(This sermon is dedicated to Linda Buddenhagen who gave me the inspiration) 

What is happiness, and is it achievable? Moreover, is the pursuit of happiness really where we ought to be putting our efforts, or as people of faith and morals, are there other more virtuous pursuits that we should be pursuing? 

How does one define happiness? Surely that definition unique to each individual. For some of us it may be letting loose and having fun. For others it is laughter and glee. Still others call themselves happy when they are at rest, free of obligations, or left alone to read their books or bask in the sun. It all depends. 

Joy, on the other hand, shares similarities between people as it is less about what “I” like and more about how I experience the world. It often comes as a gift or a moment of grace, often at the least expected, and sometimes most needed, of times.  

I think of the feeling of euphoria that came over me one day while I was sitting with two of my colleagues. In that moment, I knew that I loved them deeply and completely. Interesting that I didn’t know these people well. This full-bodied experience that lasted about four seconds. 

I call that joy. I bet that you’ve had your moments too. Are they evidence of the Divine? I  wonder. 

This brings up the question “What does the Divine mean?” For me the Divine is not an anthropomorphic God in the sky or Czar of the heavens. It is not a God who allows bad things to happen or, even worse, makes bad things happen. The Divine as I understand includes mystery, the mystery that defies understanding. Though incomprehensible, it is good, it exists, and it is not us. Another way I define the Divine is Love, as in an animating force experienced through genuine and open-hearted connection between people, nature, and animals. Many people call this God. I do, too—Love, mystery, goodness, unshakeable kindness, good orderly direction.  

So, is joy evidence of the Divine? 

These questions about the definition of happiness, joy and the Divine have taken up space in my brain for a long time. 

Many of the most joyful people I know have come from, or are even currently, experiencing extreme adversity. I speak of this observation with great care and with deep respect as I do not in any want to discount the horrendous and often generational impact that financial hardship, abuse, addiction, and other difficult conditions have on people’s lives. 

Clearly joy and happiness are different. For example, when I say that people are joyful during or despite hard times, I am not saying that they are happy. It is common for people who are going through deep grief to experience spontaneous breakthrough moments of joy. Oftentimes those moments get them through the grief. 

David Brooks in his new book The Second Mountain defines happiness as having to do with an achievement or success and being inherently is centered around self. He writes that joy, on the other hand, transcends the self and includes connection and relationship with others. 

Brooks also claims that while happiness is apt to be fleeting, joy can become a way of being or orientation in life. “Joy is a richer and fuller state beyond happiness…. We are pleased by happiness, but we are transformed by Joy. When we experience joy we often feel we have glimpsed into a deeper and truer level of reality.” 

For this to be true, as I believe it is, joy cannot be dependent on external conditions. We can, of course, experience joy in response to things outside of ourselves, as when we see a beautiful sunset or reach out to someone in need. However, if we make joy contingent on external conditions, we are destined to be disappointed.  

Brooks identifies five levels of joy: physical joy, collective effervescence and celebratory dance, emotional joy, spiritual joy, and finally transcendent joy. 

Physical joy is often experienced when you are in the flow, whether jogging or gardening. 

Collective effervescence and celebratory dance happen when you move with or dance with other people. Barbara Holmes describes this same phenomenon in the lives of black people in her book Joy Unspeakable. 

Emotional joy is that feeling you get being with your pet, having coffee with a dear friend, or watching a child play. 

Spiritual joy, to Brooks and many others, is the peak experience we can have. It is amazing, even life altering. Spiritual joys often involve mystical experiences, “not from movement or love but from an unexpected contact with something that seems boundaryless, pure spirit”  

A friend of mine who was in the middle of treatment for cancer described spiritual joy when she told me that despite everything, there was a “wonderfulness” that was completely unexpected, yet palpable.  

It is not at all uncommon for these times of spiritual joy, counterintuitive as it is, to happen during difficult or painful times in our lives. Is this evidence of the Divine? 

There is the risk of these peak experiences or moments of spiritual joy setting us up for years of searching for that high again.  

Transcendent joy is an experience, Brooks says, of feeling “at one with nature, the Universe, or God.” These moments may be gone in a blink of an eye, but they change us and stay with us for the rest of our lives. 

My calling to ministry falls into this category. I was holding my infant daughter in my arms. We were in that blissful state of relaxed connection, when I heard a voice say, “You will write my book.” I interpreted the words “You will write my book” to mean that I would go into ministry. 

The joy that accompanied that moment was indescribable. It was like nothing that I had ever felt before or after. Now you might be doubtful about this mystical experience.  I was so skeptical that I didn’t act on the call for decades. Yet, though it never came again, it was so powerful that I never forgot it and eventually followed its advice. 

Eighty-four percent of respondents in a 2016 Gallop Poll said that they had experienced such a mystical experience. Seventy-five percent of them said that they do not speak of it, as there is a societal “taboo.” 

Brooks goes on to say that there is joy beyond physical, emotional, spiritual and transcendent joy. This is the highest level of joy, which he calls moral joy. This can become a permanent state of being. 

This joy, which he believes comes in the second half of life, after you have spent time pursuing happiness, comes from living a life aligned with your “ultimate commitments” and then giving yourself away to those commitments “wholeheartedly.” Those experiencing this joy are people who “…are grateful to have found their place and taken their stand. They have found their inner light.” 

Paula Poundstone came to some similar conclusions in her book, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness, albeit in a more irreverent and comedic angle. In her experiments to understand what causes happiness, she found that exercise, including dancing, and spending time alone do give you some “heps,” or moments of happiness. This happiness or sense of wellbeing does extend for some time after the experience. 

She found that computers, including social media, getting organized, and watching movies all day do not, overall, bring you happiness. 

Poundstone found that helping other people and having a sense of purpose were definitely important to happiness. She writes, “This happiness thing has a lot to do with balance and profit/loss margins. I don’t just mean money, of course. It’s about what I put in, what I get out, and what I give up to do so.”  Near the end of her book, she writes, “Happiness is more complex than I had realized….In the past I had confused happiness with having fun.”

It behooves us to seek happiness. We just can’t make it the sole indicator of a life well lived. I think we would do well to also pursue satisfaction, serenity, and meaning

There are many good companions for happiness: feelings of satisfaction or contentment for a job well done or for following our values in an ethically challenging situation; peace or serenity as we spend time with loved ones or listen to familiar music; and the sense of meaning or purpose when we think of others or contribute where we can. 

Joy is in a different category. It is a result of how we live, day in and day out, and is a gift given to us at unexpected times, often when we need it the most. 

The quote at the top of today’s order of service, “Joy is an Act of Resistance,” is by Dericotte Toi.  This comes from a poem in which Toi is writing about her love for her goldfish. This love of a goldfish, not the world problems or the greatest people of earth, this singular love of a fish ultimately leads her to joy. 

An African American woman, Toi writes this about the poem, “Why would a black woman need a fish to love? What does her love have to do with 500 years of sorrow, then joy, coming up like a small breath, a bubble? What does it have to do with the graveyards of the Atlantic in her mother’s heart? I liked him for his tailfin which was long like a mermaid’s and flowed like a silver blue ruffle in the water, larger than you’d expect a little fish’s tail to be –“ 

Anne Morrow Lindbergh said this, “For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.” 

Joy in the worst of times? Yes, it is possible. Joy when it feels like there is no way out? Yes, it happens. Joy when we least expect it? Absolutely.  Joy as evidence of the Divine? Yes. I do so believe.

May joy alight upon us all, when we most need it and least understand how it can come to be. 

Amen and Blessed Be