“Why does my heart feel so bad? Why does my soul feed so bad?” All year, You’ve had the strangle moral imperative to joy buzzing around my ears. It could be that I’m putting too much stock in a single command of Paul’s. But with:
- “get to” being the word of the year,
- Travis having made such an impression on me with the primacy he assigns to joy, and
- all the specific words that have come to me on the subject this year,
it has been hard to avoid. And more than ever, the role of joy as an anchor for the words I say to others remaining words of life and not words of death has become apparent. I may not need to dig the well of self-love in order to love others, as so many folks extrabiblically claim, but I do apparently need to dig the well of joy: I have spoken brusquely again and again in recent weeks—this despite all the recent emphasis I have placed in my mind on letting “all my words be full of grace.” Why? Because it’s “out of the overflow of the heart” that “the mouth speaks.” If I feel despair, resentment, embarrassment, or any of joy’s other foils, I will not be able to keep those feelings off my tongue. Hence my alienating Carla yesterday evening after ending the workday feeling embarrassed and guilty that I had wasted an hour (at least) trying to coax ChatGPT and Gemini into providing me with business-hours difference formula I could use in a Salesforce report for Mike when a simple, classic Google search would have led me straight to the answer I sought. Hence my boorishly declaring my annoyance to Carla midmorning today after I spent two-and-a-half hours reviewing the College Township timeline into which she herself has put uncounted hours, a double layer of resentment (her absence and my feeling dragged into it). If I am unhappy, I am more likely—far more likely—to inflict my unhappiness on those around me. As such, digging and tending the well of joy—guarding my heart, as it were—is a moral prophylactic. Joy waters love. If any sentiments might be blocking or contaminating that well, I must spend the time and thought necessary to clear those sentiments out.