Carl (Skye) McColman writes, in a fine (and very long) article on his Substack:
So what exactly is joy? Let’s turn to John Bradshaw again: John Bradshaw: “Joy is the exhilarating energy that emerges when all our needs are being met. We want to sing, run and jump with joy. The energy of joy signals that all is well.”
So joy is an emotion, but it is also an energy. Bradshaw believes it emerges in us spontaneously, when all our needs are being met. From the place of faith, I would frame that slightly differently: joy is a fruit of the Spirit in our hearts. When we are aligned to love, joy occurs naturally within us. So I’m not opposed to the idea that joy emerges when our needs are being met, but I would suggest it’s not just about needs, but it’s about love. Maybe no contradiction there, for the greatest need in the human heart is the need to love and be loved. And fortunately, God is love, and through the Holy Spirit, God’s love is poured into our hearts (that’s in the Bible: Romans 5:5, in case you don’t believe me).
John Bradshaw also suggests that when the energy of joy emerges in our lives, this is a signal that “all is well.” And this reminds me of the wisdom of one of greatest mystics of the Christian tradition: a 14th century woman named Julian of Norwich. Julian was a visionary who experienced sixteen life-changing visionary encounters with God and Christ and Mary. She is most famous for saying “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” But she also said “The fullness of joy is to behold God in all.”
That bears repeating: The fullness of joy is to behold God in all.
McColman goes on to recall that after being seriously injured in a major car accident in his early thirties, the nursing staff in the hospital were surprised that he was so positive and cheerful. He had retained joy, in other words, despite his trauma.
Joy, I have discovered, is not at all tied to happiness, to "having one's needs met". There have been times in my own life when I have had to accept pain, both physical and emotional (I survived a serious farm accident a few weeks short of my 50th birthday, and lived only to deal with the almost instantaneous loss of home and livelihood that ensued) and yet I can recall few times in my life when I have been so conscious of the presence of God. Like McColman, I had not been deserted by joy.
"By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things." (Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV)
The Greek word μακροθυμία is translated here as patience; in the NIV it is rendered forbearance; but I would suggest that for our present purposes it could as easily be read as acceptance. For the fruits of the Spirit are not, it seems to me, individual gifts given one by one, but are all of a piece. Joy is in our acceptance - in our patience - just as peace is found only in love. And it is in the nearness of God (however we explain to ourselves that inexplicable presence) that we find that the fruits of the Spirit enfold all that we experience: that we come to "behold God in all".
