 1990s.
I don't think of sadness as really the antithesis of joy. Actually, I think that's more appropriately called despair. Despair is a monster. It's an abyss. Depression forces you to look into despair, and if you don't get help, I believe you can plunge into despair.
I think most of the Psalms illustrate this balance between joy and sadness. In the beginning of a Psalm, David will usually begin praising God, then he may move into wailing about his enemies, but usually at the end he comes back around to praising God again. Some have said he might have been bi-polar. I don't know about that, but I do believe that Psalms show us that joy and sadness are not completely separate experiences.
I have joy. I also have sadness. They both reside in my heart. That sounds a bit like a Sunday School song, doesn't it? Anyway.
The joy I experience seems to be more like the older term, mirth. I love that word, mirth. I also love the word melancholy. I believe God has blessed me with a sufficient amount of mirth and melancholy in all events in my life. This doesn't mean I don't get sad or even depressed, but during those dark times I still sense mirth. It's like a warm ember deep within my body and soul. It's like when you hold your breath and feel your heart beating. You can't always feel your heart beating, but if you get quiet and still yourself, you can feel it, sometimes even hear it.
My joy comes from God. Despite my failings, hypocrisy and utter selfishness, my relationship to Christ is my only reliable source of mirth through all things. Yes, I have the love and happiness from my marriage to my wife and family. My friends. My church group. But honestly, all of these people could disappear one day. I hope that day never comes, but it will be a true test of my joy in Christ.
Yet in some ways, we have all started to lose those sources of happiness. We lose loved ones. We lose our health. We lose our jobs. We lose our sense of innocence. These are sad and tragic events. And at those times, that ember of hope may seem snuffed out. It may hard to feel its warmth. I know it's there. It's a knowing that is hard to explain. To some it sounds like cyclical logic. I will say, it's never really made much sense to me, but it's always seemed right.
I really wanted to have a follow up to my original post because I felt like something was missing. I felt like my sincerity may have been lacking in parts. I am nothing if I'm not authentic about who I am and my struggles. I fear I may come off as knowing it all in this post. I don't. I really don't. This is me working things out.
And I want to be clear that if it seems as if I am proselytizing, it's because I am just sharing who I am. My faith is intrinsically bound to my being. I don't really see my spiritual life as separate from my emotional and physical life.
All I know is that despite the many times I've experienced such sadness and depression, somewhere inside me there was a deep sense of joy. There was mirth. And with confidence, I can say my joy comes with the mourning.
