The Arithmetic of Joy
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 5, 2022
Rev. Craig M. Nowak
[It occurred to me as I was preparing to write this sermon that this is the second sermon in a single church year in which I referenced math in the title. Which is somewhat puzzling given math was never of particular interest nor a strength of mine in school.]
In any event, rather than math, I’ve actually been thinking a lot about photographs lately. In fact, I came across a box of photographs in the attic not that long ago; although it wasn’t exactly a discovery. I knew they were there and when I encountered them this time, I said to myself, as I have a dozen times before, “I should go through these, save a few, and toss the rest.” Of course, I didn’t. Instead I set the box aside, got what I needed from the attic, and put the box back where it was where I will more than likely encounter it again sometime in the not too distant future.
I’m a little better with pictures on my phone. I do delete some, particularly multiples. Still, I have more photos on my phone than the photo albums of my youth would hold and let’s not even get into how many photos I have stored in the cloud. Suffice it to say, it’s a lot.
Still, I admit I’m surprised by how many photos I’ve accumulated. Especially since I’ve long been someone who thinks of themselves as someone who thinks carefully about taking photos so as not to miss the moment with the people, place, or even object one is with because I’m too wrapped up in taking a photograph of the moment instead.
Indeed, I’m more inclined to get a little irritated watching random people running through museums or parks snapping pictures of people, places, and things they’re only seeing through the screen on their phones or worse, their iPads. “What’s the point?”, I often wonder in a grumpy internal voice. “You’re not even seeing what your photographing.”
But I have to confess, if one were to pull aside the veil of my high-minded approach to discerning when a photograph is warranted, one might be at loss to establish any rhyme or reason in my thinking as one swiped past images of everything from chicken with morel mushrooms served in a copper pan, to a panoramic vista into a deep and wide valley, to a video of a stone floor and organ music playing in the background. Indeed, these would hardly seem carefully considered and curated images to most.
The conventional explanation is that the pictures we take and images we save are meant to preserve a memory. And that they may in fact do, but I can’t help but think there’s more, at least to some of them.
Take the picture of chicken with morel mushrooms in a copper pan, for example. I took that picture in Paris almost twelve years ago. Kevin, my husband, was not feeling well one night and so I set out alone to find a place to have dinner while he stayed back resting at the hotel. I walked around for about 1/2 an hour before deciding on a restaurant several blocks from the hotel. It was the kind of place that left no doubt as to where in the world you were. I speak terrible French, and only a few words and phrases at that, but that night, at my table for one, where I might have felt awkward and lonely in this bustling Parisian restaurant, I was treated like I was the most important person in the place. And the meal was one of the best I had on my trip. I was, as they say, “giddy with joy”. The only thing missing from that wonderful dinner in Paris, was Kevin’s presence.
Of joy, Mark Twain wrote, “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
In retrospect, I perhaps took the picture of the chicken with morel mushrooms not to serve my own memory - I have no trouble recalling the meal in my mind’s eye. I took the picture in an attempt to divide my joy with Kevin and thus multiply it.
Such is the arithmetic of joy.
Rather than diminishing, joy increases when it is divided. And while it may not be true of every seemingly ordinary or odd image among my photographs, it is true for many, I’m now sure, that they represent an intention to divide joy with someone else, especially someone not present at the time.
Joy it seems, in contrast to its more common sibling, happiness, is frequently accompanied by a deeply felt impulse or need to share. There is a sense that our cup runneth over and it is simply too good to keep for ourselves alone. It is as if we are called to be mathematicians of joy.
Perhaps that explains why an arrangement of notes and rests that were once floating around in the mind of JS. Bach became the Second Brandenburg Concerto, written out that it might one day be played and heard by others rather than kept in the private recesses of Bach’s mind.
A joy originating as an idea in the great composer’s mind multiplied by dividing it with the world over and over in the form of a written and performed composition.
As Robbie Walsh reminds us in “More Than We Deserve” our second reading this morning, joy is often an effect of our experience of grace. Theologically speaking grace is a gift we neither earn, nor deserve, but which comes to us anyway. Sometimes it is subtle, like a flower growing in the middle of a concrete sidewalk, so you have to be open to it. But oh how your perspective can change when you are open to it. And the best response we can offer for both life’s undeserved gifts and the joy they engender be it the music of Bach, crocuses, a meal in Paris, or indeed life itself, is our gratitude and to do our share of the work of creation, which is essentially dividing our joy that it might multiply.
And isn’t that, ultimately what our gathering as a faith community is about?
Locus iste, literally, this place, this community, of which the choir sang this morning, is a vessel meant not merely to contain, but to overflow with joy.
And so it does.
Think about what Lila and Cara shared today.
Joy overflowing.
Two people choosing to become members of the church.
Joy overflowing.
Welcoming those two people into membership as a community.
Joy overflowing.
Taking accessibility from dream to the reality we celebrate today.
Joy overflowing.
To the casual observer or cynic these might seem obvious and easy examples to lift up, as if they are a given, like the sun rising each morning. Yet, the sun rising each morning is not a given, in fact. Likely, yes, but not guaranteed.
And neither are choir members or RE volunteers.
Schedules don’t always align. Passion is not always evenly distributed among one’s interests and talents. Indeed, grace may have a greater hand in the number of choir members and RE volunteers year to year than we may generally assume. I hesitate to name other people’s experiences, but I can’t help but think I’ve witnessed joy as Lila and Cara have spoken of choir and RE volunteers in staff meetings.
And, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard joy in the voices I’m privileged enough to share this chancel with on many a Sunday and observed joy on the faces of those working with the children this year.
The same can be said for church membership. No one needs to belong to a church to function in society today. That people still join suggests something more than social pressure is at play. Might it be joy?
Similarly, we pride our church on being welcoming. And while we’re not perfect at it, we welcome people a lot of other churches still won’t, at least not fully or without significant strings. And this is true of members and clergy. There are many pulpits in this nation, for example, where I, as an openly gay, married man, would not be welcome, to say nothing of my views. Is it not a joy to both welcome and be welcomed into an affirming community?
Nine years ago before the search committee put me forward as a candidate to be your minister, they shared with me widely held concerns and hopes about this building’s condition and accessibility and previous attempts to address them. And I still remember the day several years ago now, when Amy Frisella came to me and said she was determined that BUUC be accessible.
I think it safe to say while there was determination in her voice, there was joy in her heart. From there a plan was made, a capital campaign committee consisting of Amy, Kim Burdon, and Tim Boon, was formed, and what was long a dream began to materialize. Joy began dividing among you and thus multiplied, overflowing to bring us to this day, with an accessible restroom and sanctuary and [almost] functioning lift. For it seems the gods have a sense of humor. And so while the lift is not presently functioning we expect it to operational again soon. All of which reminds us that joy, of course, is easy to grasp when things are going well.
But joy is not dependent on life going well, according to our plans, or following our desired trajectory.
As it happens, joy emerges in the midst of loss too. Think of the memories of those we have loved that are shared at our celebration of life services. Even though we may share memories with tears in our eyes or lumps in our throats, there’s joy in having known and loved them. Joy doesn’t always wear an external smile. It can arise in the heart amidst illness and the care we give and receive from one another. And it can be present in times of great tragedy, like the war in Ukraine, where in the face of anguish we witness and take part in acts of solidarity and love, like our newly re-energized Committee for Ecology and Social Action (aka CESA) inspired us to do in collecting medical supplies.
Indeed, joy is not something we can manufacture, but it is something we can choose, by being open to and ready for it, by making ourselves and our community a vessel for it. And when we do and as we become filled with joy, we discover, as with certain photographs we take, we can’t know its full value until we share it with others.
And so, let us then be mathematicians of joy and resolve to get the full value of our joy, multiplying its presence in the world by dividing with others.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 5, 2022
Rev. Craig M. Nowak
[It occurred to me as I was preparing to write this sermon that this is the second sermon in a single church year in which I referenced math in the title. Which is somewhat puzzling given math was never of particular interest nor a strength of mine in school.]
In any event, rather than math, I’ve actually been thinking a lot about photographs lately. In fact, I came across a box of photographs in the attic not that long ago; although it wasn’t exactly a discovery. I knew they were there and when I encountered them this time, I said to myself, as I have a dozen times before, “I should go through these, save a few, and toss the rest.” Of course, I didn’t. Instead I set the box aside, got what I needed from the attic, and put the box back where it was where I will more than likely encounter it again sometime in the not too distant future.
I’m a little better with pictures on my phone. I do delete some, particularly multiples. Still, I have more photos on my phone than the photo albums of my youth would hold and let’s not even get into how many photos I have stored in the cloud. Suffice it to say, it’s a lot.
Still, I admit I’m surprised by how many photos I’ve accumulated. Especially since I’ve long been someone who thinks of themselves as someone who thinks carefully about taking photos so as not to miss the moment with the people, place, or even object one is with because I’m too wrapped up in taking a photograph of the moment instead.
Indeed, I’m more inclined to get a little irritated watching random people running through museums or parks snapping pictures of people, places, and things they’re only seeing through the screen on their phones or worse, their iPads. “What’s the point?”, I often wonder in a grumpy internal voice. “You’re not even seeing what your photographing.”
But I have to confess, if one were to pull aside the veil of my high-minded approach to discerning when a photograph is warranted, one might be at loss to establish any rhyme or reason in my thinking as one swiped past images of everything from chicken with morel mushrooms served in a copper pan, to a panoramic vista into a deep and wide valley, to a video of a stone floor and organ music playing in the background. Indeed, these would hardly seem carefully considered and curated images to most.
The conventional explanation is that the pictures we take and images we save are meant to preserve a memory. And that they may in fact do, but I can’t help but think there’s more, at least to some of them.
Take the picture of chicken with morel mushrooms in a copper pan, for example. I took that picture in Paris almost twelve years ago. Kevin, my husband, was not feeling well one night and so I set out alone to find a place to have dinner while he stayed back resting at the hotel. I walked around for about 1/2 an hour before deciding on a restaurant several blocks from the hotel. It was the kind of place that left no doubt as to where in the world you were. I speak terrible French, and only a few words and phrases at that, but that night, at my table for one, where I might have felt awkward and lonely in this bustling Parisian restaurant, I was treated like I was the most important person in the place. And the meal was one of the best I had on my trip. I was, as they say, “giddy with joy”. The only thing missing from that wonderful dinner in Paris, was Kevin’s presence.
Of joy, Mark Twain wrote, “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
In retrospect, I perhaps took the picture of the chicken with morel mushrooms not to serve my own memory - I have no trouble recalling the meal in my mind’s eye. I took the picture in an attempt to divide my joy with Kevin and thus multiply it.
Such is the arithmetic of joy.
Rather than diminishing, joy increases when it is divided. And while it may not be true of every seemingly ordinary or odd image among my photographs, it is true for many, I’m now sure, that they represent an intention to divide joy with someone else, especially someone not present at the time.
Joy it seems, in contrast to its more common sibling, happiness, is frequently accompanied by a deeply felt impulse or need to share. There is a sense that our cup runneth over and it is simply too good to keep for ourselves alone. It is as if we are called to be mathematicians of joy.
Perhaps that explains why an arrangement of notes and rests that were once floating around in the mind of JS. Bach became the Second Brandenburg Concerto, written out that it might one day be played and heard by others rather than kept in the private recesses of Bach’s mind.
A joy originating as an idea in the great composer’s mind multiplied by dividing it with the world over and over in the form of a written and performed composition.
As Robbie Walsh reminds us in “More Than We Deserve” our second reading this morning, joy is often an effect of our experience of grace. Theologically speaking grace is a gift we neither earn, nor deserve, but which comes to us anyway. Sometimes it is subtle, like a flower growing in the middle of a concrete sidewalk, so you have to be open to it. But oh how your perspective can change when you are open to it. And the best response we can offer for both life’s undeserved gifts and the joy they engender be it the music of Bach, crocuses, a meal in Paris, or indeed life itself, is our gratitude and to do our share of the work of creation, which is essentially dividing our joy that it might multiply.
And isn’t that, ultimately what our gathering as a faith community is about?
Locus iste, literally, this place, this community, of which the choir sang this morning, is a vessel meant not merely to contain, but to overflow with joy.
And so it does.
Think about what Lila and Cara shared today.
Joy overflowing.
Two people choosing to become members of the church.
Joy overflowing.
Welcoming those two people into membership as a community.
Joy overflowing.
Taking accessibility from dream to the reality we celebrate today.
Joy overflowing.
To the casual observer or cynic these might seem obvious and easy examples to lift up, as if they are a given, like the sun rising each morning. Yet, the sun rising each morning is not a given, in fact. Likely, yes, but not guaranteed.
And neither are choir members or RE volunteers.
Schedules don’t always align. Passion is not always evenly distributed among one’s interests and talents. Indeed, grace may have a greater hand in the number of choir members and RE volunteers year to year than we may generally assume. I hesitate to name other people’s experiences, but I can’t help but think I’ve witnessed joy as Lila and Cara have spoken of choir and RE volunteers in staff meetings.
And, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard joy in the voices I’m privileged enough to share this chancel with on many a Sunday and observed joy on the faces of those working with the children this year.
The same can be said for church membership. No one needs to belong to a church to function in society today. That people still join suggests something more than social pressure is at play. Might it be joy?
Similarly, we pride our church on being welcoming. And while we’re not perfect at it, we welcome people a lot of other churches still won’t, at least not fully or without significant strings. And this is true of members and clergy. There are many pulpits in this nation, for example, where I, as an openly gay, married man, would not be welcome, to say nothing of my views. Is it not a joy to both welcome and be welcomed into an affirming community?
Nine years ago before the search committee put me forward as a candidate to be your minister, they shared with me widely held concerns and hopes about this building’s condition and accessibility and previous attempts to address them. And I still remember the day several years ago now, when Amy Frisella came to me and said she was determined that BUUC be accessible.
I think it safe to say while there was determination in her voice, there was joy in her heart. From there a plan was made, a capital campaign committee consisting of Amy, Kim Burdon, and Tim Boon, was formed, and what was long a dream began to materialize. Joy began dividing among you and thus multiplied, overflowing to bring us to this day, with an accessible restroom and sanctuary and [almost] functioning lift. For it seems the gods have a sense of humor. And so while the lift is not presently functioning we expect it to operational again soon. All of which reminds us that joy, of course, is easy to grasp when things are going well.
But joy is not dependent on life going well, according to our plans, or following our desired trajectory.
As it happens, joy emerges in the midst of loss too. Think of the memories of those we have loved that are shared at our celebration of life services. Even though we may share memories with tears in our eyes or lumps in our throats, there’s joy in having known and loved them. Joy doesn’t always wear an external smile. It can arise in the heart amidst illness and the care we give and receive from one another. And it can be present in times of great tragedy, like the war in Ukraine, where in the face of anguish we witness and take part in acts of solidarity and love, like our newly re-energized Committee for Ecology and Social Action (aka CESA) inspired us to do in collecting medical supplies.
Indeed, joy is not something we can manufacture, but it is something we can choose, by being open to and ready for it, by making ourselves and our community a vessel for it. And when we do and as we become filled with joy, we discover, as with certain photographs we take, we can’t know its full value until we share it with others.
And so, let us then be mathematicians of joy and resolve to get the full value of our joy, multiplying its presence in the world by dividing with others.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.