{"id":263,"date":"2011-12-20T04:40:19","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T04:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/?p=263"},"modified":"2011-12-05T13:59:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T13:59:29","slug":"ive-got-the-joy-joy-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/12\/ive-got-the-joy-joy-joy.html","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ve Got The Joy, Joy, Joy&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/12\/clara.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-282\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/295\/2011\/12\/clara-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\u201cI\u2019ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.\u201d So goes the children\u2019s tune I first learned in a Sunday School class more than thirty years ago. \u201cIt\u2019s down in my heart to stay,\u201d the familiar refrain ends. But joy, leaking out of these fractured human containers, has a way of escaping.<\/p>\n<p>The car breaks down. The boss needs you to work the entire weekend. The school calls about your misbehaving child. Bills clog the mailbox. It\u2019s akin to having an emotional vacuum cleaner hooked up to your chest. Before long, the joy, joy, joy, is gone, gone, gone, sucked out of you quicker than a flushing toilet.<\/p>\n<p>The holiday season does not insulate us from this threat to joy. Oh sure, everyone we pass wishes us a \u201cMerry Christmas,\u201d or a \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d or \u201cHave a Happy New Year.\u201d We return those rehearsed lines with a clich\u00e9 of our own and trudge on. But joy is missing in our words and in our hearts.<\/p>\n<p>When I was a teenager one of the greatest marketing campaigns to ever be unleashed was produced by the Wendy\u2019s hamburger chain. A trio of senior adult women gathered around a \u201cbig fluffy bun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After they removed the lid off this massive bread roll they were greeted with the tiniest speck of a hamburger patty. Actress Clara Peller then uttered her famous line: \u201cWhere\u2019s the beef?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This line has been adapted and employed in movies, popular culture, and even a presidential debate. Any time someone makes an offer, and its substance doesn\u2019t live up to its billing, I\u2019m reminded of this line and the scandalized demand of Ms. Peller.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been reminded of the line this holiday season as well. Looking around at my fellow-believers, and often at myself, I wonder where the joy is. Why are those who celebrate the Christ-child so unhappy? Where is the enjoyment for those who claim this to be the greatest season of the year? Where is the gladness in the gathered masses who instead sing Christmas carols with the same enthusiasm of a funeral dirge?<\/p>\n<p>For the life of me, I can\u2019t find the joy. We look fatigued at best and apathetic at worst. Maybe our shopping list has been overwhelming; or juggling our busy December schedule has gotten the better of us; or maybe some of us are just too angry at a municipality somewhere that banned a nativity scene.<\/p>\n<p>Where is the joy? Where is the party? Where is the enthusiasm and celebration of faith? Where is the beef, Ms. Peller? Where is the beef, indeed?<\/p>\n<p>But if you listen, you might hear joy\u2019s beautiful song. Listen for it in the ringing bell outside your favorite department store as you\u2019re invited to give to the poor. Hear it in the giggle of your children as they wait in line to sit on Santa\u2019s knee. Look at it sitting there around your holiday table, the faces of your friends, family, and loved ones. Joy is in every Christmas caroler, every gift given, every holiday meal shared, and in every reading of the nativity story.<\/p>\n<p>Joy waits, like all well-mannered guests, to be invited in. It longs, not to seep out of our spirits like a leaking faucet, but to be turned loose as a torrent. But that will not happen until we grant it permission, until we turn the switch.<\/p>\n<p>In the old King James Version of the Christmas story, the angel appears to the shepherds in Luke 2 and speaks the fantastic words, \u201cBehold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those simple shepherds tore through the dark Bethlehem streets, unable to quench the joy in their hearts. Eventually, they had to return to their sheep. They had to go back to work. But they did not lose their joy in the process. They went back to the fields \u201cglorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cjoy, joy, joy, joy was down in their heart to stay.\u201d May it be in yours as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.\u201d So goes the children\u2019s tune I first learned in a Sunday School class more than thirty years ago. \u201cIt\u2019s down in my heart to stay,\u201d the familiar refrain ends. But joy, leaking out of these fractured human containers, has a way of escaping. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[37,38,40,41],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventchristmas","tag-advent","tag-christmas","tag-clara-peller","tag-joy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I&#039;ve Got The Joy, Joy, Joy... - Leaving Salem<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/12\/ive-got-the-joy-joy-joy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I&#039;ve Got The Joy, Joy, Joy... - Leaving Salem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cI\u2019ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.\u201d So goes the children\u2019s tune I first learned in a Sunday School class more than thirty years ago. \u201cIt\u2019s down in my heart to stay,\u201d the familiar refrain ends. 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