I hope this doesn’t come off as presumptuous. I am sending to my blog readers links to the lectures I have just finished for a four-part series at our church, Valley Presbyterian Church, which I called Finding Joy. I would be mortified if this comes off as self-promoting or appears to call attention to me. It’s just that, after a great deal of preparation, study, reflection, writing, and prayer, I’ve come to feel this class has sharpened my thinking on joy. I hope that has happened to the curious, attentive members of the class. I want to share what I have learned to all of you on my blog.

On Wednesday evening last week I launched a four-week series at our church on what I call Finding Joy. Among other things I had to say that evening, I featured Vincent Van Gogh’s touching painting Old Man In Sorrow, painted in 1890, the year of his tragic death, apparently from self-inflicted wounds. He had sketched this weary old man in his chair a number of years earlier, but somehow, in this year of horrifying confusion and profound sadness, he was compelled to finish the painting. The old man is worn out, exhausted, perhaps close to the end. It was a self-portrait of sorts.  

Well, this morning we wake up to a new year. I’ve always loved this time of year, pulling out last year’s goals and writing new ones. I suspect I may be the optimistic type. Not always, but I try to focus on possibilities rather than the seductions of limitations. I try not to focus on what has been, as if my disappointments lock me into what must always be. We’ve been through a lot over the last year. I sense it’s time to turn the page. That’s where I begin this morning.

During Advent I am attracted to the story of Simeon. Though this story comes slightly later in the sequence of the stories, it fits so beautifully into the unfolding drama. The Simeon story is appealing because he too faces so many challenges, just as we all do, and yet, when Simeon holds the baby Jesus, he is overwhelmed with wonder. Everything now makes sense.

Now that the elections are over, are you breathing more deeply? Has your hyperventilating begun to calm down? Are you stepping back and beginning to get your life in order? I hope so. That’s what I’m trying to do. Perhaps now we can tackle the hysterical notion that nothing matters more than politics. I know I can be somewhat naïve here, but I have said for many years that politics doesn’t matter as much as we have imagined. I suspect there is something hollow in our society that has us frantically trying to fill it with something. Maybe now we can think in fresh ways what deserves our attention so much more than politics.

I am scattered right now. My calendar gets filled with all kinds of things. Worthy though each one may be, when the whole picture is added up, something gets sucked out of my soul. I’ve been thinking anew how God wants to lay claim of my life over how many years left out ahead. This is called discernment. I’ve been there before. I’m sure you have too. If we don’t think through this kind of thing, periodically, we remain forever sputtering about not doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

One of Van Gogh’s gorgeous Sunflowers (there are two series) hangs in the National Gallery in London; Claude Monet’s lovely Grainstacks is displayed in Potsdam, Germany; Johannes Vermeer’s ever-intriguing A Girl with A Pearl Earring finds its home in The Hague. What do these paintings have in common? Well, first of all, they are treasures in the history of great art, to be enjoyed by everyone, to help satisfy our deep longing for beauty. As C. S. Lewis once suggested, we long “to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” We find in beauty the “promise of glory.”

I think I want to be a Brit. After all, ancestral English blood flows in my veins. There was a family of Eatons on the Mayflower, who, though leaving England for a new land, were nevertheless pureblood English. You’ll find the Eaton name all over London, including Eaton Square, where former prime ministers, rock stars, and two James Bonds live.   

Things are such a mess these days. Could it be possible to step aside from the whole thing, go somewhere where there is peace and contentment and tranquility? Lately, though, I’ve been worrying about all the guilt we are supposed to carry as we navigate the mess we’re in, as if it’s all our fault, each one of us. Wouldn’t it be great to get away from feeling guilty all the time?

Do you ever think about time passing? We all do, for sure, maybe more as we get older. I remember how I would stand on a certain bridge over that little creek where we spent our summers, thinking how that strikingly beautiful water under my feet would never return to this place and to this moment. Though I couldn’t put anything like this in words, I understood, quite deeply, I could not control time. I could not gather in this beauty, this sparkle, this murmuring, and bring it back again. There it went, gone forever.

Do you know anyone who radiates joy? Could that be you? Could that be me? Oh no, I confess quickly, I might like to be that person, but I’ve got a long way to go. N. T. Wright has said he thinks there is a serious lack of joy in our world today, precisely because we’ve bought into the lie that the modernist dream will make all things perfect. And, of course, as we look around, we are hugely disappointed. This is surely not the dream for which we’ve bargained. Joy seems crushed by so many forces beyond our control. How can we possibly find joy again?  

The great Jeremiah provided my daily reading a few days ago:

THESE are the words which came to Jeremiah from the LORD: Go down now to the potter’s house, and there I shall tell you what I have to say. I went down to the potter’s house, where I found him working at the wheel. Now and then a vessel he was making from the clay would be spoilt in his hands, and he would remould it into another vessel to his liking.

We’ve been hearing so much lately about the end of this or the end of that. We hear often, for example, that this will be the end of democracy, the end of America. We hear all kinds of predictions about the end of the planet. We hear about the end of education, the collapse of our universities, our schools. We hear often about the end of the church, the Christian way of living. We listen to all of this with some measure of fear, perhaps a little skepticism, but something is at work out there to keep us on edge.

In 1986 the great twentieth century American novelist Walker Percy, when asked what worried him most about the condition of the world, answered with this:

Probably the fear of seeing America, with all its great strength and beauty and freedom. . . gradually subside into decay through default and be defeated . . . from within by weariness, boredom, cynicism, greed, and in the end helplessness before its great problems.

He then adds: “The West [is] losing [its way] by spiritual acedia.”

After a bout with the foggy brain of Covid, I’m back writing this morning. I know this about myself: I need to write. For a time it seemed like I couldn’t get my bearings, focus, the words to say anything. But then, as I start out this morning, I realize the problem is bigger than Covid. We all desperately need new guidance, new instruction, new energy to make our way down the foggiest of paths. Our society needs a new source from which to get our bearings on common sense.

I’ve been trying to spot the good things in life and in our world. That’s not an easy task for people like me, always reaching for more of whatever I think will make things better. I’m a big scrutinizer of myself, noticing all the flaws, the limitations, the failures, the covered-up selfishness. I think we’re doing that same thing in our communities, our churches, our organizations, our nation. Patience has never been my strong suit, but I’m in a moment in my life where I’m trying to figure out how simply to accept myself and the good things that God spreads around lavishly.

Ann Voscamp prays an honest prayer in her extraordinary new book Waymaker. In this scene, she is confined to a hospital bed, the result of unexpected heart failure. The situation is alarming for her. In the stillness of the moment, she talks honestly to her God:

Maybe, in some ways, I don’t really trust Your ways—don’t trust Your ways to take care of me, don’t trust Your ways to grow my joy large because Your ways aren’t just higher than ours; sometimes Your ways seem [to] take us down a road of suffering.

Philosopher-historian Charles Taylor, in his masterful book A Secular Age, remarks that we sometimes catch a glimpse of “what life should be like.” We sense there is a “place of fullness” out there, but we also know, we are not there yet. Life seems so hard. Things break apart. We are so divided. We can’t agree on anything, what is true, our common good, a center from which we might begin to build something new. We can’t even come together, in simple, common-sense conversation, to talk about how we might rebuild our families, organizations, communities, our nation. If we really do sense what life should be like, why can’t we have this conversation?

My mother taught me not to be a self-promoter. Whether I succeeded is for others to judge, but I know what I am about to do leaves me a bit sheepish. I want to recommend my own book: Sing Us A Song Of Joy: Saying What We Believe In An Age Of Unbelief. You might think about it for your summer reading list, or perhaps as a recommendation or gift for a friend. We’re all building those lists right now for the long summer evenings. This book might be just the ticket.

I remember well the long, dark winters in Spokane where we lived for many years. I remember as well such delight on that first morning when the crocus broke through the barren ground. And then the daffodils, oh the daffodils, in all their glory. I’ve always tried to watch for the signs of new life, though winter, bleak and endless, so often keeps us in her clutch.