Joy

"The most important thing you must decide to do every day is put the Lord first."

"Isn't God the one who urges us to "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord"? Why do we always think that means singing? Seems to me the most obvious joyful sound on earth is laughter... I've seen folks quote verses like "Rejoice in the Lord always" while their faces look like they just buried a rich uncle who willed everything to his pregnant guinea pig. Something is missing."

"And while throughout the self same motion Repeated on forever flows The thousandfold o er arching ocean Its strong embrace around all throws Streams through all things the joy of living The least star thrilleth fond accord And all their crowding all their striving Is endless rest in God the Lord. - - -GER:Wenn im Unendlichen dasselbe Sich wiederholend ewig fließt,Das tausendfältige Gewölbe Sich kräftig ineinander schließt,Strömt Lebenslust aus allen Dingen,Dem kleinsten wie dem größten Stern Und alles Drängen, alles Ringen Ist ewige Ruh in Gott dem Herrn. Zahme Xenien VI."

"Long ago, the gods argued over where to hide the secret to happiness, so that in finding it, the people would appreciate its importance. One god suggested a high mountain-top. Another wanted to bury it deep in some unknown land. And yet another said to hide it in the darkest waters of the ocean. Where do you suppose they hid it? They hid it in the depths of the heart. Happiness lies within one's heart. When you touch someone's heart, or your heart is touched, you feel happiness. People are made that way."

"Pleasure” is different from “happiness”. It has its own definition. Pleasure may or may not come from hard work; Pleasure may or may not come from sin; However, happiness is always divine and comes from fulfillment!"

"It’s great to feel happy. Go, do what makes you feel happy. Do it shabbily and get shallow happiness; Do it hard and feel the hardest happiness!"

"As we learn to give thanks for all of life and death, for all of this given world of ours, we find a deep joy. It is the joy of trust, the joy of faith in the faithfulness at the heart of all things. It is the joy of gratefulness in touch with the fullness of life."

"If hard work is the source of happiness, then we can conclude that the main job of procrastination is to delay that happiness for excuses to kill."

"When you are happy for other people's dreams, your dreams start jumping up with joy. Elizabeth was happy with Mary and her dream baby was jumping in her womb crazily for joy!"

"Wisdom is the God-given ability to see life with rare objectivity and to handle life with rare stability."

"If you want to speak to someone you cannot touch, see, or hear, the voice of love will transmit with or without a phone. It crosses all borders and travels through time and walls."

"Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. Take care Ron,Alex"

"The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become--and such lucidity is a form of joy."

"No one should ever be punished for feeling love."

"The thing that I was experiencing and dwelling on the entire time is that there are so many things that are not OK and that will never be OK again. But there’s also so many things that are OK and good that sometimes it makes you crumple over with being alive. We are allowed such an insane depth of beauty and enjoyment in this lifetime. It’s what my dad talks about sometimes. He says the only way that he knows there’s a God is that there’s so much gratuitous joy in this life. And that’s his only proof. There’s so many joys that do not assist in the propagation of the race or self-preservation. There’s no point whatsoever. They are so excessively, mind-bogglingly joy-producing that they distract from the very functions that are supposed to promote human life. They can leave you stupefied, monastic, not productive in any way, shape or form. And those joys are there and they are unflagging and they are ever-growing. And still there are these things that you will never be able to feel OK about–unbearably awful, sad, ugly, unfair things."

"Dread was always with her, an alarm system in her head, alertto her next disaster. Despite being resigned to a life of misfortune, she becameresourceful. She grudgingly noticed that things always worked out, evenwhen she claimed defeat. An inconvenient truth, yet it was right there, in her face,betraying her self-punishments and assumptions. She kept overcoming things, dammit, aggravating herself. She still felt so much joy, despite her efforts to be miserable. Her life was full of miracles and spectacles that she was afraidto rely on so she didn’t know how to enjoy, how to be thankful,without guilt. She didn’t want to win and she didn’t want to lose. Ambiguity intrigued her and she found passion in the gapsbetween hope and despair."

"I am afloat on a sea of foaming joy and delight."

"Do not try the parallels in that way: I know that way all along. I have measured that bottomless night, and all the light and all the joy of my life went out there.[Having himself spent a lifetime unsuccessfully trying to prove Euclid's postulate that parallel lines do not meet, Farkas discouraged his son János from any further attempt.]"

"You can't fake joy. Authentic joy is the kind that grows out of the soil of pain and doubt and fear, because that is the reality of the world."

"No question, no problem, no concern, is too big or too small for God to handle!"