Following the path will lead to real joy

On Christmas Eve — TO keep the spirit of things — we all decided to choose a "Christmas virtue" and take a minute to talk about it.

My word was "joy" — as in "to the world."

As I listened to others talk about trust and charity and justice, it occurred to me the problem with real joy is people constantly confuse it with other kinds of feelings. Hitting a game-winning basket may be "thrilling" and "exciting," but was it really "joyous?" Joy, it seemed to me, happened deeper in the heart than that. It happened to the part of us that we keep locked away.

And just as there is real gold and fool's gold, there is real joy and "fool's joy." Fool's joy is more about stimulation than fulfillment. Risking life and limb for "fool's joy" has ruined many lives.

"Joy is obviously of a higher order than mere pleasure," wrote Elder Neal A. Maxwell. "Pleasure is perishable. It has a short shelf-life."

I suppose one reason I find turning notions of joy around in my head so intriguing is because I grew up around the word "joy." It was my mother's name. And in her girlish way, she tended to buy Joy dishwashing liquid, Almond Joy candy bars and other things with her name on them. It's not that she was self-absorbed. In fact, she was just the opposite. I think she liked to have the word "joy" around because it reminded her of who she was and what was expected of her. She saw "dispensing joy" as her roll in the world. So she always kept the word close at hand to remind her, the way Hasidic Jews keep a scripture dangling between their eyes.

What's more, joy is like laughter. Writing about it is much easier than producing it. What does joy feel like? All I can say is I believe people know it when they feel it. It has nothing to do with feeling a buzz, a rush or a high. It has more to do with calmness and serenity.

When I feel it — which is never often enough — I feel, I think, like grandma's old cast-iron oven with a loaf of bread baking inside. It has to do with feelings of warmth and simplicity; with freshness, wholesomeness and softness. Unlike a "rush," memories of joyful feelings don't stir us up, they calm us down. Dwelling on past joys can often be enough to get us through a day. Anticipating future joyful feelings can be enough to get us through a life.

The other day, while stumbling around in a book of quotations, I came across some thoughts by a writer I'd never heard of — Alexander MacLaren of Scotland. He died a hundred years ago. MacLaren, it turns out, had some wonderful things to say that aren't repeated nearly enough. "The prayer that begins with trustfulness," he wrote, "will always end in thankfulness." And, "Bow passion to reason, reason to conscience and conscience to God."

MacLaren also had a great deal to say about joy — including this:

"To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy . . . then it comes most suredly unsought. And we, being in the way, God's angel — bright-haired Joy — is sure to meet us."

So, this New Year's Eve, instead of wishing you all joy in the new year, let me wish you the courage and will to follow steadily that path of duty. If MacLaren is right, your joy will then take care of itself.

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E-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com