Independent Joy

Today I am grateful for the garbage haulers who come each week to pick up our trash and recycling.
I am also grateful to those who work to get the food to the grocery stores that I can then conveniently buy there.

After writing about things like hills and valleys on my other blog and overcoming suffering on this blog this week, this quote from my favorite Benedictine monk sort of tied it all together:

"Joy is the happiness that doesn't depend on what happens."

Br. David Steindl-Rast     

There will be ups and downs in life, triumphs and struggles, highs and lows. But even in the midst of the toughest times, joy is possible. And even in the midst of the best of times, joy can be forgotten.

So that leaves the present moment as the key to finding joy. Regardless of outcome, joy can be landed on in any given moment if we pay attention and look here and now.

This joy has nothing to do with material goods or circumstances, it has everything to do with how we look at those material goods and our circumstances. Pausing to enjoy a sunrise or listen to a child's laughter, savoring the food that is nourishing us, feeling the cool breeze on our faces; these are ways to find that independent joy.

So simple. So profound. And so independent of checkbooks and dwellings, or lack thereof.