Ecstatic Joy!
In thirty plus years in the western model of Christianity my encounters
with joy have been sadly few and far between. What I have tasted has
been so exquisite that it has been a major factor in me hanging on. The
tragic thing is that I’ve always known that joy should be the normative
state for one in communion with God. The message I got from leaders who
often had less joy than me was to define it as something deep that you can’t always feel. Yeah. Right. Sure. I buy that.
I think that joy and all the fruits begin with acceptance. They emerge
from right where you are in the moment. You don’t work it up and it
isn’t waiting for you out there somewhere. It is found by becoming
acquainted with yourself on the inside and cultivating the maintenance
of your spirit. To put it heretically you likely won’t become a joyful
Christian until you learn how to pray like a Buddhist or Hindu. Until we
learn to come to God holistically, our spirit will remain a mystery to
us. Real prayer pays deep attention to self as well as God. It is
arrogance disguised, as humility when we think that ignoring our state
of being will connect us with God. Prayer pays attention to our bodies,
our aches and pains our stresses and draws upon His energy in us to
those needs. Real prayer embraces our sexuality that gains it’s huge
role in our lives not because of hormonal drive, but because the
physical is a dim image of our intimate union with God and creation. The
real thing has no stain of shame and is marked by its immense beauty
rather than just pleasure. A maintained spirit is a natural conduit for
joy that can be fairly consistent through many circumstances, if we keep
it flowing as we relate to people and creation with deep compassion.
Being self aware and soft-hearted allows us to be aware of the heart
condition of others giving us the ability to meet them with compassion
hearing the cry of their hearts rather the protective outer shell.
In thirty plus years in the western model of Christianity my encounters with joy have been sadly few and far between. What I have tasted has been so exquisite that it has been a major factor in me hanging on. The tragic thing is that I’ve always known that joy should be the normative state for one in communion with God. The message I got from leaders who often had less joy than me was to define it as something deep that you can’t always feel. Yeah. Right. Sure. I buy that.
I think that joy and all the fruits begin with acceptance. They emerge from right where you are in the moment. You don’t work it up and it isn’t waiting for you out there somewhere. It is found by becoming acquainted with yourself on the inside and cultivating the maintenance of your spirit. To put it heretically you likely won’t become a joyful Christian until you learn how to pray like a Buddhist or Hindu. Until we learn to come to God holistically, our spirit will remain a mystery to us. Real prayer pays deep attention to self as well as God. It is arrogance disguised, as humility when we think that ignoring our state of being will connect us with God. Prayer pays attention to our bodies, our aches and pains our stresses and draws upon His energy in us to those needs. Real prayer embraces our sexuality that gains it’s huge role in our lives not because of hormonal drive, but because the physical is a dim image of our intimate union with God and creation. The real thing has no stain of shame and is marked by its immense beauty rather than just pleasure. A maintained spirit is a natural conduit for joy that can be fairly consistent through many circumstances, if we keep it flowing as we relate to people and creation with deep compassion. Being self aware and soft-hearted allows us to be aware of the heart condition of others giving us the ability to meet them with compassion hearing the cry of their hearts rather the protective outer shell.
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