Good morning…
“Thought you would like this,” a friend texted me the photo above. She continued: “From a wonderful collection on the Black experience. She has a beautiful poem by the same title.”
I was intrigued by the quote. “Joy is an act of resistance.” To be honest, joy and resistance somehow seem like opposites to me. Oil and water. Yin and yang. Beloved and hated. Joy is light, free, empowering. Resistance is tough, painful, empowering.
Empowering. Might empowerment be our hopeful hinge, if joy is an act of resistance?
I am drawn back to this pansy photo I took a few weeks back, a burst of delicate color pushing through a crack in the hard pavement. Light, free, empowering. The fun face of this flower and her leafy limbs stand erect on a small, strong spine. Seeking fresh air, open space, and nurturing light, this exquisite example pushed through all resistance to grace us with simple beauty. Tough, painful, empowering. True joy is an action growing up from our roots. Rich, real, resilient.
God’s timing now pushes through powerfully. In this very moment, as I write at 5:01 am, Henri Nouwen’s morning meditation comes into my crowded inbox. What is Henri’s title for today? Of course, it is entitled “Joy.”
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Henri Nouwen DAILY MEDITATION | JUNE 1, 2021 – Joy
Joy is essential to the spiritual life. Whatever we may think of or say about God, when we are not joyful, our thoughts and words cannot bear fruit. Jesus reveals to us God’s love so that his joy may become ours and that our joy may become complete. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing—sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death—can take that love away.
Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us. . . . Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.
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Now the words of Jesus join God’s symphony.
If you keep My commandments [if you continue to obey My instructions], you will abide in My love and live on in it, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commandments and live on in His love. I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing (John 15:10-12, AMPC).
As we continue to abide in Christ, we live on rooted in God’s unending love. The delight of our living Lord rises up in us and the joy of Jesus sparks our gladness. Pushing through all forms of resistance – sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death – joy persistently powers through our callous cracks. Fully completed in us, day by day, God’s abundant love overflows to all.
…Sue…
