How do people experience joy in a troubled world? A world where political and media forces often benefit from keeping people anxious, angry, or unsettled?
It’s a personal question for me. Joy felt very far away after the death of my mother. I went through a period of deep depression and despair that tested me and forced me to reshape my life so I could heal and keep moving forward.
The experience taught me something important.
Joy is not something we can—or should try—to force. Joy appears when certain conditions are present in our lives. It grows when certain seeds are planted and tended.
That became the seed of an idea for a concert.
The working title came almost immediately: Surprised by Joy: Sowing the Seeds of Love. The phrase “surprised by joy” comes from the spiritual memoir Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis. Lewis used the word Joy in a very particular way—something deeper than ordinary happiness, a sudden longing or glimpse of something beyond this world. I find myself gently disagreeing with him, or perhaps expanding the idea. I too have been surprised by joy—but surprised by the fact that it can flourish here, in this life. I’ve come to believe that God intends for us to experience real joy now, not only in some distant future. But like any good garden, joy doesn’t simply appear on its own. We prepare the soil. We plant the seeds. And then we allow it to bloom.
As I thought about it, I began listing the things that had helped me rediscover joy after despair. You hear about many of these ideas from the folks who study and write about happiness. Others are pearls of wisdom found in prophetic writings and spiritual traditions. Most of them are simple and might even seem mundane at first glance. But when strung together, those pearls begin to form a strand strong enough to carry us through hard seasons.
TRUST
One of the most important things I’ve learned is how important the difference between faith and trust really is.
In my religious life people talk a great deal about faith. For me, faith means acting in accordance with what I believe and hope for—even when the outcome is uncertain.
Trust, however, is something slightly different.
Trust means doing the work we can do (that’s the faith)—and then letting go of what we cannot control.
For many people, including myself, despair grows from the feeling that no matter how hard we try it will never be enough. We carry burdens that were never meant to be carried alone. We try to solve problems that are far bigger than we are.
Trust means acknowledging that reality. It means doing our part and then releasing the rest to God’s timing.
There’s a line in the old hymn “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” that says, “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free.” That kind of freedom comes from trust—from knowing the world doesn’t ultimately rest on our shoulders.
Or as the old spiritual reminds us, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”
Sometimes the most healing thing we can do is remember that truth. We do the work we can, we try to be faithful, and then we let the rest go.
That simple shift—working faithfully while trusting God with the outcome—helped quiet the relentless mental spirals that accompanied my depression and anxiety.
REST
Another discovery was how deeply joy depends on rest.
This may sound obvious, but when you’ve experienced prolonged insomnia you realize just how fragile the human spirit becomes when sleep disappears. For a long time I slept terribly. Nights became battlegrounds for racing thoughts and worry. When sleep finally returned—slowly and imperfectly—it felt almost miraculous.
Rest is not laziness.
Rest is restoration.
In a world that constantly pushes us to do more, produce more, react more, and worry more, rest becomes an act of healing. Sometimes the most joyful thing we can do is simply lie down, breathe deeply, and allow our minds to become quiet again.
There’s a beautiful choral piece called “Sleep” by Eric Whitacre that includes the line, “May angels watch over your dreams tonight.” It captures something we rarely say out loud: sleep is sacred.
As a side note, one of the things that helped me begin sleeping again wasn’t found in a pill. Medication actually made things worse for me. If you struggle with sleep, you might look up something called cognitive shuffling. It’s a simple mental technique that helps interrupt anxious thought loops at night.
Sometimes healing begins with something as simple as finally getting a good night’s sleep.
WONDER AND GRATITUDE
Alongside rest came another practice: attention.
Mindfulness and meditation helped me learn how to redirect my thoughts rather than being dragged helplessly through endless loops of worry. But mindfulness alone wasn’t enough. What really changed my outlook was pairing mindfulness with gratitude.
When we intentionally notice what is good in our lives, something remarkable happens. We begin to see abundance where we once saw only lack.
A place to sleep.
Food to eat.
Clothes to wear.
Books to read.
Music to sing.
We begin to notice the countless people and systems that make our lives possible—farmers, builders, teachers, artists, engineers, neighbors, friends. And we remember the beauty of the natural world: sunlight through trees, the sound of wind, mountains rising quietly on the horizon.
It reminds me of the line from “What a Wonderful World”: “I see trees of green, red roses too… and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”
Gratitude doesn’t pretend hardship isn’t real. It simply refuses to overlook the goodness that still surrounds us.
CONNECTION
Another powerful source of joy is human connection.
Loneliness magnifies suffering, while friendship lightens it. Music has a unique ability to bring people together in ways few other activities can. When people sing together, they breathe together. Their heartbeats begin to synchronize. Their voices blend into something larger than any one individual.
That may be one reason songs about love and solidarity continue to resonate across generations.
“All you need is love,” sang the Beatles.
And when someone is struggling, the words from “Bridge Over Troubled Water” feel just about right:
“When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I’ll take your part
Oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down”
Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer another person is simply our presence. Just showing up can be an act of love.
SERVICE
Joy grows when we stop focusing exclusively on ourselves.
When we help someone else—when we teach, encourage, listen, comfort, or create something meaningful—we step outside the narrow boundaries of our own worries. Something shifts when our attention turns outward.
This doesn’t eliminate suffering. But it transforms it.
Service allows pain to become purpose.
For me, leading musical experiences for others became one of the most healing things I could do. Creating spaces where people could sing together, laugh together, and experience beauty together gave meaning to my own struggles.
The song “Lean on Me” by the immortal Bill Withers captures something essential about how human beings are meant to live:
“Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on”
We take turns being strong for one another. And somewhere in that exchange of care and kindness, joy quietly returns.
PLAY AND CELEBRATION
Finally, there is something we often forget as adults: play.
Children understand instinctively that joy requires playfulness—laughter, creativity, music, and celebration. In fact, my youth choir’s current favorite thing is a circle game called “Fair Rosa,” a fun little song from the Irish tradition about Sleeping Beauty in which they get to act out the story all together and then dance for joy. They ask for it every week at the beginning of rehearsal.
And every week it reminds me of something simple and important.
Joy loves to play.
Somewhere along the path to adulthood many of us forget how to celebrate. Music helps us remember. There’s a reason so many of our happiest memories involve singing together: campfires, concerts, church gatherings, classrooms, living rooms filled with voices at Christmastime.
There’s a joyful lyric that says, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”
Maybe that dream is a little idealistic. But the instinct behind it is deeply human. When people sing together—even for a few minutes—they remember something important: we belong to each other.
SOWING THE SEEDS
The more I reflect on these ideas—trust, rest, gratitude, connection, service, and celebration—the more I realize that joy rarely arrives like a lightning bolt from the sky. More often, it grows slowly. Like a garden.
You prepare the soil.
You plant the seeds.
You water them with patience and attention.
And then one day—often when you’re not expecting it—you notice something beautiful growing and you find yourself surprised by joy.
That’s what the concert I was imagining would celebrate: not a denial of life’s hardships, but a recognition that even in a troubled world, joy remains possible. It grows wherever people trust God, care for one another, notice beauty, rest deeply, serve generously, and sing together.
In other words, joy grows wherever we continue—quietly and stubbornly—to sow the seeds of love.
And if enough of us keep planting those seeds, who knows? For a few minutes at least, we might even teach the world to sing in something like perfect harmony.