The questions my students move me to ponder every day is amazing.
One question that resides at the forefront of my memory as most popularly asked, right after "How old ARE you really?" is...
"Are you always this happy?"
My initial reaction usually is "Well, yes!"
"How?" they may ask...
"because I choose to be."
However harmless this question may seem, it always provokes a sort of sadness from within. Where in their upbringing have they learned that it is "unnatural" or "unhealthy" to be happy? Where have they learned that living in darkness is the way life is meant to be?
I had a student recently reflect upon the question: "Do you need war to create peace?" and his response was "yes, because the world isn't capable of beauty".
wow.
Where would I be without beauty and joy? Lost. SO SO lost in this world... and this is precisely why my heart aches for these kids. We were created in the image and likeness of Beauty Himself. We were created because Love Himself wanted us in existence. For this reason alone I shall be joyful.
What I yearn for my students to know is that darkness is a good liar, but starkly incomparable to light.
Merriam-Webster defines Joy as:
a : the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires
No wonder why my students don't understand... Joy has nothing to do with worldly "success" or "good fortune", nor is joy an emotion. Joy has nothing to do with whether or not my friends like me, or I get all As, or I am "comfortable" in this world... Joy has everything to do with possessing, knowing, and being transformed by the Lord's love. This is done by choosing joy at every moment, at every transgression, through every fear.
I propose that Joy is:
"if we bear all [our] injuries with patience and joy, thinking of the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, which we would share out of love for him, write, O Brother Leo, that here, finally, is perfect joy.And now, brother, listen to the conclusion. Above all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ grants to his friends, is the grace of overcoming oneself, and accepting willingly, out of love for Christ, all suffering, injury, discomfort and contempt; for in all other gifts of God we cannot glory, seeing they proceed not from ourselves but from God, according to the words of the Apostle, "What hast thou that thou hast not received from God? and if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?"
But in the cross of tribulation and affliction we may glory, because, as the Apostle says again, "I will not glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen." (St. Francis of Assisi)
So what do I tell my public school students who don't understand the Lord's love?
I don't. I continue to live according to the Lord's love, and I love my students. Truly love them, especially when they act contrary to His love. What I do for them, and show them through my little heart's desire to grow despite the desert, speaks so much louder than my feeble words.
All real living is meeting Christ on the cross. In his suffering, we shall find our hope and our joy.
