Recently, I watched MISSION: JOY, the title of a delightful documentary on Netflix. A narrator and cameraman followed Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama around for a week as they discussed life, love, death, faith, and hope.
They both have been heroes of mine for years, and I felt a great deal of joy after watching them walk, talk, smile, and engage each other in their I–Thou togetherness. Tutu was my age, 90 when he died two years ago, and the Dalai Lama is now 88. They have been working to bring peace, compassion, and hope all their lives. And they have been through hell and back – yet still are the epitome of JOY. I felt a deep joy as I watched this film. I believe joy is not something I can conjure up but a feeling I get when I do something that helps me experience positive and hopeful emotions.When I was a child, I wondered why Jesus and other supposedly ‘holy people’ were always pictured looking so serious and grim. And my family role models were miles from any joyful world. Now, at 90, I look back to my first 11 years and think I believed I was always supposed to be a serious and even sad ‘good’ boy. I was led to believe that I had to be serious all the time. I think I even believed it might be sinful when I would run, laugh, sing, and act nutty. It seemed that in my family, my six older siblings laughed and sang off-key only when they drank beer. At first, they’d seem happier, but often, that turned to meanness. I didn’t like them or the mean way they talked and acted.
By the time I was a teenager, I had made it known that I was planning to be a priest. I assumed that meant I must always be serious – like Jesus and those ‘holy’ guys were. I was a gloomy guy who did not know joy.
The musical films of the l940s helped me to begin singing when I was around 11, and it saved my life and introduced me to feelings of joy. I began to believe that Jesus would like to be called the ‘joyful one’ – rather than the ‘holy one.’
In my novel, A New World of Hope, I describe a K–12 school that begins each school day with the entire school – including faculty, janitors, students, and everyone (including parents if they wished) gathering in the schoolyard and singing and dancing for twenty to thirty minutes. And in that school, every student is encouraged to learn a musical instrument and to write songs. Singing is a neglected art in our society, I believe. Oh, yes, we listen to many songs and make ‘pop singers’ millionaires, but too often, we are spectators rather than singers. And we wonder why an increasing number of our youth are depressed and anxious. They need to sing and dance and, I believe, they will feel joy. I’m glad I started singing fairly young and sang as I worked pulling weeds, sweeping the sidewalk, and walking places – we didn’t have a car to take me places, so I walked and sang. So, for a more hopeful world – sing and dance! And as a friend says: “Some say that God sees everything we do, so the least we can do is be entertaining.”
Nurture your heart, and don’t eat the menu.
