Joy Finds Us

I’ve referred to Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files often over the last few years. This is the forum where Cave responds, often quite movingly and insightfully, to the questions of his fans. He’s been doing it for six years and three hundred posts. I look forward to these arriving in my inbox every time. To mark his three hundredth post, Cave decided to flip the script. Instead of responding to the questions of his fans and readers, he decided to ask a question of his own. It was a very simple one: “Where or how do you find your joy?”

A great question that one (mild irritation of the insertion of the word ‘your’ notwithstanding—“joy,” like “truth,” does not need to be validated with a possessive pronoun). At any rate, Cave was amazed by the volume and quality of responses he received. Two thousand responses came within the first few days, and they keep on coming. Joy, it seems, is a theme that connects with people. Cave even created a whole separate “Joy” tab on the Red Hand Files to collate all the responses and leave them there “where they will permanently and defiantly reside as a resource in times of need.” I love that.

I spent a bit of time reading through the responses this morning. Some obviously connect more than others but most are interesting. Here are two of my early favourites:

I stumble into it foolishly, blindly, by pure accident. Humour gives me joy. Love gives me joy. Art gives me joy, the expression of the best and the worst of human beings. Joy is different to ecstasy. You often don’t know when you have it and only truly appreciate it way after the moment has passed. It is simultaneously light and full bodied, ephemeral and eternal. Music carries joy, real spiritual joy and real down to Earth joy.

NICK, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

I find there is joy when fear is absent. But our civilization is addicted to fear: the fear of life, fear of death, fear what other people might make of us, fear we will not be good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, good enough, spiritual enough, rich enough, fear we are too cocky, fear we will lose our youth, fear we will become feeble and dependent, fear of mistakes, fear of getting forgotten, fear of being annoying or plain boring, fear of boredom, fear of the future, fear of everything one can think of…

On the other hand, when fear subsides and I am relaxed, joy appears. Unpretentious, unambitious, just there, the world and I in it. It is wondrous how simple it is. Not judging, not competing. Draw what your heart desires, on paper, on the sand, on the dusty windshield. Write down that verse. Admire those seagulls. Listen to the sparrows arguing. Help your children or help old people enter the public bus. Read a book. Go back to what you wrote earlier, read it again, make it more veritable for the sake of truth.

Simplicity might be the precious key to paradise. It is within your reach if you want it. It might take some unlearning the ways of the world, but it’s ok, you are not alone.

MIRJANA, BEOGRAD, SERBIA

I began to think of how I would answer the question. Where do I find joy? Nothing quite as eloquent as the above responses comes to mind but here are a few staccato bursts joy as I head out the door to a meeting.

• When my kids smile and where their gifts find a place in the world.
• Having coffee with my wife on a patio somewhere warm and mountain-y and ocean-y. Or really doing anything with her anywhere.
• Listening to blistering, transcendent rock music at a concert.
• Sitting around a fire with friends who have known you long enough to know what a dunce you are and still put up with you.
• Watching people come forward to receive communion during worship and knowing the stories that many of them carry to the table.
• Hitting a decent shot in tennis.
• Putting appropriate words to the shattering sorrow and breathtaking beauty of life on this planet.
• A sunset over the ocean. A prairie vista. A rolling European hillside. The view from the top of a mountain. Assorted other Hallmark-y cliches that can still reduce me to awe and wonder.
• Waiting for a flight in an airport (weird, right?). The anticipation of newness.
• Jumping off a cliff into a frigid mountain lake.
• Praying with an inmate.
• The love and the mercy of God.
• The conviction that joy is not mine to find, that it both preceded and will outlive me, that it is eternal.

Not an exhaustive list, by any means, just a few things that spring to mind this morning. Joy is an enigma and a gift, what we most long for yet spend far too little time reflecting on or giving thanks for. I can’t say it better than Nick Cave does:

Regardless of what we may sometimes feel about ourselves or the hardships we may encounter, it is evident that people see this troubled world as a place of considerable beauty. Joy continues to leap up, unafraid to find us.

I like that last twist. Maybe it is joy that finds us, rather than us finding it.

——

Image above taken this summer. Sunset, check; mountains, check, water, check; cliche, check; joy, check.