On Joy

"The world does bad things to us all, and we do bad things to the world and to each other and maybe most of all to ourselves, but in that dazzle of bright water as the glittering whales hurled themselves into the sun, we saw that joy is what we belong to. Joy is home. God created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run, not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in his image, it means that even when we cannot believe in him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by him, his mark is deep within us.

We have God's joy in our blood."

Frederick Buechner, The Great Dance (emphasis mine)