How can you relocate your joy, because if we're going to go out into the world, we're going to go out into the world to reharmonized civilization, if we're going to rediscover what the good life means, if we're going to place goodness at the center of our lives and at the center of our society. We have to relocate our joy because this work, this mission can only be done with joy. In my book, A Call to Joy, which I wrote.
More than 25 years ago now, there's some passages in there that live with me every day, there's some passages in there that I spend a lot of time reflecting on. Two of them refer to scriptural passages. The first is when Mary. Goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, cousin Elizabeth is pregnant with the child of John the Baptist. We're told in the scriptures that.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's voice. The child, John the Baptist. Dance for joy or leap for joy within her womb. Why? Why did the child gender Baptists stand for joy in the womb of Elizabeth? Because he knew he was in the presence of God.
He knew he was in the presence of God and this this passage, this reference in the New Testament is referencing another passage in the Old Testament with David. Dance for joy before the Ark of the Covenant. Why, what did the Ark of the Covenant represent for the people of Israel? It represented the presence of God.
David wasn't just dancing. In front of an object. He was in the presence of God, and so he danced for joy. When we spend time each day in prayer and reflection. We get close to God. We spend time with God, we sit with God, we try to stay close with God throughout the moments of the day. We begin to dance for joy. They begin to dance for joy.
We see goodness and and we see opportunities for goodness around us. The thing is, is that your most beautifully and wonderfully yourself when you focus on goodness in your life. And that can only happen by spending time with goodness himself, by taking time each day in prayer and reflection, to sit with our God, to soak up his goodness so that we can go out into the world, recognize his goodness in the world, and bring his goodness to other people.
When we get alienated from God, when we step away from God, we get alienated from God. We also get alienated from ourselves. That's why it doesn't feel right. That's why we start to feel things about ourselves that are unhealthy when we get separated from God, when we get alienated from God, because alienation from God is alienation from self.
Matthew Kelly
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