Post-Election Blues and Advent Joy

Well, the results are in and after weeks of campaigning, tv debates, fact-checking, etc...

...Labour won a landslide victory with 83% of the vote…

… in our school Elections (big thanks to colleague Josephine and her team of Election Elves). Nationally, things didn’t quite turn out the same, but what’s done is done and now we have to move on.

With this week’s theme in our School Mission Programme combining the celebratory aspect of our end of term rewards assemblies with the theme of this 3rd week in Advent which is Joy, it’s good to remind ourselves that being joyful, truly joyful, is a conscious choice. It’s the attitude of someone who not only sees the glass as half full, but who also then decides to express their gratitude and thanks for the contents of that glass, either inwardly or outwardly. We re-joice, the “re” bit basically meaning that we actively engage in joyousness.

For those who, like the majority of our students, wished for a different outcome of the General Election, it would be easy to drift through this final week of term with a cloud over our heads and to let our conversations be focussed on related frustrations. In the famous Christmas song/carol “Mary’s Boy Child” we have the lines

“Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today

And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day”\

Amid the Election aftermath, let’s keep our ears and eyes open for those “singing angels” who remind us of the cause of our joy as Christians. This “angel delight” is addictively pleasurable (just like the ‘70s-’80s dessert of the same name that’s apparently made a comeback - I was determined to work that in here somewhere!! :-) If we choose joy then we are not only helping ourselves but also those around us.

I’ll finish with links to 2 videos which deal directly with this idea. The first, a song video by the Christian band For King & Country is called “Joy” and includes short introductory and closing scenes which compare two individuals; a glass-half-empty person and a glass-half-full person. The latter ministers to the former through the singing of the song we hear.

Here are the lyrics to the first part of the song:

Lately, I've been reading, watching the nightly news

Don't seem to find the rhythm, just wanna sing the blues

Feels like a song that never stops

Feels like it's never gonna

Gotta get that fire, fire, back in my bones

Before my heart, heart, turns into stone

So somebody please pass the megaphone

I'll shout it on the count of three

One, two, three

Oh, hear my prayer tonight, I'm singing to the sky

Give me strength to raise my voice, let me testify

Oh, hear my prayer tonight, 'cause this is do or die

The time has come to make a choice

And I choose joy

Let it move you, let it move you, let it move you

Yeah, I choose joy

Let it move you, let it move, let it move you

The 2nd video is a short teaching by the drummer, Gareth Gilkeson, from the N. Ireland band Rend Collective (“My Lighthouse”, etc…) that appeared on YouTube 5 years ago to coincide with the release of their album “The Art Of Celebration” (great album, by the way, and it contains “My Lighthouse”!). As Gareth says,

“Happiness is not Joy… Joy is deeper. It’s a spiritual discipline… 

God in his Word commands us to celebrate… 

How do we then remind ourselves as a wounded Church family

that we still have a reason to sing?… 

We have to once again open up our hearts to wonder and beauty…

Always find a reason to rejoice, even if we are in the darkest circumstances.”

So, during these final days of Advent, let us open our hearts ever more fully to the “Star of Wonder” who came among us as one of us, and let us choose, like the angels, to rejoice in his coming.

Click here for a further reflection on this theme.