Most of us are well aware of what makes us happy. I think happiness is especially available to us in this holiday season, both by the presence of certain things or their absence. Family. Security. Tradition. Familiarity. We know and we cherish those feelings of warmth and closeness, miss them when they leave us.

Yet what of joy? What of that elusive and indescribable feeling, that jolt of surprise which floods our minds, bodies, and spirits with delight and a sense of deep belonging? That feeling of shocking rightness in the unexpected and startling? And opening to it? To priming ourselves, tuning ourselves to this mysterious revelation, completely out of the ordinary yet comforting and satisfying?

American poet Mary Oliver made it her life-long business to describe this ineffable, elusive, and yet always present possibility. She wrote in her poem “Mindful”:

Every day, I see or hear something
that more or less kills me with delight,
that leaves me like a needle
in the haystack of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself inside this soft world –
to instruct myself over and over in joy and acclamation.

For Oliver, to find oneself where we each belong, held in the larger whole of existence as precious and prize, this is joy. May we open to joy, that we may find it and know it for our home. And may you be surprised by joy, now and always, as you remember, today, and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.

Blessings, Rev. Rita