Anger is easy.
Joy is hard.
Pure Enjoyment impossible.
Anger is easy.
It doesn't take any swallow of your pride. It whelms up, bursts out rages - and then goes away.
From a neurological perspective Anger is a neurological response any one of numerous triggers. It can be past frustrations with self, current frustrations with others. It can be current situations, feelings, things people say, things they do. Injustice. fear. loss of hope. Being attacked. Watching someone else be attacked. Anger is fuel. It can charge the nervous system with a ton of adrenaline and bring our bodies to a hyper sense of awareness. Our muscles tense with explosive power, and everything becomes quicker. Our tongues sharper. Our words more piercing. To those we know most about - to which our relationships return decades upon decades, we can pull a thought from 30 years ago and STRIKE with acute pinpoint force. The attack is quick. Done. and remembered.
Joy is hard.
Joy is often confused with pleasure. Joy is not in its essence pleasure. Joy can bring pleasure. Pleasure can come in the midst of joy. Joy can accompany pleasure. But they are different. Pleasure is fleeting, it is a moment. Pleasure is eating pie. Joy can be found in not eating pie. And. Joy can also be found in the pleasure of eating pie when one has taken the pleasure in not eating pie more than eating pie. Joy is not pie.
Joy is hard, and this is the reason I think it is hard - like anger, joy must be found not only in the doing of things, but also in the killing of things. Find out what you want, and sacrifice other things in the pursuit. There is nothing wrong with eating pie. There is nothing wrong about even over eating. We could even bring ourselves to say there is nothing wrong with weighing 20 or 30 pounds over what we should. Nothing wrong with it. But. If we have an idea, that these things are in the way of our pursuit - say running an ironman, or pleasing a spouse - or if these things bring with them guilt (placed on our spirits by the Holy Spirit) then each time we over partake in them…. we will loose a little Joy. Joy is hard, because what we believe joy IS messes us up. We believe Joy is as much running a perfect race as eating too much and sitting on the couch night after night instead of training. the later is not Joy - it is pleasure. Know the difference.
Pure enjoyment is pleasure commingled with Joy, Anger, Pleasure, Self control while being fully authentic in community with others before God - with no guilt - pretty close to impossible. I don't have much to write on this, because frankly it eludes me. I have so often been derailed from it with pleasure. or with Anger. I believe that Pure Enjoyment comes from decade after decade of self control. I've not experienced it. But I want to.
Put another way:
Anger is a sprint.
Joy is a marathon.
Pure enjoyment an Ironman.
Ironmen don't practice for their race by running sprints.
Run as if to finish the race!!!!!
slv2all
1 comment:
140.6 miles has a way of thoroughly exposing impurities in an athlete's motivation. It's true. Anger can thrash around in the swim for maybe an hour, but it never seems to find its land legs. In the next 7-17 hours, you're going to have to find some other reason to keep going. Joy is always prepared to finish with you.
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