Third Sunday of Advent: A Home for Joy

Reflections from my book, 
Home for Christmas: Youth Study Edition

I’m usually pretty good at finding things that I’ve lost, but, well, not always. On this one occasion I was feeling tense. There was a churning in my stomach, a restlessness in my bones. And my mind was alternately single-minded and scattered. Why? Because we bought three avocados in the last few days; they've been trying to ripen for guacamole. I finally decided they were ripe enough, and I gathered all my stuff. But I could only find two avocados! I REALLY wanted three.

I know what happened. "Somebody" (he was about 15 months old) thought the avocado was a "ball" and played "Put It in the Cabinet" or "Put It in the Drawer" or "Throw It Over There." No one was watching him that particular moment, and now somewhere in our house an avocado was rotting.

I know: one out of three avocados shouldn't have that much power in my life. For your information, I don't really think it was the avocados. I think it was Moby's CD "Play" (this was awhile ago and actually it's the two-CD deluxe set). Before I started looking for the avocado, I started looking for the CDs. It was an all-day search. I was actually looking for Moby for a work project. Since I had CDs both at work and home, I looked all day both places. Whenever I didn't have to think about something else, my mind was working on where Moby could be.

I asked the teenagers in our home. They all let me know either by words or tone that they were not really fans of Moby anyway. Not the point.

Maybe it was in that black bag I've carried back and forth from work. Maybe it was in that box, or that one, or that one, or the closet I've already looked in four times. Finally I told my wife, “If it's not in that black bag (wherever THAT is), I give up. I'll have to save my pennies and order another one.” I found the black bag. It was not there. I gave up. The churning lessened.

I shifted gears and started cleaning up my ongoing mess in the home office. Too much stuff, I know. I thought cleaning up a little clutter might de-clutter my mind. “Just empty this box and I can get rid of it.” I thought “There, it's emptied. And what's this behind it? Oh Moby!” Now if we could only find that rotting avocado.

Even without the avocado (we must have found it eventually), I felt that joy. And the search reminded me of the stories Jesus told about lost things. We mentioned one of those stories two weeks ago, when we focused on the love a father had for his lost son. The story goes on to demonstrate the joy the father had for the return of his son, even though his son had insulted and embarrassed him. The same chapter in the Bible talks about a sheep-gatherer who has lost one sheep, and a poor woman who has lost one coin. Like me, they dropped everything to look for their lost thing. Unlike me they never stopped looking. And then, the boy was home, the sheep was returned, the coin was found. And the searchers were filled with joy!

When we think about joy, we don’t always think about those everyday simple joys. We think maybe of celebrations or of something we are anticipating. During the Advent season, joy is often tied to those kinds of pursuits. But there is a deeper kind of joy that is longer lasting.

Father Boyle has seen it in his homegirls and homeboys. Many of them were searching for family, security, and survival. Joy was not on their minds. But in time, joy surprised them. Brandy is an example. Brandy found “happiness and contentment” in full-time work, but it was a long road. She was 17 when her brother was killed. That incident led her to join a gang and seek revenge. But her family members didn’t know how involved she was until her first arrest. Her troubles with the law ended after six years, when she was released from jail. But like most formerly incarcerated folks, she couldn’t find work with a record, even though she had already graduated high school and earned an associate’s degree in college. Homeboys took her in. She was seeking security and survival, not joy. But with relationships and with work advancement, with recognition, she found herself describing her life as happy and content. She was describing joy.