The Roundup - Edition 46

A message from 
Rich Jones, Head.

Many of you will have witnessed the slight flurry of snow earlier this week. I wandered into work seeing the flakes get larger and larger and as I arrived in the office, I noticed a few boarders outside behind my office. It was still dark but their howls of laughter and giggles as they stood with open mouths trying to gulp down increasingly big flakes was really innocent and joyful to see.

Snow does funny things to us and that odd sense of optimism, cosiness and excitement that a little burst provides perhaps harks back to a simpler time and feelings of joy. I knew the snow was here on Tuesday because in the Jones household the usual erratic volume of TV noises, searching for kit and irritable debates about the process of teeth cleaning was not there. I came into the living room to silence and my family quietly smiling and watching as the snow fell in the garden. For a few moments – joyful.

A colleague today explained to me that their joy this week was found in the Scottish gritter lorries. Obviously, across the border, the snow is more of an issue and they have a fleet of excellently named gritter lorries including Skate Bush, Taylor Drift, Polar Abdul, The Greatest Snowman and Plougher O’Scotland to name but a few.

Joyful indeed.

However, my biggest, boldest and most delicious dose of joy this week was attending the opening night of Shrek the Musical.

It was energy and joy on a plate.

From the moment the show began we were transported to a world of comedy, magic, belching and runaway rats. The performances, costumes, set and everything in between presented those of us watching with the exuberant and frenetic joyfulness of song, humour and vitality. The particular joy for me and many of my colleagues was that we knew the stories and journeys of many of those performing and seeing, last night, their commitment, grace and growing confidence on stage, was a genuine honour.

The world is in a bit of a funny place at the moment, conflicts abound and thus there are rockets repositioning, policy stances hardening and the trading of threats, seemingly as much to do with ego as with ideological position, and everything seems to continue to polarise.

And in the midst of that… joy is found in green ogres, daft donkeys, a wonderful blue bird and a plethora of gags, songs and dances in a small Garden City.

Surely, that is joy.

Joy and happiness are often aligned but are different to each other in my mind. Happiness is something that measures how good we feel over time. Joy is about feeling good right now, in the moment.

Moments, not existence.

We are not, as far as I can see, designed as a species to be happy, rather we are designed to survive. Our society seems a little obsessed with the pursuit of happiness – the ultimate goal of existence in the modern world we’ve constructed. That far-reaching ideal is always going to lead to some sort of disappointment – happiness is not a constant, surely.

In this pursuit, we perhaps sometimes miss the opportunities for joy. That playful dog walk, the one song that makes you dance, the interaction which makes your day, the swim, the goal scored, the flowers, the kind thought, the cup of tea and the really lovely film which alters your mood for a while. Joy.

Are you happy? That’s a tough question – it’s about family, career, dreams, relationships and everything in between. The answer is to do with a measurement that is long, protracted and nuanced.

Do you feel joyful? That is so much easier. Joy is an emotion measured in the moment; it’s not something we have to think about. We know what joy feels like, and we can usually say with precision whether or not we’re feeling it in a given moment.

I know joy in a walk in the sunshine does not mean the stress of life isn’t still waiting when you get back and joy isn’t a panacea for everything that bothers us in life. However, their cumulative effects can lead to greater happiness as a result. Joy brings us towards the present, attracts others, broadens our perceptions and creates more opportunities.

At St Chris there have been moments of joy to be found everywhere this week – from sports fixtures to musicals, to snow, to film screenings, Morning Talks and swimming galas and also in rather more mundane things… kindnesses in the lunch queue, the support in lessons, the kind word in The Mulberry and the offer of play on the school field. The cumulative effects can be huge and shouldn’t be seen as anything lesser.

I am back again tonight, and I can’t wait… imagine what a snowfall in the intermission would do to us all!