True Joy

[Peter]

I work in a Protestant school. I, am Orthodox. Today at middle school chapel the speaker/leader tried to define the differance between happiness and joy. During the worship (re: singing/clapping/dancing) section he said if you have joy you will sing.

I have to disagree. I think he again missed the meaning of joy by bringing in emotions and feelings.

I hold that true joy does not express itself in emotional ways. Joy is a state of mind, a state of being. Joy is being calm while the rest of your situation is in chaos, whether in jubliation or sorrow.

Look at the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

None of these are emotions. Is there a natural progression here? Love brings joy, joy results in peace, and peace allows you to be longsuffering, kind, good, faithful, gentle and have self control? (Aquire a spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.)


These are my thoughts. Any others?

The Reader Peter

[Akathist]

I was protestant for 40 years. I had worshiped for over a decade in churches that used a contemporary worship style with lots of "praise and worship music" including live bands and "praise teams" instead of choirs.

I really think this "joy" was an emotional expression. Further, the idea that if one really worshipped God one would feel this joy almost all the time. (To reword: if you were depressed or sad or grieving you could not be worshipping God.)

Then I had a heart break that nearly destroyed my heart (figuratively) and could not muster any of this kind of "joy". I was alienated from the church I was attending because I just could not participate in this idea of "one must be happy or at least act happy to be worshipping God."

I felt that my particular church was using too many manipulative ploys to give a sense of happiness and emotional joy. This was done through very very loud music, a live band with guitars and drummers, the repetition of praise choruses, the encouragement to clap ones hand, swing ones body in a a dancing motion and even jump up and down when "feeling the joy". I felt the peer pressure to join in and just couldn't.

I went to a local Catholic service and found that one could worship God with great solemnity. Eventually, I found Orthodoxy and converted here instead of the Catholic Church.

I have never seen such reverence for the Trinity in the particular protestant churches I attended as I see in the Orthodox Church.

And I now understand that "joy" comes not from loud music and jumping up and down or some emotional reaction but in really "getting" what our hope is based on and being a part of the indwelling of Christ through the Eucharist.

[Annabel Lee]

Joy can be quiet or it can be expressed in a physical manner.
Have you ever cried from real joy? Sometimes joy cannot be held in and has to be let out.

But I agree that siinging is not the only way joy can be 'spoken'.

Women cry when they hold their newborn babies for the first time. I wonder why that is?

Didn't King David dance for joy?
It's different for everyone.

[Shubunkin]

Joy is not jumping up and down, clapping, and singing to high volume music. (That's just noisy entertainment)

Joy can be a simple smile.

Joy is when your kids finally understand what you have been trying to teach them for 23 years. :)

Joy is participating in a DL service. ^_^

[Andrea Elizabeth]

Lately for me joy is finding peace and love in Christ. It is a calm experience that is full of hope and the awareness of being in Him. It's taking my eyes off of circumstances and seeing Him as He is - the necessary, willing, humble Sacrifice to bring us up to the Kingdom of Heaven.

[eoe]

None of these are emotions.
Erm. Love?

[Peter]

Love is an act of the will. Again, too many confuse love with infatuation or lust.

As a point, consider the definition of love in 1 Corinthians.

If love were merely an emotion, then God would be an emotion.

The Reader Peter

[Padraig]

Look at the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

None of these are emotions. Is there a natural progression here? Love brings joy, joy results in peace, and peace allows you to be longsuffering, kind, good, faithful, gentle and have self control? (Aquire a spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.)


These are my thoughts. Any others?

The Reader Peter

Peter,

While it is true that none of these things are, in and of themselves, emotions, it must be said that they are not disconnected from emotions. Dispassion is not, nor has it ever been, the eradication of emotion. Dispassion is the right-ordering of emotion, putting them into their proper place within oneself. As a result, joy may take many forms, whether dancing as David did, or perhaps calm and peace like St Siloan. Ultimately it is child-like.

The above goes double for love. You're right that love is not strictly an emotion, but neither is it strictly unemotional. Holistically, love includes action and emotion, but certainly not emotionalism.

Christ Himself showed emotion on occasion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with emotion if said emotion is rightly ordered.

Hope this adds to the discussion.

Slainte!
Kevin

[Peter]

Padraig,

I agree with what you said. You have brought out the balance of joy. My op was a reaction (emotional) to a circumstance that I faced today that brought some frustration (emotion).

No emotion would make the Vulcans almost perfect Orthodox.

I was ranting somewhat at the idea that joy must be expressed in emotional terms.

The Reader Peter

[_Shannon_]

We can be joy -filled, however in the midst of sorrow. I might weep because I shall miss my parent who has passed away, and yet be joyful, in the hope of the resurrection- in the promise that Christ is close to the broken-hearted.

We are called to joy in the midst of our crosses and burdens, though we might not have happiness.

Emotions are transient, and depend often times on outside circumstances. Dispostitions are ruled by our interior state, it seems to me. Our dispositions will be made manifest through actions, reactions, and emotions- but they are not ruled by those things. Our emotions might express joy, but joy is not ruled by emotion.

[Greg the byzantine]

We can be joy -filled, however in the midst of sorrow. I might weep because I shall miss my parent who has passed away, and yet be joyful, in the hope of the resurrection- in the promise that Christ is close to the broken-hearted.

We are called to joy in the midst of our crosses and burdens, though we might not have happiness.

Emotions are transient, and depend often times on outside circumstances. Dispostitions are ruled by our interior state, it seems to me. Our dispositions will be made manifest through actions, reactions, and emotions- but they are not ruled by those things. Our emotions might express joy, but joy is not ruled by emotion.In Orthodoxy there is Xarmolipi JoyfulSorrow, somebody else can explain it better than I can :)

[Andrea Elizabeth]

In Orthodoxy there is Xarmolipi JoyfulSorrow, somebody else can explain it better than I can :)

Your icons of the Theotokos are worth thousands of words. :thumbsup:

[_Shannon_]

Your icons of the Theotokos are worth thousands of words. :thumbsup:Wow...that is so true! How cool that there is a word for it- thanks Greg! (How do I pronounce it? :blush: )

[Greg the byzantine]

Wow...that is so true! How cool that there is a word for it- thanks Greg! (How do I pronounce it? :blush: )Joyful Sorrow ;). Xarmolipi is just the Greek word that I learned first and I think sounds 10x more beautiful, but it really is just Joyfulsorrow.

Here is a little letter from The Greek Metropolitan of Atlanta Georgia about the Feast of the Dormition that mentions it:

August 10, 2006
HIS EMINENCE METROPOLITAN ALEXIOS REFLECTIONS ON THE DORMITION
Now we anticipate the culmination of the events of the month of August - the Dormition of the Theotokos next week. As we all know, the Theotokos is the Mother of our Lord, intercessor and mediator for us with her Son in Heaven.

Yet for all that, she is one of us, a human woman, a mother. She is in a very real sense, our mother, and one has experienced all the joys and sorrows of our common life. Think of the joy beyond measure she felt as she heard the message of God brought to her by the Archangel Gabriel! Think also of the immeasureable pain and sorrow she felt when her only son, our Lord Jesus Christ, was crucified. Since she is as close to us as our own mothers, we can let ourselves be close to her, feel connected to her.

In the history of the Church there are many wonderful stories about the death of the Theotokos. Tradition tells us that she prepared herself through prayer and fasting and that the 12 Apostles, though they were preaching the Gospel all over the earth, learned of her imminent death and were all able to be at her bedside to pray with her. All of them, that is, except for Thomas, who arrived a few days later and naturally asked to see the body of the mother of our Lord. Imagine how they all felt when her tomb was opened, and her body was not there! So thus we have the belief that our Lord took His mother up to heaven.

I have shared with you before how beautifully this Feast is celebrated in Greece. For example, if you were to visit Tinos, I am sure that you would be greatly moved by the sight of hundreds of people on their knees, for a quarter of a mile, as they journeyed to ask her to be involved in their lives, or to thank her for her intercession. And not only Tinos, but many other places, monasteries where the monks and nuns have been fasting and praying all through these days. Many of you have visited other Orthodox lands and have participated in this kind of worship with all the people, sharing together all the feelings of pain, joy, sadness and hope intermingled, that in our Church we call “harmolypi” or “joyful sorrow.”

Some of the older people often referred to the Feast Day of the Dormition of the Theotokos as the “Summer Pascha.” So with this, I wish you a joyous and blessed Pascha!

As we begin our spiritual journey through a new Ecclesiastical and academic year, I pray we will all be spiritually uplifted and sustained by the prayers and love of our Lord’s Most Pure Mother!


http://www.bulletin.goarch.org/ChurchBulletins/353/MetropolitanMessage.html

[_Shannon_]

That was awesome- thank you so much for posting that for me! :)