What Brings You Joy?

            This week, I received a few packages... of books! This is usually an exciting thing for me to get - even when I buy them myself.  And these books are for a course I'll be taking this fall - which doubled the excitement!

            Admittedly, it doesn't take much to make me happy. Books, dogs, coffee, canoeing - we're good!

            This caused me to reflect on what it means to be happy, and what it means to be joyful. And there is a difference!

            Happiness (in the OED) is defined as "a feeling of pleasure or contentment" - how true! Many things make us happy. We can think of any number of things that we say made us smile, that made us happy. The word itself is rooted in the middle English with the sense of good fortune, of being lucky. Having received good news makes us happy!

            Joy, on the other hand, goes deeper; being defined as "a feeling of great pleasure or happiness." So it's *more* than happy, it's more lasting than happy. And the root of the word gives us the reason. Joy comes from the Latin gaudere which means to rejoice. And rejoicing, of course, an experience.

            So... happiness is a thinking sensation, a logic, a head-space reaction to positive stimulus. Whereas joy is a feeling sensation, an emotive reality, a heart-space response.

            For those of us with faith, I believe we can understand this on a different level as well. Happiness is based on something we encounter in this life - books, for example, or canoeing. Joy is based on something that transcends the limits of this realm - the gift of learning, for example, or physical release in nature. The creature of a dog makes me happy, the character of my dogs brings me joy.

            And what a delight that God gives us both. We don't have to choose; happiness and joy are not an either/or dichotomy. I think God invites us, in fact, to be intentional about seeing the joy in the moments of happiness, reflecting on what is temporal and what is eternal. And God challenges us to take moments of happiness and dig deeper.

            For in happiness, we see the good. The earthly. The tangible. And in joy, we see the magnificent. The divine, The spiritual.

            So... what makes you happy? What brings you joy? And how do you connect those things to your creator?

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice!