seek thou joy.

“Go forth, my heart, and seek thou joy.”Paul Gerhardt

Joy is found by those who search and see.

Shuffling in a life less than, marred by mistakes, taken by circumstance, wilted in days echoing hollowly.  It is easy for feet to falter and each day constrict to the size of a moment.  There, stuck and wandering, life memorialized.  Some stay in that spot for years wondering how life seemingly went so wrong.  And some never take another single step forward, only steps circling, while observing others they know and don’t move with the appearance of effortless grace.

Not only are steps still, but the heart is captive to the moment, too.  Joy alludes. Life free from pain, agony, tragedy and all that gives cause for worry and fear waves in the heat of day as a mirage in the drier times of life experienced by all.  ...by all, that is no overshoot.  Everyone goes through tough times that try our resolve and dry our souls a bit squeezing out most reason for joy.

Life doesn’t wait for anyone.  It isn’t concerned with fairness, doesn’t respect where you’ve been or who you are.  Life unfolds as it will into each day.  We must decide how we will live it.

Much of relearning life for me has involved opening to joy again.  Not mere pockets of happiness oscillating in changing days and temperature, but happiness lasting and independent: joy.

In days darkened by tragedy and grief extending into the unseeable future, happiness filled my life in predictable reprieve.  A good conversation, an entertaining movie, immersing myself in hobbies and activity, et cetera, all gave way of escape and lightened life.  My eyes lifted out of the drudgery of life as it existed then and looked for a time when all would be lighter and happy lasting.  Joy continually escaped me.  The feeling just wouldn’t stick.

Happiness is a fleeting drug lifting for a moment vanishing the next without trace.

What we miss as hands frantically reach for happiness running is everything now.  And that’s really all there is, now.  Because happiness doesn’t last, we chase hard in pursuit and rush through now to the next lighter moment.  Happiness delivered a smile, but never penetrated my to heart causing an engulfing, sad detachment and confusion between my heart and my head.

Joy sets a course aright, fills in cavernous cracks and strengthens bending knees.  No matter the day or the straining conditions, joy gives life to a weaning heart.

I found joy scattered along the broken path in the easiest places positioned in plain view everywhere I was not looking.  Happiness busied me in its coming and going and blurred my sight.  My eyes always looking to spy the next opportunity for happiness while missing joy all around.

Joy exists much closer than you often think.

In a sunrise.  A smile defiantly worn on my daughters’ faces in grieving times.  A call from a friend.  Laughter.  Health.  Home.  Making dinner again as a family.  Stories and hugs at bedtime.  Weary but honest smiles early in the morning marking another day lived together.

And the list grew larger in endless mundane, but infinitely saving detail.

Thankfulness led me to joy.  And there’s an abundance of joy to be had right there in our lives despite the height or weight of circumstance.  As I slow to assess all of life actual existing immediately around me, I have much to be forever thankful for.

The secret to joy lies nestled in the day-to-day of life.  We miss its simplicity in our hurried attempt at happy.  I began to make lists and jot down.  The idea for thankfulness lists came from a book I read entitled, “One Thousand Gifts,” by Ann Voskamp.  Cataloging all reasons to be thankful gave endless cause for joy.  I go back to my lists in thinning moments and difficult days and no matter the conditions, joy rises.

And so for me, releasing my heart to seek after not mere happiness, but joy again, has been in allowing my heart to attach to everything I have reason to give thanks for.

Now I see with much more definition and clarity all that matters and all that I want for us.  My heart has honest room for newness.  I don’t feel as though I’m reaching and grasping for happiness any longer.  Joy simply and fully expanded my heart narrowed in grief preparing it for what’s new.

That is joy on top of joy.  Joy exponential.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17, ESV

the gospel, giggles and cuss words.

“...and it was even grosser and uglier than that.  The Bible says that he was beaten so badly, to the point that he didn’t really look like himself anymore.” We sat on the floor of our living room surrounded by enough chocolate and candy to satisfy a little army of children.  The sugar rush seemed to take hold instantly mixed with the releasing anticipation of Easter morning finally arrived.  My kids, as I imagine most kids, light up with excitement and a particular joviality belonging only to a few days positioned throughout the year: birthdays, holidays and the onset of summer.  I absolutely love it, too.  They are particular little celebrators who like to take in the moment and deliberately ease into the cause for grande occasion.  Routines, habits, traditions, all honored and revered in their little hearts.  It makes my heart sometimes rushed by responsibility and dampened by ‘reality’ slow to their pace and come alive similarly.  No rushing through presents or traditions or out of what they’ve waited as patiently as they can for.  

I especially love these moments with them.  Our time together in memories creating and lasting forever.  They’ll look back to our time together, when it is no longer just us, from a time ahead when they are doing the same with their own little families and draw from our experiences happening now.

And in the midst of celebrating holidays, all excitement, anticipation and happiness involved, I make sure to plant deeply and water the cause for such spectacle.  I try my best, at least.

This particular Easter morning we woke to skies clouded and rain falling, presenting the perfect opportunity.  After getting through the exhilaration of our morning egg hunt where no nook or cranny inside of the house was out of bounds or off limits and them finding new fishing poles laid out as family gifts next to their Easter baskets, we sat, ate more candy and talked a bit longer than usual.

“Easter is all about grace, God making everything wrong with us right and okay.”

Even though my daughters are young, they understand more than I often give them credit for.  This time the morning rested lazy and easy.  Rather than oversimplifying our conversation, I read more than two chapters straight from my Bible as they sat nearly spellbound despite sugar rushing through those little veins of my own.

They asked about the gory punishment inflicted on Jesus, sat still both captivated and horrified by the details of crucifixion, wondered aloud why people were so mean to him and wanted to know what happens when they do wrong ...if they keep doing wrong.  We’ve talked about grace before, but our morning conversation then presented a more concrete understanding.

A seed planted now being watered.  I pray roots dig deeply into their hearts and fruit of understanding and grace, action and choices, hangs ready on their growing branches.

“God wants you, and everyone, to go to Heaven.  That’s why he allowed Jesus to die for us, even though he knew we’d all make mistakes and do wrong.”

Grace :: favor rendered by one who need not do so; exemption; a reprieve.

I want them to understand grace deeply.  An infinitely important goal determined in my life as father to my little girls is to establish grace and acceptance in their lives.  I never want God misunderstood in their minds and unaccepted in their hearts as a distant judge somewhere in the sky just waiting for them to mess up.  He's right there in our mess.  He wants all to have heaven.  All to receive grace and everything wrong with us right and okay.

Grace and acceptance will mature only as I continue cultivate the soil of their hearts and nurture their stretching branches that will bear and hold fruit.  I think of parenting as I think of my own heart.  A garden needing constant attention.

As questions slowed and our conversation widened, my oldest asked, “What about bad words?”

“You know, the ‘sh’ word and the ‘b’ word,” she knowingly stated. “Gotcha.  And the ‘f’ word, right?” “Whoa, NO!!  That’s horrible, dad!!!”

Funny how kids zero in on what they deem the most important.  Not murder or cheating or stealing or lying, but bad words.  This is why I love these times so much.  They give time for their hearts to readily open and just pour out.

“Those are just words used to mean bad things.  The words themselves aren’t bad.  It is the way we use them and how we use them.  It all starts in our heart.  The words don’t matter as much as why and how we use them.”

So to further teach them, we read from Matthew 5:22 and talked about the power of how we use words.  To top it off, I said one of the cuss words my daughter alluded to out loud.

Deafening silence, eyes wide and jaws agape.

For me, parenting sometimes requires slight risks and complete honesty.  To ensure they understood why I cussed out loud, we briefly looked up the meaning and definition for a couple of the words.  They learned that those words actually do have real meaning, but due to misuse and bad intentions, those words hold bad meanings.  I explained that I don’t use those words because of how they are commonly used to mean bad things and because I simply do not need to, there are far better words to use.

My aim in this teaching was deep and far reaching.  It was a matter of beginning to set right understanding in their hearts, that Christ died for them specifically and grace redeems their hearts affecting their actions.  Not the other way around.  All too often, the mistake of our actions making us acceptable to God lingers and holds prominence over grace freely given and capably finding.

The only way to grace is through the mess.

“Any questions, girls?”

They looked at each other for a moment and then simultaneously burst into infectious giggles.  It will stand as one of the best conversations we’ve had to date.

crucifixus.

a splinter finds its way inruptured sky, once barren womb unknown man words land without home a seed in dry soil blood and water will give birth to the greatest mystery ever known and they will know

in the dust settled a bending water cleansing dirtied hands hearts stained, color of pride all run lost every hand helped push deep nails in wood through blood and bone you. me. them.

a bead runs slowly, blood and sweat, man and not racing the speed of love down the earthen beam to kiss the ground swallowing

the darkest dusk, eve of hopeless night they will all know their hearts cover their eyes for tonight death stands over all

et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto

Mark 15:22-25 Matt. 27:51-56 Rom. 5:6-8

be parenting.

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“What does kindness mean?”

My question hung in air between us for a bit as they knew exactly why I was asking.  Most nights seem to require at least a quick emotional melt down right before bedtime.  With consistency, it’s as if my announcement that bedtime has once again arrived is received by their ears much differently than my rather practical intent.  The message somehow jumbled and transmitted to their brain, “hurry up, fight, argue, instigate, you’ve only got a few minutes left in this day!”  

Little exception to this every evening phenomena.  Someone is bound to lose the race up the stairway.  No fewer than three times a week does one of them rush upstairs to lock the bathroom door leaving the other two pounding hard demanding in.

Some times tears happen, too.  Actually crying is relatively normal and at times, a rather dominant expressed emotional response.  Perhaps if someone uninvitingly rearranged the dolls I had taken 5 minutes out of my schedule free day to set up at a tea party in my room, I’d crumble into tears and pieces too.  Or maybe if my little sister didn’t really understand the pretend scenario that I instantly created, details lacking and changing, I’d take it deeply to heart and fall apart.  “You just don’t get it, Dad.”  My thought, “thank God I don’t get it.”  We’d be a fiery mess of emotion and tears if I did get what they get.

Maybe it would be weird if at least one of the girls didn’t have a good cry at some point in every day.  What amazes is how quickly those tears can dry.  They dry fastest when they get what they want.

I love my daughters and am utterly committed to loving them just as completely as I know how and can learn to.  But even with the assistance of my mom interpreting their often indiscernible emotion code, I’m lost in those little moments when tears fall quickly and emotions blare out.  I’m just not that emotional of a person.  Especially when I look at the array of quick emotions they can shift through.

I know that they love each other, too.  Siblings fight and argue as a natural part of establishing who they are and working through life as they grow into it.  As a man, I imagine it might be easier to break up a physical squabble between boys.  But I don’t have boys.  I am fathering three girls who only have a dad.  I’m learning how to relate and find my pace with them in these emotional times.

So back to our bedtime question, “What does kindness mean?”

“...love.” “...nice.” “...happy.”  (One guess at who this last response belonged to.)

“All good answers, girls, but not fully right.”

“Awwww!” said the one who answered ‘happy’ as she rolled around on the bed only half invested in the question.

“Kindness means being kind.”

One of the most important things to me as a father is teaching my daughters not simply about life, but precisely how to live it.  I want them to be thought of as kind because they are kind in the way they act and treat others.

Rightly connecting the information with behavior and action is the key that unlocks them.  Otherwise, I reduce myself only to an authoritative voice.  A parent’s place and opportunity in the child’s life is not merely authoritative, but more so as teacher and guide.

If I want them to be, I must be.

“So what can you do tomorrow to be kind to someone?  Pick someone, one person, who you will be specifically kind to?”

Their little responses were as seedlings opening up in the soil of their growing hearts.  Learning to live, to be, in little ways.  That defines and validates parenting for me.

there and someday.

“One day is worth a thousand tomorrows.” Benjamin Franklin

Now defines there.

Everyone wants to get there.  There, a place nestled away waiting in a future day.  When troubles have subsided and problems figured out and all that we need, we have.  What a glorious day when future arrives washing all worries aside and displacing every cursed moment!  All counted as well when we cross that line out of this moment grinding relentless and long into the next chapter of our lives.  Ease erases difficult and alleviates pains.  So we think and so we live for there and someday.

I strain through the day now to look ahead missing the details that are steps leading there.  Honestly, I don’t always want to be here now because being here isn’t always easy.

Book deadline, publisher to find, work projects due, blog schedule to keep to, etc., all floating around what truly matters.   I want to be there where things are better and resolved and inviting.

I find myself living this way.  I imagine the same holds true for you as well.

It is quite easy to let go of the day spoiling in familiar problems and nagging issues for something better ahead.

There is now, only matured and measured by days lived behind.  The settled idea of life ahead of us being better is the draw, but the reality comes crushing when days we live without seemingly getting one step closer only seem to pile high.

Two problems with getting to there.

The first and most telling of a person’s likelihood of actually reaching that day brighter in life, “What is there?”  Happiness swings unhinged, tossed always by circumstance and situations, by feeling, not love lasting and an idea of some glorious untouchable refuge waiting ahead.  “My marriage will be better when the kids are a bit older.”  Life will be easier when I get the promotion.”  In the well observed, ringing words of Christopher Wallace, ‘mo money, mo problems’.  If what your hands hold now do not give cause for happiness, lasting joy and satisfaction may very well always escape you, no matter the moment.  Life spinning in the day-to-day from one to the next all feeling the same.  All the while, hoping to get there.  Somewhere better.  A brighter day ambiguously floating in your heart.  That is the way to lose in life.  Living for there undefined.  Hoping to be rescued out of mundane circumstance, sinking today.  You must be working toward something defined.  Life is now.  Only so much can exist in the promise of something better ahead.

Now defines there.  What lies ahead relies much on how you live now.  Waiting will not get you there.  Wanting will not either.  There is found by those who live now walking toward something defined.  In each day, joy exists but often overshadowed by discontentment and wanting.  Many live with the illusion that today is not as worthy of living as tomorrow.  Waiting and wanting; living less, missing it all and never going to get there.  Not one day better is found by not living.  There and someday come to those consistent souls who push on through thick and thin and sinking moments with the sight ahead in view but not as worthy as now.  Life comes to those who live.

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (Matthew 6:34, The Message)