1. PRAYER
Dear God...
We ask for joy in our lives. Help us to find happiness in the simple things and to share our joy with others. Let our laughter and smiles be contagious, spreading positivity wherever we go. May we find joy even in the midst of challenges.
Thank you for the moments of joy that brighten our days. Help us to cherish them and to seek out more opportunities for happiness. May we find joy in our relationships, celebrating the connections we have with family and friends. Help us to recognize the beauty and wonder in the world around us, finding joy in nature and the everyday miracles of life.
Guide us to be sources of joy for others, bringing light and happiness into their lives. Let us approach each day with a joyful heart, grateful for the opportunities and experiences that come our way. Thank you for the gift of joy. Help us to embrace it fully and to spread it generously to those around us.
Amen.
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."
- Philippians 4:4
2. MEDITATION
https://youtu.be/FGO8IWiusJo?si=Fep8uz4XilVQawYX
3. SONG
https://youtu.be/X_hIptF5aCA?si=JGwotryScoq79JMq
4. NARRATIVE
Awe, Surrender, Joy
Father Richard describes the stunned silence that accompanies moments of awe and surrender:
The spiritual journey is a constant interplay between moments of awe followed by a general process of surrender to that moment. We must first allow ourselves to be captured by the goodness, truth, or beauty of something beyond and outside ourselves. Then we universalize from that moment to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the rest of reality, until our realization eventually ricochets back to include ourselves! Yet we humans resist both the awe and, even more, the surrender. The ego resists the awe while the will resists the surrender. But both together are vital and necessary. [1]
As she often did, Dr. Barbara Holmes (1943–2024) expands and strengthens my thinking by her description of “joy unspeakable.” Awe is not always inspired by beauty and goodness. Truth sometimes comes in hard packages. It takes both great love and great suffering to stun us and bring us to our knees. God is there in all of it, using every circumstance of our life, to draw us ever more deeply into the heart of God. [2]
Dr. Barbara Holmes writes:
Ultimately, joy unspeakable is a mystery, and because each mystery begets another, it is a daunting task to describe the indescribable. Song, dance, and ritual help. This is how Grant Wacker describes the joy that emerges out of spiritual revival: “And then there was joy—not necessarily happiness, a passing emotion—but joy, the quiet, deep-seated conviction that one’s life made sense.” [3]
From the beginning, Africana people in the diaspora have defined the sensibility of their lives within the context of struggle and resistance. We have begun to realize that while overt systematic oppression may be removed, we all bear the scars and traces of racism’s collective demonic possession. And yet we must all go on, and we must all go on together as a community.
Accordingly, our obsession with blame and with the question of who is or is not worthy of God’s full embrace disrupts the journey. For we are not headed toward a single goal: we are on a pilgrimage toward the center of our hearts. It is in this place of prayerful repose that joy unspeakable erupts.
Joy Unspeakable
erupts when you least expect it,
when the burden is greatest,
when the hope is gone
after bullets fly.
It rises
on the crest of impossibility,
it sways to the rhythm
of steadfast hearts,
and celebrates
what we cannot see.
This joy beckons us not as individual monastics but as a community. It is a joy that lives as comfortably in the shout as it does in silence. It is expressed in the diversity of personal spiritual disciplines and liturgical rituals. This joy is our strength, and we need strength because we are well into the twenty-first century, and we are not healed. How shall we negotiate postmodernity without inner strength? [4]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing, 2017), 10.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Awe and Joy,” Daily Meditations, February 12, 2021.
[3] Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Harvard University Press, 2001), 67.
[4] Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, 2nd ed. (Fortress Press, 2017), 199–200.
QUESTIONS
- Joy vs. Happiness: While happiness is often a fleeting emotion tied to favorable circumstances, spiritual joy is a deep-seated conviction of divine presence that persists regardless of circumstances.
- A Choice and Surrender: True joy is a "life-defining, transformative reservoir" that we choose to tap into. It requires surrendering our need for control and accepting life's limitations and, in doing so, opening our hearts to the "good, the true, and the beautiful".
- Coexistence with Pain: Rohr emphasizes that joy is not separate from suffering; it is often intertwined with it. Joy can be found in the midst of sorrow, and, as in the Franciscan tradition, one can find "perfect joy" even in rejection or hardship by shifting from the ego-driven self to the "True Self".
- Participation in the "Flow": Joy is participatory. It is part of the "general dance" of life where we feel aligned with God and the universe, rather than needing to stand out or dominate.
- Making Room: This joy must be welcomed and allowed; it comes to those who "wait for it, expect it, and make room for it inside themselves,". [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
- "Joy... is both a decision and a surrender,".
- "The joy that the world cannot give always comes as a gift to those who wait for it, expect it, and make room for it,".
- "Everything seems to hold space. It's not a math equation. It's not really logical. But it feels right and fluid and true,".
- It is described as a "sacred family," "one body—the Body of Christ—moving as a single heartbeat,". [1, 2, 3]
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