Day 20: Tidings of joy

One morning when I was leaving the house to start the day, I turned on the radio and caught the middle of an interview. I don’t even know who was being interviewed or who was asking the questions, but the first question I heard when I turned on the radio was this:  “What brings you spiritual joy?”. 

And the answer? 

“There are 27 chickens in my backyard.”

What’s not to love about 27 chickens?  Just the thought of that makes me smile.

I just loved the immediacy of that answer. And I loved the randomness of it.  I loved the question itself: spiritual joy.  I don’t usually distinguish between types of joy.  And because Christmas is almost on us and I’d just been thinking about comfort, somehow comfort and joy linked up in my head. Tidings of comfort and joy.

At any rate, it occurs to me that joy – 27 chickens joy – is not focused on the hope or on the future.  It’s not focused on some sort of expectation or desire.  It’s about the now, the moment. Joy is not about hoping for something; joy is about appreciating what’s in your yard right now.