Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ;

rest your weary ones; bless your dying ones;

soothe your suffering ones; pity your afflicted ones;

shield your joyous ones,

And all for your love’s sake.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

The November chapter, “Keep A Contented Heart: Attitude” in Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project: Or Why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Genuinely Have More Fun holds up laughter and joy as central parts of happiness – an attitude we can adopt and practice. Rubin gives us examples of how she practices laughter and joy – laughing at her daughters’ jokes, even and especially when she hears them for the hundredth time, not jumping in to one-up or squelch or argue with a story someone is telling, and playing a game she describes as “X is the new Y.”

In thinking about the chapter, I ask myself a few questions. If a main point of the chapter is Rubin’s attempt to practice joy, what does my joy practice look like? Do I practice joy? Also, I am taken by the notion of “shielding your joyous ones.” What would “shielding your joyous ones” look like? I would like to think I practice joy. For me, practicing joy looks like taking time to notice things that are wonderful in the truest sense of being full of wonder. Practicing joy means occasionally laughing so hard snot flies from my nose and my sides hurt. Practicing joy means surrounding myself with laughter and release – the feeling after a hard workout, sharing a delicious meal, talking with life long friends and you finish each other’s sentences, celebrating rituals with loved ones.

Shielding our joyous ones seems important to me, too. I have a few people in my life that exude joy. They are a diverse bunch that explode simple demographic description. They are rays of light. They don’t have to find center. They are center. They are positivity magnets. They are courageously genuine. They lead with compassion and warmth. They build things and people up. Shielding their joy looks like letting them know the world is better because they are in it. Shielding their joy looks like blocking their tackler. Shielding their joy looks like following their lead and living more joyously myself and keeping a contented heart.