From the Rector…
The other week, as I sat in the lobby of our New Orleans hotel, I noticed how happy people were while taking pictures of other people. Not one person holding an iPhone and focusing on someone else was scowling or fussy. Even the stressed-out parents and the grumpy granddads changed their attitudes immediately when asked to take a photo. Some encouraged smiles from their subjects with dairy-related motivation, while others used made up words or seasonal phrases. But no one threatened, cursed, or yelled at the subjects of their cameras. They smiled, and others smiled back. It was uplifting and fun to watch.
I pulled out my own iPhone and started taking pictures of people taking pictures. That was even more fun, as I felt secretly to all the positive energy that was electrifying the lobby. Steve and I stayed up way past our bedtime, forgetting to be tired or bored by the world we were immersed in. The next night, we returned to the lobby and indulged in the delights of people-watching again. The results were the same: people taking pictures of other people, were some of the happiest people I have ever seen.
There are snapshots of scripture that bring me the same kind of joy—mainly because of the events described in the story, but also because, if you think about it, the stories themselves were important and inspiring to the one telling them. When Elizabeth greets Mary, her unborn child, John the Baptist, leaps in her womb in response to an in-utero encounter with Jesus, the unborn child in Mary’ s womb. The telling of that story must have brought joy to the heart of the one doing the telling…a little like the person who takes the picture of another.
The framing and design of a story or picture communicate a message. When that message is one of hope and joy, it stirs within us the same sense of hope and joy. That is what I experienced in the lobby of The Roosevelt—people framing hope and joy.
I feel that same hope and joy when I read the Magnificat—Mary’s Song—which begins “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” It reminds me to be more thoughtful and intentional in what my soul magnifies and how my spirit rejoices. That’s what hope and joy are all about—the things we hold on to and make bigger in our lives so that we, and others, can see them more clearly.
Hope and joy cannot be taken for granted, which is why it is important for us to magnify them. We need hope and joy to be bigger than our challenges and pain, and we can rejoice in hope and joy because, through them, we know that challenges and pain are never the last things.
This past Sunday was Gaudete Sunday, or Rejoice Sunday. It is a reminder in the midst of this Advent season that there is plenty of hope and joy in this world. We celebrate Gaudete Sunday with apocalyptic readings and stinging words like “you brood of vipers” and “unquenchable fire,” not because we condemn ourselves to judgment and despair, but because, amid our sufferings, we hold on to hope.
It is not the “most wonderful time of the year” for everyone—Elvis even knew that. But suffering and pain do not mean that hope and joy cannot be found. As Christians, preparing for Christ’s coming again, we get to do the work of holding hope and magnifying it to the world—not in avoidance of pain or because we feel all happy inside, but because we rejoice in God our Savior.
Light and Life,
Candice+