Good morning…
A fun poem I met earlier in the week came to life at the PAWkids Christmas party.
As a complete surprise, I was presented with a dozen red roses from the After-School Program Director. She was thanking me for all of the incredible Christmas bags our Northside Church women shared with the families of Grove Park, for all of the creative hours our weekly volunteers put into arts and crafts activities with the KIPP elementary students, for pushing through challenging times and hard conversations to learn about authentic community, and for all of the life-giving ways God’s Spirit is growing thicker and stronger as we do kingdom work together.
Together we experienced the power of kinetic joy.
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Kinetic Joy by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
It’s perhaps like billiards,
in which the cue ball collides
with another ball, and the kinetic
energy passes on to a second ball—
that’s how it is when you,
in your joy, collide with me in a hug,
and your joy passes on to me,
my every molecule vibrating
as your bliss becomes my bliss,
your joy becomes my joy, until
I’m dizzy with it, spinning with it,
rolling around the room with it,
in fact it’s what I was made for,
to be moved by you, by your joy.
*******
With a professional photographer unexpectedly nearby, our kinetic joy was captured. Larenzia’s gift of flowers touched my heart. My grateful heart gave her a big hug. My hug sparked her contagious smile. Her smile brought on a quiet moment of savoring. Our mutual savoring led to my tender kiss on her smooth cheek. Our kinetic joy was palpable.
Like the cue ball on a billiards table, our emotions set kinetic energy in motion. Here we witness the spreading of joy. Yet the same thing happens with all of our emotions, doesn’t it? Fear. Anger. Worry. Hatred. Sadness. Frustration. Disapproval. When we collide, our emotional energy influences others.
Take a few quiet moments to reflect with God. What emotions might I have set in motion over the past twenty-four hours?
Go ahead, examine me from inside out, surprise me in the middle of the night— (Psalm 17:3a, MSG). Night and day, we work out our intense emotions through our conversational relationship with God.
Humbly assessing our choices, we ask, “Lord, how might I spread your Spirit today?”
…Sue…
