Tennis and Joy

(what my tennis team teaches me)

Inspired by church meetings on April 14, 2019.

However, two speakers did mention something I’ve been thinking about. That is joy. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the difference between being joyful and being joyous. There are formal definitions to those words. Ignore them. I’m defining things today.

I’ve learned that being joyful is a state of being, but being joyous is an overt act. My tennis team has been teaching me the difference. They don’t know it, but they have.

I was generally considered, by myself and others, to be rather stoic. True, if you got to know me well you’d get to discover my playful side and weird humor, but most people got the stoic image.

The other ladies on my team have taught me the importance of celebrating in the moment. The team plays 5 matches simultaneously. On really good (or really bad) days, my match can be over before the others. That’s when we get to watch the other matches and cheer them on. It’s especially exciting when there is just one match left, the score is tight, and the result of that match determines whether our team wins or loses that day.

Getting visibly excited about every point won by your teammates was always foreign to me. Even going back to watching my own children in sports I know that I really didn’t show the excitement I felt inside. I was joyful, but I wasn’t joyous.

I would look at those around me and wonder why they had to make such a spectacle. I didn’t want to participate in that. Now I know better. You’d think I’d have learned this back when I was a Varsity Cheerleader as a senior in High School. But that wasn’t me being me. That was me doing a job, playing a role that, frankly, I was doing because no one else would (that was long before I transitioned and I was the first and only male Cheerleader the school had ever had) and I wanted to be different. I’ve written another article about what I learned from that experience.

I’ve used sports as an example (another theme from one of today’s speakers), but this lesson extends to every aspect of our lives. Those around us should have the opportunity to know how much joy we are experiencing in both our secular and spiritual activities.

So, I have to thank the ladies on my team for teaching me to do more than just acknowledge my joyful state. They are teaching me to be joyous.

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