So it was, this summer, when I went to a friend’s wedding. I arrived at the church, filed into a row of my choosing, and sat down (for no reason in particular), one seat from the end. And as the church began to fill up, my social catastrophe spidey-sense began tingling about that spare seat. Who was about to sit in it? A flatulent grandma perhaps? A man with a tiny, aggressive dog? With my track record, it could be anyone.
In fact, the seat was taken by an elderly man clothed in shimmering gold. Tight, gold lamé trousers, and what appeared to be a gold shell-suit top. He shook my hand and spoke to me in a voice halfway between ‘old London geezer’ and Southern American drawl, and within seconds I had realised the terrible truth: I’d sat next to a full-time Elvis Impersonator.
Brian isn’t – I soon discovered – your average Elvis. He looks down scornfully on those barely-committed types who simply arrive at a low-rent club night, change into a white jumpsuit and start belting out ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ By contrast, Brian is more of your method Elvis; dressing, talking and gesturing his way through life in the manner of the great man himself. This extends, I soon discovered, to his participation in a church service.
Here’s what I haven’t told you about my propensity to stumble into sitcom territory: I don’t often deal with it very well. Cursing my bad luck, I find myself looking at the heavens and asking: why does this stuff always have to happen to me?
I was determined that Brian wasn’t going to ruin this service for anyone else. From the moment I realised that he really was going to sing the hymns in the (admittedly dead-on) voice of Elvis Presley, I knew my strategy was to try to drown him out. So that’s what happened. A tone-deaf chubby thirty-something and a septuagenarian Elvis began duelling for vocal supremacy in a rendition of ‘How great thou art’.
We sat down, and then suddenly, something clicked. I started to chuckle (not ideal during the vows). The ridiculousness of what was happening to me struck home. Because what I had failed to realise, in my preoccupation with my own sense of unfairness about the situation, was this: it was an opportunity to experience joy. This situation was potentially wonderful. All I had to do was embrace it.
I stood up for the next song, and now I wanted to hug Brian. I still sang just as loud, but as we both gave our very different interpretations of ‘In Christ Alone’, I had now broken out into a beaming smile. This was a moment to relish; how close I’d come to letting it slip away in a pit of grumpy cynicism. Because of course, Brian is brilliant. Fearfully, wonderfully made, and so committed to his first love that he even wears shoes made from blue suede. Brian isn’t a source of embarrassment; he’s a fountain of joy.
Sometimes, moments of profound, meaningful happiness just materialise. A young person we’ve journeyed with makes a life-altering decision; an anonymous donor buys us that table tennis table for the youth room. More often though, we have to find and embrace those moments for ourselves; to choose to hold a mind-set that sees the bright side in our various situations. Instead of asking ‘why does this stuff always happen to me?’, perhaps we could ask, ‘where’s the silver lining?’ Joy isn’t a passive reaction we feel, it’s a decision we make.
I’d been having a rough week when I met Brian. I could have let that moment drag me down further; instead it was a turning point. Whatever you’re going through right now – be it a difficult relationship, job uncertainty or a youth work struggle, let me encourage you: embrace joy. You’ll find it in the most unlikely people and places, if you’ll only choose to see it.
Joy isn’t a passive reaction we feel, it’s a decision we make