The Melody of Lent

 

Joyful, joyful, we adore You, God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow'rs before You, Op'ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day!

This week we will turn and tune our hearts toward the hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You.”  But wait, you say, isn’t this Lent?  Are we allowed to talk about joy during Lent?  Great questions, my response is: yes and yes!  Joy can feed and fuel our lives regardless of the season.  Lent need not be only serious and somber.  Laughter and joy are prayers to God!  Too often, faith can come across as dour and deary, like a gray day that refuses to release any rain to refresh the earth.  Rather it is just gloomy clouds congregating, collaborating, and conspiring to block any vitamin D from the sun reaching us.  Piousness that lacks playfulness perhaps isn’t the real goal of religion.  Yet, how often have you heard about joy as a spiritual practice?  Have you ever heard that?  Joy as the juice on which life can run.  Joy as the telos (that is goal, calling, center) of what we are about as people of faith. 

I think of E.B. White who once said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”  To be sure, I have that litany of lament about our world today on repeat in my soul.  To be sure, I feel weighted down, worn out by the pandemic, political posturing and pontificating and point scoring, racism that still treats God’s beloved as less than, discrimination, people I love who are in pain…the list could go on.  And (which is one of the most important words I know) there is the beauty of laughing with my family, watching a Netflix show, walking with my wife, petting my dog, sitting in the sun with a cool breeze.  E.B. White was right, how do you plan the day when there is much to do and the call to be in this moment. 

And is the operative word.  We need to find ways out of either/or thinking.  That two thoughts can actually exist at the same time in my heart without one having to rule the other.  Life is more than middle school friendships where you are forced to always pick which friend you liked better.  So, I can be both heartbroken by the world and hopefully that today doesn’t need to be the same as yesterday.  I can be both sad at the stories in the news and delighting in the love of family.  I don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying a piece of dark chocolate and I can make sure to send a bit of my stimulus check to the food pantry so others can communion with me in the dark chocolate I am convinced Jesus would have loved too. 

When God is the giver of immortal (unending, unceasing, unconditional) gladness, we can be both in the beauty and brokenness of this day.  Lent can be a time of reflection and joy, if we live in the “and” of life.  I pray the words of this hymn today awaken you to God’s joy and that this week we might explore and experience and encounter holy joy together. 

Prayer: Let Your immortal gladness swirl and stir around and within me each hour this day.

P.S. I invite you this week to keep track three moments of joy each day.  I also encourage you to post one of those in the comment section.