#1 Sourcing in Joy 2021

Joy in the World

The Month for Joyful Sourcing

January 1 – February 9, 2021

In difficult times, you should always carry something beautiful in your mind.
—Blaise Pascal

At the foot of Mount Shasta in Northern California, there is an opening from the very heart of the mountain. From that opening a stream of bright pure water pours forth. Water that began its journey perhaps as long as one hundred years ago, when it gathered in clouds above the mountain and fell as rain or snow.   Slowly it crept down some 14,000 feet through layers of rock and earth until finally gathering at the floor and insisting on an opening to the outside so that it could give itself to the world, creating in its wake a river we have named the Sacramento. That river provides nourishment and sustenance for many who live and work by its side – or feel themselves supported by its holy gifts. Finally, after many adventurous twists and turns, this river makes its way back to its source, the ocean, and begins again the intricate cycle that water lives by on our amazing planet.

During these forty days in the earliest part of our year, we are invited to seek again the many ways joy offers itself to us, like the rain becoming the river, and the river becoming the ocean. Our desire is to discover anew those sources and resources that fill us with joy’s gifts of energy, flow, strength, happiness, resilience and sheer aliveness.

Let them fall, these gifts of joy, like gentle rain on your head and make their way to the heart of things to bless your whole body.

Play with water with your hands, feel its flow as joy.

Stand still under a warm shower; jump into the nearest puddle; create a joy snowman; find new ways that give you delight to do, or to imagine doing.

And just as water permeates a mountain, determined to make its way through and out to form a river with a holy name, may you feel joy as a Sacrament, nourishing your soul and blessing the world around you. Like water, joy can take different forms, and create an ever-renewing cycle so that you never lack its grace and goodness.

Should you feel bereft of joy, even for a moment, remember that the river that is joy drives toward a vast ocean, an ocean of joy. Feel those waves of delight galloping toward you, filling you with new vigor, new plenitude, so richly you become a source of joy for others.

Joy in the World.

And in me.

Praise. Praise. Praise.