The Stuff of Joy

I was always taught that joy is distinct from happiness. That happiness is dependent on circumstances, while joy is something deeper, something even learned and cultivated. It’s less a reaction than a way of being.

I’ve spent more time meditating on the concept of joy, having reread the autobiography of CS Lewis called “Surprised by Joy“. In this book he recounts his journey from a shallow religion of childhood to the scholarly atheism of young adulthood, to a surprised and almost unwilling conversion to Christianity with its evolution into a robust faith. He describes his spiritual journey through the process of his experience of and wrestling with what he describes as Joy. At times during his life, sometimes triggered by nature or poetry, he’d experience an overwhelming sensation of goodness tinged with a strange longing. This experience had a beckon to it – hinting at and inviting to a greater reality. It didn’t fit the descriptions of usual emotions… happiness fell short, pleasure too shallow… so he called it Joy.

In thinking about his experiences, I started looking back at my life and trying to remember when I’ve experienced anything like what Lewis describes. And I realized I have, although differently. The distinction between these experiences of Joy as opposed to happiness, is the fullness of it. For me it carries a sense of wholeness, goodness, rightness. When things feel like they are in that moment what they were always meant to be. It’s not a high in the traditional sense. There’s pleasure in it, but so much more than that. It’s weighty. I have only a handful of memories with that feeling in them.

One such memory follows a worship service in college, back before my adult doubts and cynicism had changed the nature of my faith. After hours of singing, hands in the air, heart lifted to heaven, I had this beautiful feeling of wellness. Of happiness and connectedness and hopefulness and cleanness. Like the refreshing feeling of coming out of cold water on a hot day. I remember wanting to hug everyone around me, which if you know me, is not my baseline.

Another takes place a few weeks after getting married. I was sitting in my new apartment that I now shared with my new husband- alone, eating a bagel with cream cheese and strawberries. And for whatever reason, that moment with that bagel, with the backdrop of being a newly wed, I had that feeling. Of fullness. Of things just being so good and so right.

I think we live in a time and a culture that is starved for Joy. We have a steady intake of things to elicit a chemical response of pleasure in our brain – from food to media to porn to roller coaster rides – and yet, at the end of the day… emptiness. On a cultural scale, we’ve confused pleasure and momentary happiness for joy. We’ve feasted our spirits on empty calories while starving them of the nutrients they really need. So here we sit, spiritually obese and yet malnourished. Our bodies a sad representation of our very souls.

I encourage you to look back over your life. Have you experienced this description of Joy? What were the circumstances? And what does that teach you or make you wonder about life?

It’s a question worth asking.