Frederick Buechner, in his sermon “The Great Dance” takes a stab at one of the many ways people distinguish the two.
“Happiness comes when things are going our way, which makes it only a forerunner to the unhappiness that inevitably follows when things stop going our way, as in the end they will stop for all of us.
Joy, on the other hand, does not come because something is happening or not happening.”
Amen. But I think most of us, myself included, unconsciously pick happiness seven days a week — including Sunday.
That’s because we’re, from birth, so wed to “things going our way” that it’s a supernatural act of grace for us to look at life through a different lens. To be okay when things don’t go our way. Which we try for, but which we mostly fail at (or at least I do).
