By Rev. Rebecca Bryan

If someone had told me that pain was a prerequisite for joy, I wonder whether would I have still chosen joy. Or would I have settled for something mediocre? Would I have settled for feeling somewhat alive, for finding a little hope, for experiencing something less than renewal, occasionally? 

Here we are: Thanksgiving is barely over, and December is upon us. It is the season of light and festivals, of  Advent, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Solstice and Christmas. We are told by tradition, media, and perhaps even our own selves, that this is a time that we should be grateful, joyful, and glad that the season has returned again.

Is that what you’re feeling, grateful, joyful, and glad that the season has returned again? In many years my answer to that question would was a resounding “No!” and in other years I couldn’t get enough of the holiday festivities. More often, it’s a combination. 

One of the recurring messages in my ministry is joy. I want people to know that joy is real, that we can experience it, and that we can help each other do so.

I need to share this message of hope, because someone gave it to me, actually more than one person gave it to me. Over the course of my lifetime, many people and many experiences have come together and become woven into a fabric of hope.

I know what it feels like to be hopeless, it can feel unbearable. That I live in a state of joy more often than not today is nothing short of a miracle. If I can pass along that message of hope, I will have lived to good purpose. 

Perhaps I’d best start with sharing what the word joy means to me. Joy, as I have come to experience it, is multifaceted. The way I have come to understand joy is as a way of experiencing life, rather than something that is to be achieved. We will not and cannot feel joyful all the time. Rather it is a state to which we return after wavering, and we will waver. 

If we consider joy a state of being – as I think we can do with all virtues, by the way – joy may feel like serenity, acceptance, or compassion.  Sometimes joy is exuberant, outgoing, or loud, while other times it is gentle, unassuming, and peaceful.  So too can we live from a state of being forgiving, open minded, or loving. 

I chose joy as our ministry theme this month well aware that it could be misconstrued; that’s preciously why I picked it. I want us to think more broadly about what joy is. This month is about exploring the many facets of joy, not ungrounded idealism. 

Therefore, we must grapple with joy’s inevitable companions: loss, loneliness, and despair. We can’t know joy without knowing those too. The depth of your joy is the depth of your sorrow. 

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked…And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was often times filled with your tears…The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain,” wrote Kahlil Gibran in “The Prophet.” He knew that joy and sorrow are inseparable. What changes is the distance or time between them. The key is to find and remain connected to the thread or threads that lead us through sadness, darkness, or confusion back to a place of center, home, or joy. 

In Greek mythology this message of the thread that guides us appears in the story of Ariadne’s thread that she gave to Theseus to lead him out of the labyrinth. At the center of the labyrinth, Theseus was to fight and kill the minotaur. This is often interpreted to mean the monster at the center of all mazes or journeys. I appreciate mythologist and author Allison Stieger’s interpretation. She describes the minotaur as the “guardians of the treasure.”  For whatever reason, it does seem true that we must slay those inner monsters who guard our most precious gift – which is to say, the gift of our true selves. ourselves. 

This sentiment is expressed by poets, theologians, and philosophers time and again. We heard it in Wendel Berry’s prayer today, “Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” 

William Blake reminds us of this thread:

I give you the end of a golden string,

Only wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate

Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

The mystic, Julian of Norwich, is well known for the phrase we heard in our anthem this morning, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” This quote is often misunderstood and regarded as fanciful.

When we read these words in context in her book Revelations, it is actually not Julian who says them. It is God, seeking to reassure Julian that God can be trusted. Julian disputes this for thirteen chapters of her book. She pushes back and tells God that this cannot be true. All is not well and shall not be well. Don’t you see? The world is falling, as we heard in our Time for All Ages. 

If joy is not contingent on perfect conditions, and sorrow and joy are interwoven, the questions become: What threads weave together to create a sense of abiding joy in our lives? To what and whom do we turn, and return, for a sense of meaning throughout our lives?  

Answering those questions calls us to reflect on and remember those times when we have felt great sorrow. It is then that we learn the secrets of our joy. 

In a few minutes I’m going to ask you to remember a time when you were in emotional pain. 

I’ll start by sharing one of mine. It happened not so long ago. It’s pain that is not fully resolved; it is easily accessed and comes to visit me still. 

We were moving from West Hartford. I had followed my lifelong dream and calling to become a minister. Here was the answer to all of my prayers and biggest dreams. I was overjoyed. Yet even this required experiencing a lot of pain. I was moving, leaving the place where I had made the greatest strides in healing the wounds of my past. The people in that community were my people. They knew me, and I them. Over more than two decades, I had raised my children, formed deep friendships, buried more than a few pets. So too had I gotten sober, found my voice, and created genuine community. “And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was often times filled with your tears,” wrote Gibran. 

What got me through that time period was what I have come to know as my threads. The same people and practices that helped me to recover, find myself, and be brave were what gave me the ability to leave and grieve. Psychology calls these things our “resources.” 

My threads, the things that wove together, to which I returned again and again are contained in three words; connection, contemplation, and community. I had to stay connected to myself, my vision, and my faith. I had to devote more time to my spiritual practices during an incredibly busy and demanding time. My community held me even as we said goodbye, ensuring me that all shall be well, that there was new community waiting to be born, and that I was stronger than I thought. 

What are your threads? 

We’re going to take a few minutes to explore this. Bring to your mind and heart a time when you were in emotional pain. Close your eyes or look out the windows or doodle. Bring it fully to your memory. You may not have far to go. It may be happening as I speak. 

Feel the sorrow, enough to make it present. 

Now look around that time period and notice what threads got you through it. To what and to whom did you return? Were there people, alive or dead, who you knew personally or not? Were there friends, authors, musicians to whom you turned? 

How about things you did that sustained you, made you feel some sense of peace or hope? Was there a favorite chair you sat in or place in nature that you visited? Did you write, sing, dance? 

What are your threads, the people, places and practices that sustained you? 

Taken on its own, each of these threads is important, yet it is when they weave together that a rope is formed, a rope strong enough to keep you afloat and help guide you back on course. It is risky to rely solely on one person, one practice, or any one thing. 

People will disappoint us. We will change, and the practices that sustained us will need to change. We may need to leave places that sustained us, or those places may be altered by climate change or development. 

When these things happen, as they will, if we have a rope, then the other threads take over, until new threads appear and are woven in, which will happen, even when we fear it will not. 

There is a red thread on your Order of Service. I invite you to take that thread off your program, if you haven’t already. Hold the thread in your hand. As you do, envision the people, places, and things that sustain you. Imagine all of them inside of that red thread. Don’t worry if these things have not all come to you yet. They will, in their time and in your time. 

Now take a problem you are facing today and ask yourself how your threads are helping you. Are you turning to those practices, people, and places that restore you? Imagine that you can offer your current problem or challenge to these resources of yours. See your problem seeping into the thread. 

This problem, this sorrow, this joy – each will pass. Your threads will sustain you. If you’ve lost hold of some of your threads, make a commitment to chose again. To find them, reconnect or discover new ones. 

Fear not my friends, the threads, your threads are there, waiting for you to remember or find them as the case may be. 

Joy – it is possible, it is real, and it can be yours. 

Amen and blessed be.