Choose Joy

Fr. Mike Schmitz, chaplain for the University of Minnesota-Duluth Campus Ministry, has started a new homily series for the Advent season called "Joy to the World". The norms for Advent state that "Advent is thus a period for devout and joyful expectation." Joy! Fr. Mike says that joy is an abiding sense of well being, knowing that there is a God and he cares for me. G.K. Chesterton describes joy as the

appropriate response to being--that everything rather than nothing is. I understand this as even though we may not be happy due to unfortunate events in our lives it is still possible to be joyful because we exist, we have life, we have a God that loves us, even if the world around us (some people may say that is 2016) is falling apart and we aren't happy.

Fr. Mike points out that so many times for him and others he speaks with it is so much easier to focus on the negative. Someone may ask us how we are doing or how our weekend or break was and we immediately go to the negative, what went wrong. And I've seen that in my own life. So many times when people gather to visit, share a meal, etc they end up talking about what is going wrong, complaining, gossiping. Why? Why do we do that? We have to, we get to choose joy.

I could have done that after this weekend, or the past 5 days. If someone had asked me how this weekend was I could have focused on the negative. And there was plenty. But hindsight, through a choice for joy, I see this past weekend differently. here's how it looked.

Friday: 
Negative: After being blessed by my awesome wife in being cool with me going to the gym late because  I just really needed the release, I ended up rubbing her back and holding her hair out of the way as she was puking at 3AM Friday morning. I automatically knew that my plans for the next day were gone, most importantly I was going to miss out on my designated time for work and I had already lost a lot of work time last week. So Friday I had the girls to myself and I had to take care of Erika. I also had to take care of some errands for her that were way out of my way though I was happy to do them.

Joy: I got to spend all day with my girls, just us. I got to love on Erika and take care of her and make sure that her plans for the day weren't a total bust. That evening I brought the girls to Adore Family Dinner. For a few hours we got to surround ourselves with awesome loving people and break bread, share good drink (I brought some Pumpkinator to share) and close the night with the host family's evening Advent prayer and singing. Singles, couples, moms, dads, babies on the way, big and small families, gathered in joy.

Saturday: 
Negative: Erika still sick. Mid day I found out I needed to pick up some things I dropped off for Erika the previous day and run another errand on the way home. I also needed to pick up some supplies for a movie night I was throwing at Shrine of the True Cross that night in Dickinson from 6-9PM. I wanted to get there by at least 4 because I wanted to use the projector but I had no idea how sound would work, if the room was a good space for that, etc. On the way there, what is normally a 50 min. drive turned into an hour and forty five minute drive due to highway six being shut down. I got there at 5:30!

Joy: Another day I got to serve Erika. Even though we got to Dickinson way later, I got to take my girls

with me which actually ended up being great. No one came for the first hour so I figured the girls and I would have our own movie night. Later some teens came so we started a new movie and had a blast. The girls had so much fun watching movies, eating junk food, and being goofy. I had so much fun and was so glad some teens came. I had a great moment with a mom. She asked me how things were going, if I though it was going bad, better, or exactly how I thought. I told her it was going great. Small numbers but the fact that there are numbers in the beginning building stages that was huge. She was so relieved and expressed how she was hoping I wouldn't be discouraged. It was great to receive her care and support for what we're trying to accomplish.

Sunday: Erika on the mend. Pretty relaxed day. Elanor developed a 102 fever during mass.

Monday: 
Negative: Super late night the night before. Elanor knocked out all day. We didn't get up til noon. I was really hoping to enter enter into the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe but couldn't. I really started to get upset about this. We missed the evening mass.

Joy: Erika was better and had a fairly good day with the girls. Adeline was actually pretty mellow. I had the largest showing of youth at our Funday Munday event thus far. Even though we did not get to do what I wanted to celebrate the day, it was a good day.

Tuesday:
Negative: Elanor developed pink eye. Both girls were not cooperative and there was tons of whining. I was done with the day by noon. I then got to work super late. I was supposed to be there by 2 to prep for my 1 on 1 Confirmation and make some calls but I didn't get in til 3:30.

Joy: My 1 on 1 was awesome! I hadn't seen this teen in a few weeks and we caught up and chatted about life. We went well over our time. I made some calls and had great responses from people wanting to help with our ministry. Erika and the girls got to talk about St. Lucy, pray, and celebrate with some cinnamon rolls. I got to end the night giving Erika a massage and getting some well needed work in while while watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

So much went wrong in the past few days. But, but, in the grand scheme of things, life is good. The glimpses of the good overshadowed the negative and I chose to enter into those realities. I choose joy. So for the rest of this season of Advent and on into Christmas and the new year, lets choose joy.