May 17, 2026: Life Saving Joy

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

We sometimes think of joy as frivolous or unimportant, but joy is essential for our well-being. How do we weave more joy into our lives?

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Sermon Text

Life Saving Joy

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
UU Church of Bloomington
May 17, 2026

READING “Don't Hesitate” by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happened better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is don't be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

SERMON Life Saving Joy

The reading that Erica/MJ shared, “Don't Hesitate” by Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poems - it is one whose meaning and instruction I try to remember and live.

For it is easy - especially in painful and difficult times, to consider joy frivolous, a luxury, inappropriate. As if joy is only appropriate in good times. As if joy - experiencing it, leaning into it somehow negates or denies what is wrong or unjust or cruel happening in our lives and world.

Mary Oliver names, nearly in the same breath of the invitation, “if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate, give into it,” the stark realities of our world, including these very days we are living in. She writes, “There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.” That is an honest and difficult truth.

Oliver doesn't negate this reality - she names it sharply, but then she points to another truth - that “perhaps [joy] is life's way of fighting back.”

She is naming the deeper truth that while suffering is real, without joy, how do we keep going? Joy is a key part of resilience. Because the thing about joy is that it reminds us of the sweetness that is also part of life, as well as the feeling of connection and liberation that is essential in life. Without this reminder, we might forget that while suffering is a part of all life, that we - humanity - were made for joy and for love.

So how do we weave more joy into our lives?

In another poem that speaks of joy - “Why I Wake Early” - Mary Oliver writes:

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories…
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness…
to hold us in the great hands of light-
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

For years now, my most faithful spiritual practice has been sitting in the quiet of the morning, watching the sun slowly bring light to the earth, and just trying to be attentive to my breath, to my spirit, and to the earth. Many mornings, this practice gives me a feeling of peace, connection, gratitude - in other words, joy.

Joy is not just raucous exuberance and laughter and silliness - it can be all those things, but it can also be a quiet, peaceful feeling of connection, awe, and well-being. These all create the endorphin release associated with joy.

Endorphins are the body's natural feel-good hormones, natural stress relievers, pain relievers. They release in our body in response to laughter, to good food, to love, to meditation, exercise, sex, and romance. These are all things that can help us feel joy, feel connected, feel alive.

This morning sitting practice has been a lifeline to that quiet feeling of connection, gratitude, and joy. Yet, several years ago, I met a colleague - another UU minister - and we found we shared two fun interests. We both like sports and we both love dancing. But more than just hobbies or fun, she says these are spiritual practices because they connect us to joy. Every so often she checks in with me: how am I doing with my spiritual practices like watching the WNBA or dancing? I am grateful for this, as I don't always keep up.

Our spirits need joy. Another great American poet and writer, Maya Angelou, also reminds us how critical joy is for life and living. She 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.”

She is reminding us that joy isn't frivolous, it isn't luxury. It is life sustaining, essential, and necessary. And it is especially necessary in the midst of the hard work of resistance and survival during rising fascism, authoritarianism, state violence, and cruelty.

Many of you may know the famous quote attributed to Emma Goldman. “If I can't dance, then it isn't my revolution.” Amen, right! Well, there is more background to this quote.

First, a bit more about Emma Goldman. Goldman was a radical, an activist
and an anarchist at the turn of the 20th century. She was born in Russia and emigrated to the U.S. in 1885, where she worked in a textile factory. She was a political activist and worked with trade unions in the earliest days of unions in this country. She was a feminist and supported women's right to vote, and she was a well-known writer and speaker, drawing thousands to hear her speak. She was a good trouble-maker.

And the quote “If there isn't dancing at the revolution, then I don't want to be a part of it,” is often attributed to her and still used in many justice movements. Yet, it's not clear that Goldman actually said this. The quote appears to be drawn from her 1931 autobiography Living My Life, where she tells this story: “At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. “I grew furious at the... interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business...I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy...If it meant that, I did not want it. I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things. Anarchism [The Cause] meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world - prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.” [Living My Life (New York: Knopf, 1934), p. 56]

Joy is that experience of freedom, of beauty and radiance. We find it in dancing, and great food, and nature, and mediation, and love. And, in experiencing it - this beautiful reality - it reminds us of that radiance within us. Joy wants that for everyone. As Goldman describes, “freedom from conventions and prejudice…the denial of life and joy” and “the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.”

As individuals and a community engaged in the struggle for liberation, for the rights of all people, for dignity and self-expression, for a world ruled not by violence and might, but by respect, reverence, and care for one another and this planet we share, we too need to remember the life-saving importance of nurturing joy in community as a form of resilience.

All movements for equality and liberation and dignity need joy. They need music and dancing and art and beauty. If we fail to nurture the root of love and joy, anything we try to build, whether it is a movement for equality, a struggle against oppression, or a family or community, we will fail to achieve the goodness, the dream, we initially set out to build.

Mary Oliver argues that “perhaps, it [joy] is life's way of fighting back.” Joy helps connect us to our fullest selves, to claim and celebrate our identity, our integrity, giving us courage and strength for resisting the structures and situations that oppress us. Joy pushes back against the suffering - it doesn't eliminate it, but it reminds us that it is not all there is. And that is not all we are. And to those who seek control through fear, intimidation, and domination - joy is an antidote - a reminder of the indomitable, beautiful, free spirit in each of us.

These days are difficult. Much breaks our hearts and much tries to make us afraid. So, take this instruction from Mary Oliver, that “if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give into it." For not only do we too often disregard the importance of joy, we can also believe we are not worthy of it - and shut down the feeling rather than leaning into its fullness. Remember it is like air and water for our spirits, for our lives.

Nurturing more joy in our days and our lives is not about denying the reality of the world; it is about remembering that we are worthy of that joy as a way of reminding ourselves of the value of life - beginning with our own lives and recognizing the inherent dignity and worthiness in everyone's life.

So, I offer you this reminder from my colleague the Rev. Darcy Baxter - the things that give us joy, they are a form of spiritual practice. They are essential to our lives, our survival, and our well-being. So find the things that bring you joy - time in nature, time with friends, silly comedies, exercise, gardening, farming, yoga, laughter yoga, music, singing and making music with people, farming, dancing, cheering as hard as we can for the teams we love, making love that is loving, cooking, a great nap, time with our children, working on a project that is satisfying and meaningful, meditation, prayer, whatever it is - remember it not as a luxury - but necessary, as necessary as air and water. And when you feel that joy - because we can't just make it happen - so when it hits you, surprises you, lean in - take in its fullness. “Joy was not made to be a crumb.”