Joy revisited

ok ok I get it! I am listening!! This was in my church bulletin on Sunday:

"Joy is a condition of the heart. It flows deeper than happiness and can be present even when life seems too hard to handle. In my spiritual practice of deep intentional breathing, joy is often what I sink into when I feel scattered or pulled in too many directions. It is the place where "heaven and nature sing", as in our hymn "Joy to the World."

Joy can be the wind dancing over our faces while we share a toboggan ride, or a quiet walk in the woods with only the trees speaking and our hearts celebrating all of creation. Never underestimate the strength of deep, God-gifted joy."

So obviously that was not enough of a shove in the right direction that I then got to see and experience profound joy.

There is a man who goes to my church. I know him very well and he is great to be around. Today I watched him have an epiphany of sorts I think. He has a developmental disability and sometimes he uses a wheelchair but yesterday he was walking, which was very nice to see.

So he was sitting near me and the church was really full, so great to see a full church! Now this particular man does not speak often but has the loudest, most infectious laugh in the world.

You could tell he loved church.

You could tell he loved people.

You could tell he loved God.

So at one point he was looking at the front cover of the bulletin, where there was a lovely picture of two children on a toboggan, and then he looked at mine and then he had this quizical look on his face for a moment and then he grabbed my paper, looked again at his and mine, put them one on top of each other, then pulled them apart again. Looked at me and looked at the papers again,

Then he said "SAME!" and laughed.

He grabbed the paper from the gentlemen beside him. Same process, look at them side by side, together and apart, look at the person.

Then he said "SAME!" and laughed.

He stole the paper from a new family in front of him. The kids were a bit frieghtened for a minute, then he laughed. All was well again. 

Then he said "SAME!" and laughed.

Think he did it with several people around us always with the identical result.

"SAME!" laugh.

A very joyful man made even more joyful. And I have to say I agree with him in his statement or at least what I percieve of his statement. 

Indeed, BELONGING makes us JOYFUL. 

Soli Deo Gloria