From Rev. Susan
In one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, Oliver writes “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it.”
This month of May, we are exploring the theme of Joy and Resilience. Joy feels like a challenging theme when so much in our world breaks our hearts and calls for our righteous anger. And yet, joy is essential for our lives. Joy helps remind us of the goodness, beauty and gift of life. This is especially important when life is difficult. Close your eyes, remember a time when you felt pure joy. What do you remember? What does joy feel like to you? For me, joy feels like liberation, connection and love. I feel it sometimes when I am struck by the beauty of nature, or when laughing or dancing or sharing great food in community.
However, joy is not something I can summon on demand. And while joy is essential, it doesn’t mean we should or even can always just try to “be happy!” Joy is a part of our emotional landscape, as is grief, melancholy, peace, calm, frustration, anger, sadness. But more than just one part of it, joy helps nurture our resiliency and our capacity to navigate our other emotions without hurting ourselves or others. Joy is life-saving. It helps us connect to life in a way that lifts our spirits and helps us remember the good in us and the good in life. This experience of joy – of the liberating experience of joy – reminds us why we organize for justice and dignity in our world.
Maya Angelou writes, “We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.”
I appreciate Mary Oliver’s wisdom that joy is not something we summon, but when we suddenly and unexpectedly feel it, don’t hesitate – give into it. Joy is precious and necessary. And in the midst of stressful days and lives and a world full of difficulty and cruelty, it can be hard to find. So if you feel it, lean into it. Remember that it is like oxygen to our spirits, our souls. Welcome it, feel all of it. Don’t deride it as simple or yourself as unworthy of it. Instead, lean into it, for as Oliver reminds us in the last line of the poem “Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
Here is a link to the full poem “Don’t Hesitate” by Mary Oliver.
