“It is not only in the rose, it is not only in the bird, Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard, But in the darkest, meanest things,There alway, alway something sings.” These words by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which were sung by our choir this morning, speak to me of the thread of divinity and grace that runs through all things in life, even in moments of hardship. “Even in the darkest meanest things, there alway something sings.”
The difficult times are real, friends. We know that. Last week, our Music and Worship service spoke so beautifully to the truth of pain in this world, the need for expressive lamentation, and the liberation that is possible if we allow ourselves to fully feel the depth of grief, pain, and suffering that exists within and around us. (If you missed it, I would commend you to watch it online on our church website.) This week I am particularly aware of this need for lamentation, not only with the ongoing political climate and the attacks on civil rights and wellbeing for so many communities in our nation right now, but also because tomorrow is Memorial Day, a day of solemn remembrance, and it is right that this congregation be a place to express this pain.
Yet, this is church. It is not only a place of solemnity but a place to point toward hope. As Maury Elderidge said in our responsive reading this morning, “from the depths of pain we look toward joy, toward gratitude, toward what we find worthy of praise.” [“A Gospel Chorus” by Maury Elderidge in To Wake, To Rise ed. Bill Sinkford] Even if we may not be there right now, here at church we can initiate the practice of looking toward joy, toward hope, toward gratitude.
It’s easy for me to look toward joy and hope, to see the divine that sings in all things, when I am surrounded by beauty and kindness. But in the midst of despair and suffering it is hard to see, it’s hard to have faith that that love, that wholeness, is also there. And I find it’s particularly hard when I tell myself that this is a solemn day, or a despairing situation, or a painful reality — when I hold on to a narrative that for one reason or another this is not an occasion for joy.
Earlier this month I had the distinct pleasure of visiting our two Kindergarten classes in our Learning Community, who spent several weeks learning about death. I visited with them and led a practice memorial service of sorts with them. Each child brought a photo or drew a picture of a loved one who they knew who had died, like a grandparent or pet, or in one case a dearly beloved stuffed animal who had met an untimely end. We talked together about what a memorial is, what to expect, how people might feel and behave, and then we held our own memorial service with music, poetry, and reflections about those we were remembering.
As we discussed how people might feel, the children all guessed that people would be sad. So I asked them, “do you think it’s ok to laugh at memorial?” They all dutifully shook their heads and said “noooo.” So I said, “actually, one of the great things at a memorial can be when we tell a story about the person we loved that makes us smile or laugh!” At their age and stage of development, learning about rules and social norms, they were delighted at this apparent contradiction — that joy was allowed at an ostensibly sad occasion. I reassured them that whatever their true feelings were, those feelings were ok and good, as long as they allowed other people to have their true feelings too.
But it struck me that this assumption was so clear from such a young age — that there might be some places where joy is not allowed. I’m not sure where this came from — perhaps our country’s Puritan roots that looked with suspicion on anything pleasurable — but regardless it reminded me of the way that some movements for justice and liberation can become conformist, urgent, or so focused on the agenda at hand that joy and celebration are seen as frivolous and unacceptable. Have any of you ever participated in a group like that? I know I have.
That’s why I was delighted the first time I saw the quote “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Especially as a dancer myself, I thought, ‘Yes!! If we are looking toward a better life for ourselves, our communities, and those we are in solidarity with, we have to enact that joy and freedom that we are aiming for!’ The quote is attributed to Emma Goldman, that fiery twentieth century anarchist organizer, writer, and philosopher, but I learned later that it was actually a t-shirt makers paraphrase of her longer reflection, which reads,
“At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening… 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 anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.
“I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal… for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. ‘I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.’ ” [Emma Goldman, Living My Life, p. 56]
In other words, “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
I’d say that joy — music, dancing, celebration, love, camaraderie — joy actually sustains our movements for liberation. Sometimes we can feel so pressured to make change in the outside world that we forget about filling the internal well that keeps us going, and reminds us of what we are working for. We need a taste of liberation to keep working towards it, and even though a feeling of joy may be fleeting, to me those moments do feel like a moment of liberation.
About four years ago I had the occasion to go to a wonderful movement-building event in Berkeley, an intergenerational teach-in called “There is a River: from Slavery to Ferguson.” It brought together leaders from 20th century movements for liberation, now elders, like Dolores Huerta, Jim Lawson, Father Louis Vitale, and more, and it brought them into conversation with young, contemporary leaders from movements advocating for Black Lives, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Indigenous peoples, and immigrants, and for tenants rights, nonviolent action, and more. It was amazing to witness these conversations, to see the ways that the elders placed themselves in solidarity with the young folks, and how the young leaders listened with deep care and respect to the experiences of the elders.
One of the biggest insights that stuck with me was that one of the elders, I believe it was Marian Wright Edelman, remarked on how one of the things that kept the movements together in the 60s and 70s was the shared pride, joy, and celebration that was expressed through singing together. The other elders nodded their heads as she described her sadness at seeing that the marches of today seemed to lack the music and cohesiveness of the past century’s movements. She encouraged us younger folks to find songs that drew us together and to offer them when we gathered together for protests.
I felt it viscerally — having been involved in various direct action groups in the Bay Area for several years, I was yearning for the centeredness and unity of purpose that I experienced on the few rare occasions when singing was part of our action. And, perhaps unconsciously, I was yearning for the possibility of joy to show up alongside our anger, dissent, and flexing of political power. It had begun to feel to me that in many situations, if I had asked the question, “Is it ok to have fun at the protest?” (which of course is a cousin of the “is it ok to laugh at a funeral” question I asked to the kindergarteners) that in many situations, the answer would be “no.” “No. This is serious business. Lives are on the line. Security is tight. There are probably police infiltrators. We need to be taken seriously. Frivolity will hurt the Cause.” In other words, no dancing in this revolution.
Over the last four years though, it seems like the conversation has changed. Many serious activists I knew began to experience burnout. I started hearing more people in my circles talking about self-care, about community care, about deepening relationships rather than just tightening security protocols, and about building the communities we dream of in the here and now, building a movement rather than just going to a collection of marches.
And I began to learn new songs at our actions. One that has stuck with me is called “Grateful to Be”. I learned it at a weekend of action for Martin Luther King Day in 2016, though I haven’t been able to find the composer.
Like the birds in the sky, like the dragonfly,
Like the trees listening, what lives in them lives in me.
I am grateful to be breathing, heart beating, joyful and free
Even though hard times are all around me, I am grateful to be.
After centering with this song in the morning, the whole subsequent day of action felt so much more grounded, communal, and joyful.
But not only does the joy serve the movement, the singing and joining together is actually itself a countercultural practice of Joy. I believe that claiming the ability to embrace joy even in the face of hardship and oppression is a way in and of itself to experience liberation.
It may not be permanent, and maybe not everyone will participate at once, but claiming joy is countercultural particularly because it flies in the face of the difficult experiences we may encounter. As a popular internet meme proclaims, “my joy is my revenge.”
To see and experience suffering and still retain our capacity to feel joy — that kind of resilience is a human quality that borders on miraculous to me. In our reading this morning, Marcia McFee proclaims that “Hallelujah! is a dangerous word, for it is the sign of a people claiming and exclaiming their sacred worth, and praising that which brought them into being.” It is a cry of joy, a visceral expression of relief and hope, often uttered when we find some good in the midst of the difficult. Hallelujah!
Hallelujah is a dangerous word because joy can be in direct service of liberation. Hallelujah is dangerous to the established systems of oppression and inequity, dangerous to bullies who derive their pleasure from our misery, dangerous to those kept in power by keeping others in fear. That hallelujah is dangerous, that joy is liberatory, is a fact known by all those who dare to create beauty and celebration in the face of struggle.
And let’s be honest — all of us struggle some of the time. Some of us struggle a lot of the time. This harnessing of joy as a tool for liberation is something that I think each of us can learn from and embody. Joy is part of wholehearted living. Joy is part of living in the moment, experiencing the personal liberation of freely expressing oneself and being fully present to what is.
Dr. Brene Brown, an amazing social science researcher said this. “You know what’s tricky? As someone who studies shame and scarcity and fear, I will tell you, if you ask me what’s the most terrifying, difficult emotion that we experience as humans, I would say joy… I often ask parents in an audience and I’ll say, raise your hand if you’ve ever stood over your child while he or she was sleeping and thought to yourself, ‘whew, I love you like I didn’t know was possible’ and then in that split second, pictured something horrific happening to your child.”
She asks, “How many of you have ever sat up and said ‘wow, work’s going good, good relationship with my partner, parents seem to be doing ok… holy crap. Something bad’s gonna happen.’ So what is that? You know what that is? When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding. [It’s like we’re saying,] ‘I’m not gonna feel you. I’m not going to soften into this moment of joy. Because I’m scared it’s gonna be taken away — the other shoe’s gonna drop…’
“When we lose our tolerance to be vulnerable, joy becomes foreboding. And so what we do in moments of joyfulness, [is] we try to beat vulnerability to the punch…” Dr. Brown goes on to tell the story of a man who told her, “ ‘My whole life, I never got too excited, too joyful about anything. I just kinda stayed right in the middle. That way, if things didn’t work out, I wasn’t devastated, and if they did work out, it was a pleasant surprise.’ In his 60s, he was in a car accident, and his wife of 40 years was killed. And he said, ‘The second I realized she was gone, the first thing I thought was, I should have leaned harder into those moments of joy, ‘cause that did not protect me from what I feel now.’ We’re trying to dress rehearse tragedy so we can beat vulnerability to the punch.” [from Brene Brown’s appearance on Oprah 3/17/13, clip titled “Dr. Brene Brown on Joy: It’s Terrifying”]
What I have taken from Brene Brown is the understanding that to experience the world wholeheartedly, being truly present, means embracing the moments of ecstatic joy along with the feelings of pain and grief when they come.
Experiencing joy now won’t make it worse when something bad happens, nor will it make something bad happen. In fact, it helps to build our resilience, and it deepens our well. When I take time in my day to appreciate even the small joys — a beautiful view, a call from a friend, my clean laundry, a pleasant hello with a neighbor — I find that it makes it so much more possible to face the difficult things. Perhaps counter to the cultural Puritanical message, joy doesn’t soften us or make us weak, it builds our capacity and resilience.
Whether in our personal lives, or in our movements for justice and liberation, claiming joy, looking for joy, practicing joy can build the spiritual sustenance we need for the long haul. It can feed us in times of sorrow and hardship, and it can draw us closer to one another as we reach for solidarity and beloved community.
We need joy just as we need lamentation. We need honesty and listening and wholeheartedness. We need presence and caring, and we need fierce love. As we travel together through this life, let us hold fast to one another and look for joy.
As a final prayer, in the spirit of bringing song and joy into this search for liberation, I will sing a blessing by Scott Grace. I’ll sing it a few times through and I invite you to join me in sung prayer together as you feel moved.
Gonna let life move me, I’m gonna let life stir me deep
I’m gonna let life wake me from this ancient sleep
I’m gonna laugh all my laughter, gonna cry all my tears
Gonna love the rain as deeply as the sun when it clears.
Topics: Liberation