The Power of Joy
I've birthed three babies, been in a head on car collision, endured numerous minor surgeries (as defined by everyone who did NOT endure them), lost my mother in a completely traumatic experience that shattered my heart, lost my brother in an especially sad manner, and lived with multi-generational familial alienation BUT none of that discomfort prepared me for the 12 weeks I endured trying to rid my body of cancer and the accompanying complications that resulted during a pandemic.
During that time of enforced stillness, my mind was not able to distract my body from its work. Reading, writing, puzzling, visiting, being with my family - all of it was extremely challenging. I could not concentrate. I could not think. It was hard to even feel. Mostly, I waited for the verdict. What would be the outcome of this very personal series of cascading events?
An acquaintance sent me a small card with a smaller poem tucked inside. I appreciated small during that season. Here is the poem:
come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
~ Lucille Clifton
Few poets have written so convincingly of celebration. Lucille Clifton was an accomplished poet and educator. She was Poet Laureate for the state of Maryland from 1979-1985 and two times she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Her work emphasized endurance and strength but I tend to think that the reason so many of us appreciate her work is that she does not hide the truth: endurance and strength are the happy accidents of surviving suffering. I don't know how she does it, but she manages to include joy in her poems, even as they speak against silence and hatred. I love how she does not demand that we "don't worry, be happy" - although that is indeed a great song and I love to dance to it. As I recover, I have found it hard to value happiness because my body cannot hold it. Happiness is energizing, sizzling sparkles on the 4th of July.
What I have needed most is what Clifton offers me through her work - joy.
Willie James Jennings, a scholar and theologian wrong about joy when he said, "I look at joy as an act of resistance against despair and its forces."
I also found wisdom in Cole Arthur Riley's book - This Here Flesh - when she wrote of joy. Here's what she had to say.
There's a moment in the Bible when the temple of God, which was destroyed ruing the exile, is being rebuilt. The Israelites lay the foundations, and a lot of the people begin shouting for joy. But many of the elders, those who had know the former temple, wept. They remembered what was. Ezra says, "No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far way."
~ Ezra 3:13 NIV p. 169
Joy is peaceful. Joy does not require me to jump up and down on my stitched up leg. Joy resists despair. For me, joy reminds me that my body is indeed more fragile than I'd like to admit AND it is still operational, if not fully functioning. Joy reminds me that my grandchildren do not require me to be happy so long as we can be close. They do not require me to look good, although they love it when I can pick them up. Those two little ones have been my biggest cheerleaders. They ask to see my wound. They peer intently at it and declare it, "Better!" They do not need me to be well or sick; strong or weak. They just want me to BE. This is joy. It is big enough for weeping and laughing. In joy, we can be happy AND sad.
I like happy, I really do! But I am grateful, oh so grateful for joy. May your day be joyful!
