We returned a few days ago from vacation, and our upstairs cat, Phiona, seems particularly delighted to find me at my desk this morning. She jumps on my lap and leans into me. I put an arm around her and she settles down with loud purrs. I am charmed, as always, by her beauty and aliveness.

Other people’s cats—like other people’s kids—often look a little strange to me. I notice their proportions more than their personality, and nearly always conclude that my cat (or kid) is better. While I’m not proud of this, I’ve come to believe it’s a natural response to relationship. It is because I have a relationship with Phiona that I experience pleasure by looking at her, belonging when she flops across my feet for a nap, and joy when we play with the plastic bug my daughter tied to a piece of yarn.

“Joy is always relational,” write Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey in their book The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People (p. 35). It’s a strong statement, but let’s play along and assume that joy is always relational. Put another way, joy comes from “knowing that someone is happy to see me” (p. 33). Is despair, then, the feeling that not a person in the world would be happy to see me? Is bitterness always relational too? Talk to a bitter person and you’ll get an earful about what they have or haven’t received at the hand of their dad, boss, roommate, kids, and church.

I wonder what joy looked liked for Jesus. Assuming He had an abundant supply from His relationship within the Trinity, would He also experience joy when people were happy to see Him? Imagine rounding the aisle at the grocery store, seeing Jesus, and spontaneously breaking into a joyful wave-and-smile. Does my joy produce joy in Him? It’s hard to imagine God coming away from an encounter with me feeling different than He felt before the encounter. And yet, if joy is always relational, then joy is the currency of divine-human interaction, and I’m inclined to believe this is not a one-way street.

Was Jesus’ greatest agony the (perceived) loss of all relationship on the cross? He asked his Father, “Why have You left me?” Stripped of relationship, what sustained Him? Dare I wonder if His relationship with Himself played a role? My inner critic says that question is sacrilegious. Relationship with self is so secular it’s scandalous. Love for us is what sustained Jesus.

But wasn’t that love for us something He found deep in His own self? Certainly He didn’t sacrifice Himself in loathing, as we are apt to do. He didn’t conclude that life wasn’t worth living. He must have valued life and held a deep regard—a love—for His own life, even as He parted with it. Perhaps it is in the safety of loving ones own self that a person finds strength to face death. After all, I will experience death alone, no matter how many people may be in the room. If I haven’t found peace in my own company, how can I receive death?

Sometimes I wonder what would happen to me if I existed only in relationship to God and to myself. How might I survive if war or disaster stripped human-to-human relationship from me? My guess is I would spend much of my time remembering the relationships of the past and desiring relationship in the future. It is human nature to visit a graveside and talk to a lost loved one, because even in the sorrow of death, we derive joy from that relationship.

I suppose it’s silly to spend time and energy considering lack of relationship, when the world I inhabit is drenched in relationship. And, truth be told, the joy of relationship finds expression in those who love themselves and those who don’t, those who fear death and those who don’t. Some folks are alone but not lonely, while others are lonely but not alone. It is in this complexity that God literally shows up everywhere. He’s not constrained to relationship with only those who love themselves, or only those who loathe themselves. His image is not confined to emanating from people who love well. His joy is not limited to those bathed in relationship.

There is no formula, and yes, even my response to this is divided—equal parts terror and comfort. I am outraged that “a” added to “b” doesn’t always equal “c,” but I am also relieved. I’m not hallucinating when I see exceptions, the edge cases that don’t fit my ideas of love and joy. I will be okay if I don’t follow the formula. In the meantime, I will cultivate joy by cultivating relationship. The scandalous promise of the upside-down kingdom is that as we exist in joyful relationship with God, we will find other people’s cats and kids looking a little less strange. The world of relationship will widen to include our enemies. We will be happy to see people, and they will know they are safe in relationship with us. That’s how I want to live.