Rob Bell / An Introduction to Joy

no one wants to be cynical no one wants to have an old heart what you want is the overwhelming sense that you've stumbled into a magnificent and mysterious work of art also known as your life what you want is the sensation that you've been participating in an unprecedented phenomenon this entire time and you're just now becoming aware of it what you want is joy [Applause] hello los angeles and surrounding vicinities you're here welcome to an introduction to joy it's just an introduction so we're just getting started and i know for many of you you're like yeah but what's the subtitle because you wouldn't do a show without a subtitle i know people out there doing shows not a subtitle so i want to show you the subtitle of the show to give you a bit more fuller context and background and depth on what exactly this is and i came up with a subtitle it's really terse and short it's just a few words it's nice and punchy so i want to show it to you now an introduction to joy how to be less cynical and more honest about the subversive truth that lurks just below the surface of pretty much everything you like that it gets right to the point it gets in it gets out does what it needs to do and then there's often that wonderful soul we call them the type a they're the organized structured person and right at the top of the show they're a little anxious because they're like what is the structure of this thing you're not just gonna like talk about being happy or something what is this thing here will there be significant transmission of content throughout the presentation so to that person and thanks for doing our taxes for that person what i want to do is i want to show you my entire outline from start to finish so that you can see the whole thing so there'll be no mister you can see where we're headed and then just put you at ease okay so here's my outline we're going to talk about dogs cats cars apples skateboards the tsa instagram account a fantastic text from my friend paul a brief overview of the ancient wisdom book ecclesiastes what i saw at trader joe's broccoli computers lemons bugs and just for fun we'll wrap it up with a bit about the day of judgment [Laughter] all of the mystery has been taken away you can see it all right there and then i have uh there are two thesis that theses these i i have one thesis and another thesis the sort of undergird the whole happening that you and i are having together thesis number one is that cynicism is easy because it's actually quite lazy because it doesn't go far enough thesis number one is that cynicism is lazy because it doesn't go far enough and then thesis two is that joy is different than happy happy generally exists in a binary with sad or a duality you're happy or you're sad in the same sense that there is positive thinking and then there is negative thinking joy is something altogether different joy has plenty of room for anger loss betrayal heartache depression despair joy does no repressing avoiding or denying joy can wrap its arms around the full spectrum of the human experience it can handle it all joy is a fundamentally different way of viewing the entire fabric of the universe so those are a couple of places that we will go together in this happening that we are in the midst of but before we cover any of that let's talk about you because i assume you're like me and you wake up in the morning and you get dressed a bit like this man that i saw one morning let that guy give you a gift i saw him and i ugh i wanted to see the decision tree on this outfit so bad what should i wear this morning shorts definitely which ones the tight ones with the stripes of course shirt no shirt oh you go on with your bad self which shoes the day glow runners socks how about those cut off black business socks because we're going to a meeting let him be the gift that just keeps on giving let's start the day by juggling of course let his presence just waft over you apparently there are way less rules than anybody told us around the same time this man walked by me one morning as he walked by me i saw so much of myself in him you would have done that joke too that one's just right there yeah that's what you do with that joke rhetorically tell the joke get the laugh even though it's lame then stand back from the joke and let everybody know that you're above those sorts of jokes and then you win both ways we're going to win all night long both ways everybody this is how this is going to go down here's the thing he walks by me like this are you with me like he wasn't wearing a mirror suit terrifying that's the rule there if you're gonna walk around in public in a mirror suit don't acknowledge that you're wearing a mirror suit and watch people just drop left and right catatonic so i assume you're like me you wake up in the morning you have this body located in space and time probably the first thing you do like me is you get dressed and then uh in our house we have a dog so well the first thing is the dog needs to go outside so the dog can do dog things one morning i'm out in the neighborhood and somebody in my neighborhood can't take their dog out for a walk because their dog is missing so they put up those lost dog signs on lamp posts like people do actual sign in my neighborhood laila harmon four pound yorkie teacup she's like our child if found non-gmo biscuits only non-gmo biscuits only welcome to west hollywood oh she's like our child i wanted to find this dog so bad not because i wanted to see a reunion of master and canine but because i wanted to call the number say i found leila harmon and wouldn't you know she just loves doritos ah she has the cutest little orange mustache she's on her third bag it isn't even eight yet now my family we had this dog that we loved for years and he got really really old we had to take him to the vet because at the end they had to put him down so they took us into this room that had like boxes of kleenex and pictures of live dogs on the walls and then they put him to sleep and then we went out in the parking lot of the vet and we all cried and then we went and got pizza and so that's a weird story so i'm watching my family to see how long before a cry arises within the clan tribe it's time for a new dog about a month before there were murmurings we should probably get a dog now there's a dog rescue in our neighborhood which is fantastic so we all walked over to our local dog rescue which is called barking so we all go the five of us walked a few blocks over to barking now barking is a dog rescue but it's also a dog's store and so all the dogs run loose in the store so you step in off the sidewalk and there's like a double gate system so you step in and then an employee yells at you to make sure that both gates are filled but then they also the dogs defecate all over the floor so they also clean it so you get blasted with a certain combination of smells as you're getting buzzed as the door behind you is closed and then your reward is you get into the main area and all the dogs are running loose every breeding experiment gone awry is running around is that a shih tzu and a wolf right there that sort of thing as a family we're making our way across barking to the back and there's one dog that is hiding under a bench in the back and is overlooking the thing like i want nothing to do with this and our entire family is like that one that one the one who's having the same reaction that we are to the situation so we bring this dog home she's part australian cattle dog part pit bull right so she's ripped but doesn't work out that sort of thing are you with me on this we love our dogs so much she's so beautiful she's so perfect unconditional love we just have had some suspicion she's not the most intelligent dog no judgment nothing but love you know you're at your friend's house and their dog is online and you're like wait they can do that that sort of thing probably not the most intelligent dog not a problem nothing but love although about a year and a half ago i'm out walking her one day there's tons of graffiti in our neighborhood and she lunges at this suspicions confirmed every once in a while and she and i are alone she'll uh give me this look it's like she's saying that was really embarrassing wasn't it and i always say yes but i won't tell anybody we were at the vet waiting for them to bring the dog out after doing some minor repairs of some sort i am perusing the literature when i come across this catster magazine upper right hand corner live with cattitude and then hanging from the sea formerly cat fancy there was a meeting agenda item i'm just not feeling the name of our magazine [Music] somebody else i know we're not british [Music] well do you have a better name yes caster you know there was the traditionalist at the meeting who was like yeah but what about all the cat fancy people who came with us this far on the cat adventure and you know there's somebody else who said there'll be a capital c on caster will hang a tag from it and we'll write formerly cat fancy and we'll all go into the cat future together and you know somebody around that table said now that's cattitude if you want joy lower the bar it's all around uh so you're like me you wake up in the morning you get dressed maybe have some breakfast maybe you have to walk a dog or take care of some animal in your house and then i assume you go and do whatever it is you do in the world i assume you have some sort of transportation i noticed this car in my neighborhood and after like one years two years three years walking the dog and passing this car one day i'm like i don't think that car ever gets driven and then i walked up close and i was like no that car never gets driven apparently a rolling stone gathers no moss but a parked 83 festiva does my daughter is ten two years ago when she turned eight she could ride in the front seat because of the airbag safety ever so the first day i'm driving her to school in the morning because that's the big thing in the morning going to school she opens up the glove compartment she pulls out the owner's manual and she says what are these books doing in the snack box when i look over and she's holding the owner's manual and i was like well actually it's called a glove compartment and she says why and i said well because we keep lo that's a good point snack box yeah she's like what are these books doing in the snack box i was like oh well those books are called the owner's manual if the car were to break down i would take those books out and i would begin reading them so that i could learn how to do you ever not believe yourself it's a snap box we have that kind of power to rename it so you have this life this flesh and blood you have a driver's license social security number date of birth you have this space that you locate in space and time that we know to be this phenomenon that is your life you wake up you get dressed you have some food walk a dog take someone to school and then i assume you do whatever it is that you do maybe you're a professional skateboarder and obviously if you're a professional skateboarder the goal is to have your own signature model pro deck with your name on the bottom if you're dennis bouchnitz the legendary skateboarder and you ride for real skateboards this is a great moment when you get your pro model board but the problem is when you see the bottom of the board and you realize they misspelled your name so what do you do if you're a professional skateboarder and they misspell your name well apparently for dennis bushnets you release a super limited dennis bushnet's typo edition from earl skate dorbz and people like me pay extra for it or maybe you're not a professional skateboarder a fantastic sentence but maybe you take care of little ones my cousin and his wife had four boys in a seven year span of time and so i went to visit them in texas because i love traveling internationally and it's like you walk in the door of a home where there are four boys under the age of 11 and it's just like there's like there's like vibrations in the air the energy it's like you could bottle it and we sit down on the couch and we're catching up and i noticed there's a bowl of fake fruit on the coffee table and then i take a second look at that bowl of fake fruit and suddenly i'm so happy for them if you have four kids under the age of 11 and you have fake fruit within arm's reach and there are no bite marks i challenge your commitment to parenting no curiosity whatsoever by the way small observation bite marks in multiple apples apparently the first bite this one's dry i should keep going my daughter became obsessed with the scarlet witch the superhero she was like i she said i would like a scarlet witch headdress i was like all right let's do this so we go to the fabric store in our neighborhood which is called the fabric store and we go through all these bolts of fabric and we find this crushed red velvet she's like that's the fabric so we take it up to the front and the woman working behind the counter said well how much would you like and i said well we're making a scarlet witch headdress that much and she says well who's that and i said do you have the googler she said yes so my daughter went behind the counter they pull up google images and she picks out this picture of the scarlet witch and the woman says well i'll help you make it and the other woman says that's okay brenda i'll take it from here and the other one says uh actually katie i was gonna make a cardboard template to get the dimensions right and the other one says yeah that's why i've already laid out the cardboard here as you can see and then look at those faces game on i walked out of there with two scarlet witch headdresses for six dollars there is this thing that happens and the more routine average and every day it is the the more the person could just go through the motions there's this thing that happens when somebody could have just phoned it in but they don't and they throw themselves into it and they're here and nowhere else it does something to you and the more average the more every day it is the more it's just in the sort of course of life they could have just yeah here on your way but instead they're fully present in this place and nowhere else giving it everything they have and it moves you in some some place in the soul it's i it's like something sacred about it something holy something profoundly inspiring speaking of inspiring tsa has an instagram account somebody's job who's paid for by our tax dollars is to run the tsa instagram account what did they do on the account answer questions about what can and can't be brought on an airplane can i bring this cheese grater as a carry-on sunglasses for size and scale or this one can i wear my steel-toed cowboy boots on the plane i'd like to rock them in denmark or this one my father-in-law cooked these hot dogs up for his plane ride home tomorrow can he take them through first off thanks for the photo didn't know what you're referring to second eight third i don't know if you married well i don't know we will see or this one ma will my sister be able to take this coffee mug on the flight back home from texas to which i would respond do we want her to but then and i don't know if there was a meeting and they fired the person or if they just said to the person running the tsa instagram account you gotta up your game i mean it is throw some elbows we gotta win this thing i don't know what happened but that thing took a turn here's what i mean all of a sudden stuff like this these inert prototype projectiles used for energetic drilling were discovered in a checked bag at spokane i think my dentist may have used these during my last root canal what or this one if you've noticed that your bag is a lot lighter you may have forgotten your bowling ball at the washington dollars tsa checkpoint hopefully this person had a spare somebody went home from work that night walked through the front door of their house honey i'm home their lover called to them how was work i was on fire everything i put in back of the net it was something to behold i don't know what exactly it is that you do but i assume at some point maybe mid-morning you stop and you check your texts to make sure you're still alive all those little blue dots letting you know somebody else acknowledges your existence at an existential level of the ontological serotonin rushing through your brain i'm here somebody remembered me i don't do emojis because i'm a grown man but that splits every audience people are like first text my daughter ever sent me this is violet dada i do emojis dog panda koala pig baby chicken mommy chicken i do emojis you don't i do uh so uh kristen and i've been married for 25 years we have a 10 year old girl 9 year break 19 year old son 21 year old son my 19 year old son he started playing guitar when he was like 14 by the time he's 16 he's organizing his own tours of the country like he'd be like hey we drove all night from denver to salt lake city made 17 bucks living the dream that kind of thing so we've had all these conversations over the years about over the years over the past three years about making things and how there's this like honor and privilege of making something and sharing it with people and you never blame a bad show on an audience no because sometimes there might be a few people sometimes a lot of people sometimes there might be an incredibly positive response maybe nothing no no you decide ahead of time that it's going to be great that you're going to give the biggest gift you can and then you go out and you do that that's how it works the joy is in the giving so he and i we've had endless conversations about this but then sometimes what happens is kristin and i uh we'd go to a show and we get there and be like so you guys about to go on and be like well there's a problem with the opening band then the sound check so we were gonna go on 9 30 but now we're going out at 1 15. and uh kristen and i would be like we love you so much just not that much so one night i'm texting him to get a more accurate idea of what time they're actually going on and uh he sends me this text anyway you could bring some deodorant to the show thank you so much i respond yes he responds there are four people here anybody feel that deep in the soul there are four people here now there's been a running discussion in our home about who's faster our oldest son or the dog so we go to this parking lot of the store in the neighborhood and i get some dog treats and stand at one end and then uh my daughter holds the leash of the dog here my son lines up here and then i show the dog the treats and yell go and the two of them take off running and to this day our son's like i beat the dog obviously i ran faster and my daughter's like no the dog run the dog is faster ongoing discussion in our home now this son of mine he cuts his own hair to save money he's frugal he's an incredibly good student he's very healthy and fit i look up to him he's an extraordinary human being never over sleeps incredibly responsible last year at university he oversleeps one morning totally this never happens to him and he has 10 minutes to get a mile across campus and turn in a paper or he gets a zero in the class once again just not something you ever hear from him but he does it he gets there in time turns in the paper doesn't get a zero later in the day he texts us to tell us about this weird thing that he overslept here's the text but if i had overslept like 10 more minutes i might have got a zero on the final i don't know why my alarm didn't wake me up kristen responds wow that's so scary i bet your heart was beating so hard he responds i know how fast i am so i actually wasn't too worried [Applause] [Laughter] about a year and a half ago i got a wrong number text seriously this is the text hey bro this is terry terry thinks i'm somebody else i'll get a hold of you about 7 7 30 when i get out of work does that work for you how should i respond i start responding nah deleting too forward too poetic now i am having so much fun imagining how i should respond once again you want joy lower the bar let me give you an idea how much joy this text brought me time stamp of my response can you do the soul math on that seven hours of suspended bliss practicing possible responses oh finally all the final whoa i mean terry's gonna get out of work in a couple hours i gotta get on this so allow me to show you my masterpiece perfect i'll have the cheese done by then right before this tour started my friend paul sends me a text no hey how you doing how are christian the kids we should get together sometime no preamble prologue post script nothing just a picture and then a paragraph up pops on my phone this picture so smoking a cigar bare chested in this backyard or the garden of eden it's unclear which something about this scene made him thought i made him think i should uh text rob and then this paragraph i remember as a young teen seeing this old dude in the mall walking around in bermuda shorts dress shoes with two different dress socks and a non-matching shirt with a disheveled unshaven look eating yogurt i felt bad for him i now realize he entered the old dude phase and ravana called i don't give a it's totally awesome i love getting older fatter lazier grouchier at the right stuff it's a good season your best stuff is still a decade away so you check your texts and then you go back to doing whatever it is that you do maybe you communicate maybe that's what you do you arrange words images paragraphs sentences a number of years ago i did a book signing and this guy came to my book signing and brought a book that he had written to give to me that's not how it works fella he waits all the way through the line comes up he finally gets to the front of the line and he just drops his book down on the table between us and i'm thinking like ah whatever and then i take a look at the book i just stood up and hugged him we are brothers on some planet somewhere does it even need a subtitle it's all there in the title are you with me on this or maybe you're not a communicator maybe you're a student and what you do each day is go to class or not go to class dear parents they're going to be fine they're going to your anxiety is not helping they're going to be fine or maybe you're not a student maybe you work with a hammer a chisel and a ladder and what you do because that plaster had been on the side of that building in venice for a while what you do is just chip away bits and pieces to reveal what had been in the wall the entire time maybe that's what you do at some level you spend your days removing the excess and the clutter and the superfluous and everything that's in the way so that that which has been present the entire time can be given its fullest expression maybe that's what you do at some level of the soul then of course there's always that moment in the afternoon perhaps when you take a break maybe you run a few errands one afternoon my daughter and i she was much younger at the time we're out running errands uh maybe mailing some boxes or something and we come out of a store and she asked me if i can carry her back to the car so i'm carrying her and she falls asleep and that her hair is like running down my shoulder i can feel a little heart beating so i do that dad shimmy thing you do when you get to the car where you open up the front door and then you slide in so that she won't wake up so you can just sit there so i'm in the lower level of this parking garage the door to the car is open and i'm just sitting there i can feel her breathing and it's just one of those moments when everything is right with the world even if it isn't and i'm just there and all of a sudden i hear a guy coming across the parking lot and he says give me your phone i'm like this is not and he says give me your phone and i turn and i look at him and i say why and he says because you're going to want a photo of this later there are these moments there are these moments when everything is at peace with the world even if it isn't they generally sneak up on you you rarely plan them they just occur there's no past present future there's just this eternal now you find yourself caught up in when all is well even if it isn't but maybe you're not in one of those moments maybe you're angry maybe you're ready to protest maybe you're ready to shake your fist and rage against the machine because you're tired of this and you're about to let your voice be heard so you've made a cardboard sign and you're going downtown to a protest because you want to let people know you're sick and tired of this [Laughter] not usually a sign guy but jeez or this cosmic grandma that we all love yes or maybe you're not asleep and maybe you're not angry carrying your sign downtown maybe you're dequan and you're just giving us the gift that you give us you're just doing what you do in the world what does da'quann put on his tax form for vocation i just spread eternal sun beams of light and unicorns wherever i go [Laughter] yeah so we have these lives here in space until i'm on this planet located here near you i'm me we wake up in the morning we have this day that we're going to experience we get dressed walk the dog go do whatever it is that we do communicate with the ones we love the most try to get something done be who we are my first full-time job was in a church as a pastor are you familiar with these and so i would go in and there were these things that were scheduled and so i knew that there were these things coming up because they were on the calendar i noticed right away that sundays came with a certain regularity to them but then there was this whole other world of things that happened that i didn't know when those things completely unpredictable i never knew when those were going to occur because people would call the phone ring and somebody would say i need a pastor and then i learned because i was the new guy that everybody who just called the church randomly and needed a pastor they were sending all those calls to my phone so on any given day i had the things that were going to happen that were on the schedule but then i knew at any moment the phone might ring and somebody just might say hey i need a pastor and i figured well that's my job i probably should do that i remember somebody called and said have this relative who's in prison none of us can get in to see him because we don't have like a proper credential but i think a pastor does could you go see him sure so i got down to the prison and the guard leads me into this little cement block room and the guard says now before i bring in the prisoner i gotta let you know this prisoner is under 24-hour video surveillance i was like why and he said because he's been deemed a threat to himself and others good to know then he says so i'm gonna bring him in and then lock the two of you in here hold on a second there wayne you're going to lock me in here with him the guard says yeah i said well what if he tries to harm me i swear to you the guard says to me oh well i'll be able to watch on my screen i remember somebody asked me to do a funeral so okay fine so i show up at the funeral home and the whole family has gathered and i sit down in among all these relatives i don't know any of them and i'm supposed to plan the funeral service but quite quickly it's like i'm mapping the territory i'm like wait these people hate these people and this person has something that goes way back with this person and as i'm trying to figure out what exactly is going on here i learned that the patriarch who had died right before he passed away he had had his will completely rewritten so that the most amount of people would be angry with the other most amount of people at his funeral he wanted his funeral to be as miserable as possible this is the kind of thing on any given day i would stumble in one of these remember a young couple called and said uh our kid was just our baby was just born and we don't know if the baby's gonna make it could you please come see us and they were in the neonatal icu in icu intensive care unit so go down to this section of the hospital where these clear plastic boxes paste at regular intervals all of them with newborn babies in them and this couple is there standing over one of these clear plastic boxes and their baby is hooked up to all these wires and tubes do you walk up close to them do you give them space do you start talking do you just let there be silence what do you do in these sorts of situations so this is what it was like i'm like 25 years old mid-20s just starting out and every day seems like i'm in these sorts of situations where i'm witnessing up close pain loss death suffering betrayal it's as if we have these concentric circles of people that we know there are the people that we're closest to that we bring in to our most intimate celebrations and sufferings then there's like that next ring out and that next ring out and that next ring out and there was something about this first job of mine where i would race through those outer circles all the way into the front row seat it's just me and the family in the hospital room and i've only met them once there was something about the nature of this work over and over and over again i would find myself having like a front row seat to the most intimate gut-wrenching agonizing experiences that human beings can go through then kristen and i had our first boy and our second boy and we're starting this family and then i go home to this family that i loved so much and so i have these boys i'm a dad for the first time then i'm doing this work and then apparently i'm also the lead singer of everclear [Music] [Laughter] will the real slim shady please stand up uh [Music] some of you are like rob bell mention the hair second that photo went up mention the hair [Laughter] so i'm in one of these situations where i'm in a tight space with people who are in great pain and then three hours later 47 minutes later i'm stepping through the back door of the house i'm home how am i supposed to have a meal with these people that i love the most in the world when i just saw that how am i supposed to be here present enjoying this with the ones i love when i know what that family going through tonight and more and more it became like this struggle like this tension it was like i was seeing these things up close it's like my heart could barely do it but then i also had this life i was living with my family and i wanted to be in it and be present to it it was like there were these two spaces in my heart it was like they were competing like are like stretchy my heart's like my heart couldn't contain the depth and immensity of what appeared to be these opposing forces and experiences like diametrically opposed to each other became like the dominant question of my life i don't know how to do this how do you live in this world that can break your heart so quickly like it does and have any semblance of joy how do you be here with all that comes with it and actually enjoy it is this even possible and this became like a like a line of inquiry like a quest like a hunt like a a driving question of my life and over time i stumbled into an ancient tradition that was actually oriented around answering this exact question that's the thing about any sort of search you go on if you were to line up all of the brothers and sisters who have come before us whatever it is that's eating you alive whatever angst you're carrying around in your heart whatever despair is in your soul if you were to explain what you're going through to the great family that's come before us to the cumulative wisdom of all those who have gone before us it's not like you'd share your thing and they'd all say yeah that's a first yeah that's the thing we're never the first and there's this massive tradition of wisdom about how to make it in the world and i discovered what i call the wisdom after wisdom tradition or the alternative wisdom tradition and for the first time it was like i had a way to think about this question that was like pulling apart these two halves of my heart and i specifically found it in uh some ancient jewish wisdom poetry specifically in a book called ecclesiastes i took a picture of it you could still get a copy they're still making it here's the thing about ecclesiastes is the book starts here's the opening line meaningless meaningless says the teacher utterly meaningless everything is meaningless strong opener then the poet goes on all things are worrisome more than one can say the eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear it's full of hearing what has been will be again what has been done will be done again there's nothing new under the sun is there anything of which one can say look this is something new it was here already long ago it was here before our time it's all meaningless there's nothing new the writer is just getting started then i applied myself to the understanding of wisdom and also of madness and folly but i learned that this too is a chasing after the wind for with much wisdom comes much sorrow and the more knowledge the more grief it says if the master teacher says really seriously you want to know it all you like want to pull back the veil you really want full transparency you want to see how it really works we could show you there'll probably be some grief and sorrow in there example how does the government work thank you and then this in this meaningless life of mine i have seen both of these the righteous perishing in the righteousness and the wicked living long in their wickedness he essentially says i've seen really good people die young and i've seen horrible people live a long time it's almost as if the master poet says let me disabuse you of the notion that there is any direct correlation between how good you are and how long you live there's none now there's a word that keeps popping up it's this word meaningless so what's interesting about this word meaningless is you and i are educated in very greek influence systems they're very comfortable with abstract ideas and concepts but this is ancient jewish poetry and wisdom it comes from a hebrew consciousness that is much more about the earth much more about grounded images soil sun water the stuff of life this word meaningless in the original hebrew language ecclesiastes was written in in the hebrew language the word meaningless is the word havel h e v e l and havel translates literally vapor or mist can you see that by the way okay good that would be awkward if all of a sudden what is rob doing with his wonder woman gun yeah this is the image that the teacher gives us it's as if ecclesiastes begins everything is utterly this is your life vapor mist it's all vapor management baby you arrive you're here and then you're gone by the way your friend john who's like i went to that new restaurant and i waited forever for a table no john seven minutes there's a difference yeah this is the image the teacher's using it's all vapor you're here and then you're gone but then the poetry takes this unexpected turn you get the swerve like a different mode so go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart enjoy life all the days of this meaningless life that god has given you under the sun all your days it's like there are these two modes it's like it's all vapor you're here and then you're gone you want to know a lot that'll bring sorrow and grief there's nothing new listen young good people die just a few years into life all the time so here's the thing because it's so vapor-like and fragile while you are here and you do have it you should probably enjoy it because there are way less guarantees than anybody told you and there's an unpredictability baked into the whole thing so while you are here having this experience you probably should do what you can to enjoy it then the poetry swerves back and you have this i saw that wisdom is better than folly just as light is better than darkness the wise have eyes in their heads while the fool walks in darkness but i came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both we're all gonna die then i love this section so fantastic so i hated life because the work that is done on the sun was grievous to me all of it meaningless vapor baby a chasing after the wind i hated all the things i had toiled for under the sun because i must leave them to the one who comes after me and who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which i have poured my effort and skill under the sun this too is vapor essentially says i could stack it up nice and tall but then the moment i die somebody else will be in charge who knows if they'll know what to do with it in other words have you met my son-in-law yeah but then as you saw before there's like a cadence like a turn like a swerve and you get this so this is what i've observed to be good that it's appropriate for a person to eat to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life god has given them for this is their lot moreover when god gives someone wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them to accept their lot and be happy in their toil this is a gift of god you're just here for a moment it's so vapor-like it's so fragile and fleeting and temporal and temporary so you should probably enjoy it and if you could find something meaningful to give your energies to you should probably do that and if you could find something that brings you some sort of satisfaction if you could find something that brings you some sort of satisfaction you should probably do that because you're just here for a brief brief period of time it's all vapor management and then it swerves and you get this other section you get the first mention of the word evil i've seen another evil under the sun and it weighs heavily on humankind god gives some people wealth possessions and honor so they lack nothing their hearts desire but god does not grant them the ability to enjoy them and strangers enjoy them instead this is pure vapor and mist a grievous evil it's as if the master teacher says i'll tell you what's horrible is to be surrounded by goodness but unable to access it or enjoy it that's just flat out evil it's as if the poet is saying imagine if there was a culture that had more wealth technology luxury and options than any civilization in the history of humanity and yet more people were stressed depressed worried and anxious and unable to enjoy all of that abundance try to imagine it's like now that that's dark that's evil but then you get this swerve back to so i command the enjoyment of life because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad and then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life god has given them under the sun and for me this wisdom after wisdom tradition was like the first time i felt like i had a little oxygen that i could like understand where this hunt this search this quest was taking me here's what i mean there is conventional wisdom conventional wisdom proverbs wisdom is how the world works conventional wisdom is what we all agreed this is how you should do things conv if you have kids conventional wisdom is hey uh we try to take a shower at least once a week in this house that sort of thing conventional wisdom is how to change a flat tire you should probably pay your taxes maybe have some money in savings conventional wisdom is everything you are teaching a kid about how the world works now conventional wisdom is undergirded by something called causality causality means a plus b equals c do this and then do this so you'll get this outcome ecclesiastes is something altogether different ecclesiastes i call it the wisdom after wisdom conventional wisdom is absolutely necessary for proper human growth development and maturity you need that ecclesiastes wisdom is for everybody who played by the rules of conventional wisdom and still got burned ecclesiastes wisdom is for everybody who discovered that a plus b doesn't always equal c you took good care of your body and they got that diagnosis from the doctor you were faithful and true and then found out they love somebody else and they're going to start a life with that person you we're a good business partner and you kept the books clean and now they've left town and taken the money with them in some ways to resonate with wisdom after wisdom you have to be far enough down the road that you've lost someone's that you love who were way too young to leave us anybody know what i'm talking about you've brushed up against the unpredictability of life how fragile and tenuous it actually live is and that's where the master poet in ecclesiastes comes in and says this whole thing is so fragile it's barely hanging on by a thread it's really wobbly there are way less guarantees than anybody told us there's an there's an inherent unpredictability baked into the very fabric of the entire experience we're having so here's the thing you don't know if tomorrow is coming being good isn't going to get you more days so here's the thing right now you should probably enjoy it while you have it because we're all gonna die we should probably have another round this for me it was like starting to get some relief yes it's not that these two experiences that i was having are competing in my heart the one informs the other i've seen how fragile this is and how it can break your heart and what that does is inform the other so i'm going to enjoy it while i have it this began to help me understand this question that i'd had for so long and then in the spring of 2008 i get this email and this guy says we're doing this event with the dalai lama and bishop tutu and we put want to put them on a stage with you and a couple of other people because we want to see what would happen and i was like i want to see what would happen so i go to this event with dalai lama and bishop tutu and they said now before the main thing we want to have a breakfast where you all can get to know each other so i'm there in the front of the room so excited and dalai lama comes in from the back corner and bishop tutu comes in from the other corner and they meet right in front of me and they meet and i didn't know their longtime friends they meet and they hug each other and they begin tickling each other and giggling i will not make the noise that they made in public and i'm standing right here with this sort of what is protocol in this particular situation do i like group hug we're getting the band back together let's do this fellas that sort of thing so i did what every single one of you would have done i took a step back pulled out my phone and got a picture [Music] then they sit down in these two chairs facing us and they start talking and it's like dalai lama pauses at one point and then he says to bishop tutu have you gained weight bishop tutu does this rant about how god is like a mother and how could a mother ever forget the one that she birthed and dalai lama's like oh that's fresh it what is what is what is this i'm i'm shocked and stunned and caught off guard it's that thing where you're like wait i wasn't expecting this but then you have to go backwards and go well then what was i expecting it's like why is this so shocking what did i think i was like oh i thought these two i thought this thing would be heavy because these two have seen the worst that human beings can do to each other i pictured they sort of come in with this heavy like think about dalai lama the dalai lama is in exile exile is when you can't go home yeah so i had a picture like your friend chuck he's like man i got some haters giving me a hard time about bernie on facebook yeah dalai lama has some haters china china right your aunt phyllis went full fox news at thanksgiving and you're still sort of recovering china so i had pictured they would come in with this sort of weight of the world like it's tough out there like dl it is dark out there i feel you toots but we got a soldier on toots that stays in the show i pictured it would be this like but you know you just gotta light a candle in the dark and we gotta just lock arms and fight the fight together but instead they're all over the place doing there's some good riffs they're pulling out it's funny and it's and i want to say light but i have this moment sitting there with them oh there is a lightness that comes from ignorance indifference and naivete there is a lightness that pop song turn it up baby baby that doesn't acknowledge the sorrow pain anguish and heartbreak of life then there is that thing that happens when you move from lightness into heaviness of life you experience your first dark night of the soul it's like being held under by a wave it's like suffocating it's like being pulled into a vortex we generally resort to images and metaphors to explain these experiences we brush up against that existential shudder it sends a cold shiver down the spine we lose our taste for life there is that heaviness that makes us wonder what the point of any of this is there is that heaviness but watching the two of them i have this moment of but if you go all the way into the heaviness apparently you come out the other side into some sort of lightness on the other side of heaviness there's a lightness then a heaviness but apparently there's not a kind of lightness on the other side a lightness that does not come from ignorance or indifference or naivete but it's fully informed of how this thing can stomp on your heart and choke the life right out of you and what happened is all that heaviness alerted it to the sacred precious vapor-like nature of this experience that we're having and this lightness says yeah i know i know how dark i can get i know how painful it can get yeah that's why i'm going to enjoy it so much while i have it are you with me on this there is some sort of lightness on the other side oh this is why joy is not threatened by pain loss angst betrayal joy wraps its arms around the full spectrum of the human experience joy never denies it never represses it never avoids when we bring each other long lists of all that's wrong with the world joy never is like no that's not how it is yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah and that can happen and that could happen and that did happen and that could get even worse yeah yeah yeah that's why we're enjoying it so much right now because we know how fragile it can be and how it can go south on you so fast yeah joy never needs to repress because it wraps its arms around the full spectrum this is why cynicism is so easy and lazy cynicism dips its toe in the pool of the heavy cynicism skirts the outer edges of the heaviness of life the cynic goes on that rant or that riff right you know what i'm talking about that's lame and that's just derivative of that and most of the stuff on netflix is mediocre right do you know what i'm talking about just that like oh god they're at it again just lay everything is just held at a distance and picked apart the cynic is a recreational user they flirt with the heaviness they move around its exterior perimeter but the joy is found in going all the way into the heaviness of it so that you can come out the other side the proper response to the cynic whether around you or within you when the cynic launches into that riff or that rant that is to stop them and say oh no no no it's way worse than that we're all gonna die don't stop there the whole thing is hanging on by a thread it is vapor management that's where the joy is it's way worse than that and what this does is it begins to reframe the whole experience we're having yeah what all this heaviness does is heighten your sense of the joy we should probably enjoy this because it's really fragile and really precious and we don't know how much of it we're gonna get so that whole thing we've been doing about hey someday i'll get to that there might not be a someday so we should just probably get at it right now it's like the master poet in ecclesiastes says uh you should probably enjoy it and if you could find something meaningful or satisfying to give yourself to you should probably do that it's way too vapor-like to hate your job be with me on this what were you thinking that maybe just down the road you'd sort that out who knows we're all gonna die there's no guarantees along these lines that's what joy does joy begins to reframe the whole thing it takes all that heartbreak and loss and acknowledges it never avoids it never swerves around it yeah yeah yeah that can happen that happened to you yeah that could get even worse yeah but we're here we're here we're here so and the technical word is this here's how you spell it yeah the reframing that's the business right there how you frame it shapes what it even becomes here's what i mean i love grocery shopping i go multiple times a week if i go to the grocery store and then come back and kristen's like but you forgot i get excited i get to go back there's something primal about going into the woods and filling a bucket and bringing it back into the village i don't know what that is about but i go to my beloved trader joe's right before this tour started and the entrance is boarded up i know existential horrors but then on a shopping cart right nearby today's entrance is this way you know there was a meeting doug and carl are hiding in the back room what are we gonna do diane's like give me a sharpie and a poster i'll take care of this today's entrance is this way let the shopping adventure continue yeah there are multiple ways to read the events of life that's what joy does it reshapes it today's entrance is this way that's how joy works joy knows that if a rocket goes and you're out on the sidewalk with your family and people are walking around joey knows to stand on the sidewalk and say rockets rockets and if no one else is you just keep going rockets the future let me down i don't have a hoverboard but rockets joy has no shame in repeating itself rockets rockets joy knows if you're driving to las vegas joy does not need to get to the top of the mountain it's got plenty of material to work with right down here there was a meeting what should we name that road i don't know who has the worst hangover that would be dwight reach in we put some scrabble pieces in a mason jar two z's who would have thought yeah two hours of unmediated bliss this one sign yeah yeah joy can spot it all over the place joy knows that if you're getting shoes with your daughter and she wants the unicorn vans joy knows you get down on your chest on the floor of the store and you get a good photo of those unicorn vans cause she might not want unicorn vans next year of course she will when she's 37 but right now joy knows to get down on the floor and get that photo and be here and nowhere else because if you're here and nowhere else because this is all we have then there's the chance that we won't be one more parent years later saying oh it flew by so fast cause it didn't because we were there the whole way joy messes with the space-time continuum joy reveals that time is bendy it's actually a persistent illusion there's an eternal now way beyond past present and future joy slows the whole thing down because understands that we're here and we're nowhere else that's what joy does by the way when jesus talked about eternal life he was not talking about the endless extension of time or duration without limit time that just goes on and on forever a first century jewish rabbi talking about eternal life would not have been talking about time that just goes on and on and on and on by the way if you were surrounded by goodness but unable to access it or enjoy it and then you were frozen in that state and given life that goes on forever in that state that would not be heaven that would be hell a form of endless torture eternal life was always understood to be a particular experience of time in which you brushed up against an eternity an infinity that encapsulated all of what you know to be past present future you actually do this from time to time you're with the ones you love the most you're having one of those experiences that is the best of life and you lean back from the table after a long meal and you say this is what it's all about what do you mean when you say this is what it's all about well let's speculate for a minute i imagine what you do is in that moment you are taking all of the best that you have ever experienced and you are anticipating all of the good that you will experience and you are recapitulating it capturing it absorbing it and collapsing it into a moment that encapsulates the best of all that you have experienced and anticipate experience and saying this moment somehow contains all of it and i'm here and i have no desire to be anywhere else because everything i could ever need is right here you are brushing up against some sort of eternal now i imagine very clever of you that's what joy does that's what joy does it takes you to some other place in relation to time joy knows that if you pass by a business like this and you read something like this it's telling you something about the fabric of the universe because what joy refuses to do is those lazy negative generalizations such as everybody in business is just in it for the money actually not everybody in business is just in it for the money are you with me on this so what happens is joy gets good at spotting the exceptions so at first it's a bit of light there a bit of light there a bit of light there it's dark and you saw this and you saw that and you saw that joy resists those negative generalizations how come nobody is interested in civil political discourse well you just asked so at least one person is it seen too much and so at first it's just spots of light and it's all dark but over time you've seen so much you begin to wonder or is it light and there's just a few clouds in the way because joy has seen it here and seen it here and seen it here and seen it here joy knows that if you're in oklahoma and a man comes up to you and says i have a gift for you and he hands you two things you say to him what are they and he says their guitar picks and you say their guitar picks he says i made them for you and you say what did you make them out of and he says coconuts and you say to the man you made guitar picks out of coconuts and then the man looks at you like you were born yesterday and says yeah all you need are coconuts from walmart and a belt sander joy knows to take a step back gather a crowd and then say to the gentleman will you please repeat that so i can just let it waft over me apparently all i need are coconuts from walmart and a belt sander joy knows that if you are picking your daughter up from ballet class at the senior citizen center and you're going down the stairwell to the parking garage and you pass by the bulletin board stop and read the announcements because there's free computer classes getting to know your computer introduction to email introduction to the desktop environment introduction to the internet using firefox joy pictures a couple douglas 73 sitting at the breakfast table finishing the new york times crossword puzzle croissant espresso his wife charlene gets up from the table 71 years of age she says douglas i do not know what you are doing today but as for me and my household i'm going downtown to find out what a firefox is because there are these moments when it feels like the thing passed you by there are these moments when you settle there are these moments when you decide that you're too old there are these moments when you decide that you can't start over and then there is this rebellion that arises in your heart no i want more i'm fine starting over i'm fine being the rookie i'm okay learning and falling flat on my face i want more out of this vapor know joy gets really good at spotting those little rebellious moments when you could just let that pass you by and decide i guess that's for the kids but something within you says i want to email cat videos to the grandkids yeah joy gets really good joy's like a musculature you can get better at it spotting those moments when life in all of its diversity and surprise bursts forth something new gets created joy knows that if the farm co-op delivers a box on a thursday morning and the list says that this is cauliflower if this is cauliflower you and your lover dance in the kitchen because we're gonna be okay joey knows that if you're leaving the house and there's this bug on the front rocks the blues the greens the purples the colors the colors joy has no shame repeating itself when you were a kid and you got that 64 box of crayons and you opened and closed the lid because that smell of wax gave you a little contact buzz colors colors colors joey knows we have this lemon tree beside our kitchen we don't know whether our lemons are happy or angry we don't know whether they need a therapist or a dance floor i just know that when someone says well when life gives you lemons i'm like you haven't seen our lemons i was walking in scotland i come around the corner and i see this iron monger architectural builder oh interesting because i don't speak english i speak american and i only know monger as warmonger right somebody who's like really good at violence and destruction but apparently monger an architect uses iron to build things apparently monger just means somebody who's gotten skilled at doing a particular thing then i go around the corner etymological suspicions confirmed i think that's why we gathered tonight so that i could invite you to become a joy monger you can get good at this it does not come from avoiding the pain of life or repressing or surpassing the heartbreak that comes our way inevitably comes from going all the way into the heart of it and embracing the fragile tenuous uncertain nature of the whole thing there's a vapor-like mist like dimension of this experience we're having the joy comes when you fully embrace this just here and then i'm gone so while i'm here i'm gonna do everything i can to enjoy it and if i can find something meaningful or satisfying to give myself we should probably do that one more photo my friend liz sent me this some sort of rabbinic fortune cookie i don't know from the talmud a person will be called to account on judgment day for every permissible thing he or she might have enjoyed but did not [Laughter] sometimes i think my job is to sound a bass note you think about the stereo in your car there's the bass adjustment and the treble adjustment that treble adjustments those high blips and squeaks right it's all the stuff coming at you every day it's your inbox presidential tweets that sort of thing then you have those base notes the sine wave is longer different kind of frequency the base notes are those truths that human beings have been witnessing to and giving expression to for thousands and thousands and thousands of years and for as long as we have been talking about what matters most as human beings we've been talking about this question of joy how how do you live in this world with all the ways it can break your heart and have joy and for thousands of years those who have come before us have insisted that joy is real and accessible and possible it never comes from the avoidance of how difficult and heartbreaking and tenuous life is it comes from embracing the fragile nature of it you go all the way through the heavy and you come to the lightness on the other side but we're here but we're here so uh what do you want to do what do you want to give yourself to and sometimes what you need is a base note a resounding bass note that you feel in every fiber of your being to ground you and center you so you can handle all the treble that's coming after you it's been so good being with you so my brothers and sisters may you have no shame in repeating yourself lemons cauliflower rockets colors colors colors when the cynic within you or around you launches into one of those riffs or rants may you stop the cynic and say oh no no no no it's way worse than that we're all gonna die so we should probably have another round may you experience [Music] that ancient phenomenon of [Music] may you become a joy monger because you can get good at this you don't need to go to the top of the mountain there's plenty to work with right here in the valley and may grace and peace and joy be yours every step of the way thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 79min 43sec (4783 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020