  Spiritual
This week: Spread a Little (or a lot) of Joy Around Edited by: Sophurky  
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Hi, I'm Sophurky ~ your editor for this edition of the Spiritual Newsletter.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, Down in My Heart - Where?!?
Joy as an essential spiritual practice is defined as the pure and simple delight of being alive, as an elated response to feelings of happiness, experiences of pleasure, and an awareness of abundance. Joy grows out of faith, grace, gratitude, hope, love, and yes, even our sorrow – and can also stem from the deep satisfaction we experience when we are able to serve others and be happy for their good fortune. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, joy is mentioned over 250 times in Scripture. Paul says that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and from John’s gospel we are told that one of Jesus’ hopes for us was that joy would dwell within us. Within the Buddhist tradition joy is one of the “Four Immeasurables,” which include loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, virtues which followers can cultivate endlessly, without limits, as good qualities for any Buddhist to possess in good measure.
In addition to these spiritual foundations, joy is good for us physically. The writer of Proverbs, who said in chapter 15, verse 30, “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones,” knew more than 3000 years ago what we have discovered fairly recently through scientific investigations in the area of psychoneuroimmunology, which informs us that angry and depressed people have weakened immune systems, while joy and humor strengthen our immune systems and are good for our health. And yet, even with references as good as these, and with scientific proof that joy is good for our health – for many of us, myself included, joy is often the most difficult practice for us to embrace for a variety of reasons in our post-modern western world.
“Part of the difficulty in releasing our shout of joy flows from the way many of us confuse joy with happiness,” writes Erie Chapman. “Happiness is a bouncing ball which drops into our lives with a perplexing randomness. My two-year old grandson can shift from sad to happy (or vice versa) in a split second based on the skill of his parents in shifting his attention or his own idea of whether he likes what’s in front of him or not. His happy/sad dance looks simple. Ours may feel more nuanced and complex. Yet both seem to rest on shifting sands. Joy, once understood and developed, rests on steadier ground. Joy flows from faith in God or belief in Love. To me, they’re the same thing. Joy is an energy that, once released, graces our lives to the end of our days. Grief lives in us as well. We grieve our fundamental loneliness and we grieve the periodic loss of those who seemed to free us from the pain of isolation’s trap."
There are certainly hundreds of reasons on any given day NOT to be joyful. We can be content at times, sure, and maybe even experience a short-lived bout of happiness. But joy – that’s much more difficult for some of us to achieve and maintain because there is so much going on NOT to be joyful about when we turn on the news or get a distressing phone call from a friend. As of this writing the US government is still shut down and the debt ceiling limit may expire at midnight; we may be worried about job security or concerned about a family member or friend who is seriously ill; we turn on the news and hear yet another story about people with guns or chemical weapons killing masses of people, or about one of the countless rampant injustices that continue unabated in our world. In other words, there are a variety of things going on in our personal lives as well as around the rest of the world that can suck the joy right out of us. And when we DO manage to have an experience of joy, we may not allow it to stick around for very long because we feel guilty about it – perhaps because we think it’s wrong to experience joy while so many others are suffering, or because we recall something we are concerned about which pushes the joy to the back of the line once again.
Of course we care deeply about the injustices of the world. And because there is so much wrong in our world we become understandably angry about it. The good news is that our righteous anger can fuel our passion and energize us to fight to bring about an end to injustice. But the bad news is if the anger is the only emotion we experience – if we become so focused on what’s wrong in the world that we allow ourselves to become incapable of feeling joy – that does no one any good – not us, not the people we are trying to help. The truth is that joy is contagious, it is persuasive – when we are around joyful people some of their joy tends to rub off on us. And if we are joyful our joy can rub off on others.
A couple of weeks ago I had that experience. I was feeling distressed about what was going on in Washington DC, worried about its outcome while mourning the losses experienced in Kenya and stressing out about an upcoming medical test. I came across a video, which at the time, had about 1 million hits on YouTube. I became #1,000,001. In the video, a little girl and her dad sing “Tonight You Belong to Me,” a song made popular by Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in the movie, “The Jerk.” The little girl in the video is 4 years old and adorable. Her dad writes in the video description, “She thought she kept hearing fireworks and couldn’t sleep, so we sang to keep her mind preoccupied. In the end, nothing competes with fireworks.” The result is a ridiculously cute 3 minute video that now has over 3 million hits on YouTube. (I will post it on the web page with this Reflection so you can put it over the top!) I’ve watched it countless times now, can’t get the song out of my head (which isn’t a bad thing actually), shared it on Facebook where I originally found it, and saw many of my friends reshare the video. The video creates pure joy for those who watch it, and after the evening news of the earlier days, it was a welcome relief.
On the other hand, the opposite of joy, whatever that is – rage? anger? – is also contagious, but nothing is less persuasive than walking around angry and full of rage. Because oftentimes when we are striving for righteous indignation all we end up with is self-righteousness and the two are nothing alike, and self-righteousness gets nothing accomplished. So how do we find a way to seek justice and be joyful? Frederick Buechner says that, “The world is full of suffering indeed, and to turn our backs on it is to work a terrible unkindness maybe almost more on ourselves than on the world. But life indeed is also to be enjoyed. I suggest that may even be the whole point of it.” In other words yes, there is much to be angry about, much for us to try and remedy to bring about a just world – but there is also much for us to be joyful about, and for which to be grateful. If we only focus on the anger or sorrow we miss out on the joy. So there’s got to be some kind of balance, a way to be joyful AND acknowledge sorry and injustice.
Since, as I’ve already said, joyfulness can be contagious – let’s take a few moments and do some writing: share what makes you joyful.
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Below you'll find some recent offerings from other WDC members. Don't forget to leave a review and rating if you read the item.
First a few from some newbies to check out:
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And a few more from other members:
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A meditation on how we leave our legacies.
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Now for some comments about my last newsletter "Spiritual Newsletter (September 18, 2013)" about writing a letter to your younger self:
From Sweethonesty 
Submission of "Letter to my Ten Year Old Self" for review. "Invalid Item"
Great, thanks so much for sharing this! 
    
From BIG BAD WOLF is Howling 
Here's what I'd say to my 10 year old self-
Dear 10 Year-Old Self,
You'll be going through Hell soon. Be sure to dunk your head in the water once you get out- you'll save most of your hair that way.
From Your 24 Year-Old Self
From A*Monaing*Faith
my o my, the things I'd say to my 10 yr old self; been thinking about her a lot lately, that was a big year in terms of divorce and learning about a bio dad didn't know existed, yep double digits meant double the news/problems; but it was still a great year
Kind of cool to put it all into perspective, isn't it?
From Prosperous Snow celebrating 
Here is my letter to my 10-year-old self. This is a fun and inspirational writing exercise. "A Letter to My Younger Self"
Great, thanks for sharing it!
From Princess Megan Snow Rose 
I really enjoyed this newsletter and I have a new lease on life. You wrote this newsletter at the right time and this is informative and helpful as I recover from my surgery and renew my spiritual faith. Never take life for granted.
So glad it was helpful. Blessings.
From Shannon 
LOVE SoulPancake! Oprah often features their work on her show Super Soul Sunday. Great NL. 
Aww gee, thanks!
From Mia - craving colour
HI Sophy,
Just taking you up on your challenge to write to my 10 year old self.
Here's the letter: "Invalid Item"
Excellent, thanks! Hope you enjoyed the exercise.
Please keep your comments and suggestions coming! Until next time! Sophurky |
| ASIN: B083RZ37SZ |
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Spiritual: October 16, 2013 Issue [#5945]
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