Pure Joy

Freddie the Russian wolf finds a lolly, rejoices and dies. What has happened? He hasn’t been shot, stabbed or poisoned. Charlie the Hunter has dipped a knife in sheep blood and the blood has frozen on the blade. The knife has been put in the ground blade up. Freddie the wold has smelt the blood and has come for lunch. Having started to lick the blood off the knife it is’t long before there is no more sheep blood on the knife. Freddie has cut his tongue open and is now drinking his own blood. In his joy and due to his cold tongue he doesn’t notice. He dies before he knows what has happened.

Freddie the wolf has first hand experience of empty happiness; of happiness that disappoints and destroys. In life we are all on the search for pure joy, that envigours and grants life. And so it is no bad thing for us to stop and examine whatever it is that makes us happy in life now. After all none of us wants to eat a knife without knowing it. This is very easy. There are three criteria to find out if something can deliver pure joy or not. All three are mentioned in the Bible passage Romans 5: 1-11. Anything worthy of the name "pure joy" must be able to defeat three things: 1) suffering (v.3), 2) death (indirectly vv.6-8) and 3( the wrath of God (v.9). 

These three things stand in the path of every single one of us. If we would have pure joy, we need something that will overcome these mighty obstacles. Otherwise our so-called joy will be paper thin, paralysed if not dead. So where can we find pure joy? 

In health? A hope of a long life? Before you finish reading this blog post you might need an ambulance. Two of the pupils I teach have been seriously ill this term. One was in an artificial coma, the other is fighting cancer. Neither has yet reached 15 years of age. If you don't know anyone fighting illness it is only a question of time. A question of time before suffering reaches you.

What about money then? Money's great! You can do so much with it. Yet Steve Jobs, with more cash than the USA at one point, was unable to secure his happiness. And we will never be as rich as him! Not to mention that in the middle of a financial crisis nothing is more moronic than investing hope in money. What about drugs?! Or alcohol, family, sex, friends, or the simple pleasure that comes from knowing everyone thinks well of you. Yet all of these will fail us. Once the high is past they leave a loud and violent emptiness. Family and friends argue and drift apart, they fail us and we fail them. And as for being well thought of; nothing is more draining than trying to achieve the impossible; have people think you are what you are not: perfect. 

All of this sounds very negative. Yet no one wants chase something claiming to be happiness but carrying a hidden sting. No one wants to die eating knives in Russia. And, whether spectacularly or quietly, in our moment of need, anything or anyone, in whom we have tried to find ultimate joy, will fail us. The stream will run dry leaving us desperately thirsty and alone.

(TBC)