On the Virtue of Joy: Part 3, A Transcendent Life Narrative

In the last post we used to the work of Robert C. Roberts to describe joy as a concern-based construal. Such an understanding of joy as an emotion and not a feeling gives us traction on how joy can become a virtue. Specifically, joy is affected by what we care and are concerned about and how we perceive and construe the world. 

In this post, I want to dig a bit deeper into this idea, that joy is bound up with meaning-making. 

Specifically, the work of Pamela King suggests that virtues flow out of life narratives that create a teleological trajectory for our lives. The story that gives our life meaning and coherence points us in a direction. 

That narrative is crucial to identity formation and well-being has been widely recognized. Narrative-based therapies have been developed to help us with this work in clinical settings. King's contribution is to note that some life narratives connect us to the sacred, what she calls a "transcendent narrative identity."

A transcendent narrative identity connects your life to sacred values and purpose. As King writes,

So although all persons have varying degrees of coherently integrated narrative identity that serve to inform the meaning and significance of their characteristic adaptations, not all persons have an identity that is informed by a conceptualization of transcendence, source of ultimacy, or the sacred that shapes one’s worldview and emerging identity...

From this perspective, not all narratives are created equally. Existing research demonstrates that transcendence shapes meaning-making processes that galvanize one’s sense of self and worldview. Ultimate concerns serve to organize individual’s entire goal systems and orient life aims. In addition, life purposes are more likely to be incorporated into one’s narrative identity when they include transcendent, spiritual, or sacred content. Mundane goals given sacred meaning are pursued with greater effort, provide more meaning, and receive more social support than unsanctified goals. Thus, a transcendent narrative identity has organizing power and serves to instantiate meaning and motivation that promote fidelity, and sustains engaging one’s moral convictions. In other words, whereas narrative identity informs the meaning of characteristic adaptations, a transcendent narrative identity conveys that the moral aspect of the narrative is sacred and suggests that rather than only a moral orientation, one has a spiritual motivation to live out one’s beliefs. In this way, even narratives that are not embedded within a religious context, can serve to ‘sanctify’ prosocial beliefs, attitudes, and actions.¹

Simply put, how you tell your story matters. And stories that connect your identity to the sacred--a transcendent narrative identity--imbue life with meaning-making powers that give life spiritual and sacred significance. This significance organizes your life goals, gives mundane, daily tasks sacred weight, and motivates and sustains moral action and exertion. 

And, for our purposes in this series, a transcendent narrative identity creates resources for joy. Specifically, joy comes when we are living in harmony with the sacred ground of our being. For Christians, this alignment with the self and God is the fountain of joy. This is the Augustinian "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

The point here is that joy flows out of a deep and rich meaning-making structure. A sacred story that shapes how we perceive the world and what we care about. If joy is a concern-based construal, it's also, for Christians, a sacred concern-based construal. We are concerned with sacred things, and we construe the world with sacred eyes. 

¹Pamela Ebstyne King, (2020). "Joy distinguished: Teleological perspectives on joy as a virtue," The Journal of Positive Psychology, 15, 33-39.