CAC faculty member Dr. Barbara Holmes highlights God’s call to joy and partnership in all circumstances:
We are born with an inner fire. I believe that this fire is the God within. It is an unquenchable, divine fire. It warms us, encourages us, and occasionally asks us to dance.
Suppose that at the entrance to heaven there is a scale—not a scale to weigh good and bad deeds—but a scale to measure joy. Suppose our passage into the next life will not be determined by the number of souls saved, sermons preached, or holiness pursued. Just joy.
We’ve become very somber Christians in a very somber age. It’s not that we don’t have things to be concerned about. There are wars, natural disasters, deficits, broken relationships and viruses. But in the midst of this, we’re called to joy by a joyful God and a joyful Savior. Hierarchies have always been afraid of a dancing, joyful Jesus. They’re not so worried about the institutional Christ, but they fear this living, singing Jesus who can boogie, who sings all the way to Gethsemane, and tells jokes. Remember the one he told the Pharisees about the camel and the eye of the needle?
No matter the circumstances, we’re called to joy.
Holmes tells a story exemplifying the surprising joy that can be found in solidarity and struggle:
A few years ago in December, I took a group of twelve seminarians of various races and denominations to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico…. In a migrant shelter, a small man comes in for soup. His name is Manuel. He tells us he’s crossing the desert into the US tonight. He has no work. He has no idea of how far it is or how deadly the desert is. He’s wearing a thin jacket. His feet are bare inside his thin sneakers. Seeing one member of our group serving him a steaming hot bowl of soup, he smiles.
Someone notices the filthy bandages on his foot. Without a word, students kneel to wash and bandage his feet. They rub ointment and silently pray for his safety. They anoint this person, deemed to be the least in the kingdom, but whom God loves.
Then Sam, a very big man, takes off his huge socks and hands them to him. Manuel’s eyes dance with joy as he pulls on Sam’s socks. In the circle we pray and bless one another for the last time. He goes into the desert loved by Jesus and saved a bit from the cold by Sam’s socks. In the silence that follows, we don’t bother to debate the issue of illegal immigration or whether temporary work permits would solve the problem at the border. All we can see in our mind’s eye are Sam’s socks, white and worn and offered at the right time. We don’t know if Manuel will make it into the US…. We do know that whatever happens, his feet will be warm and that’s as good as a dance in the world.
Brightness and Clarity
There is some inexplicable connection between suffering and joy. One of the greatest graces of this existence is that we are able to experience joy in the midst of suffering. We might not be able to experience happiness. You can’t in the midst of suffering, but there can be moments of great joy in the midst of the worst suffering. I take that to reveal that these two things are raveled up in ways that we don’t understand, but which are essential to our existence.
—Christian Wiman, Everything Belongs podcast
In conversation with CAC staff members Mike Petrow and Paul Swanson, Father Richard Rohr shares his deepening understanding of the relationship between tragedy, tears, and joy:
I keep being more and more convinced that tears are an appropriate response to reality. I think they always will be, yet I don’t equate that with modern depression or cynicism. It’s the acceptance of what we cannot change that normally makes people cry: He’s dead forever; I’m never getting well; the church I love has never been perfect. The part of us that can surrender to that reality is somehow bright. Remember, God is always present in reality as it is, not merely as it should be. When we meet people who can smile in the presence of sadness, there’s a brightness about them—a clarity, a truth, and a freedom.
Mike Petrow shares wisdom from his spiritual director that he received during a time of deep grief:
She said, “The people I’ve known, the great teachers, the great mystics who’ve suffered and worked their way through it, find that the suffering carves a space out in your heart. In that wide open space, you can feel not only your pain but the pain of others and the pain of the world.” You are quick to tears for the rest of your life. “But,” she said, “that same space also holds joy. The people I know who’ve really faced suffering and tragedy are the quickest to tears, but also the quickest to laughter, and the quickest to joy.”
Richard explores how facing the reality of our individual pain opens us to carrying the pain of others as well:
The act of solidarity somehow lessens the pain. We’re able to say, “I choose to carry it with you.” It’s really an alchemy. It lives differently in our hearts. We don’t love it, but we have the grace to tolerate it. Not with resistance, but with yes. That doesn’t come in a moment. It comes with time and maturity.
I experience this brightness as a new clarity. The light is illuminating it better. That’s what sadness often offers us: a new clarity about the tragic sense of life. It’s what Jesus had to accept on the cross—the utterly tragic sense of life. It’s not inappropriate—it’s clarifying, it’s bright.
| Learning from the Mystics: Jesus of Nazareth |
| Quote of the Week: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” – John 14:18-20 Reflection It may seem odd to think of Jesus as a mystic, but a mystic is actually someone who experientially knows the deep mysteries of God. A mystic is someone who bows in reverence to the mystery that is beyond human language and also seeks to dissolve all the us/them, either/or, subject/object split. Ever since the Enlightenment, western minds have fallen into dualistic thinking even more so as a default. One could also say that people are applauded for being able to articulate nuances and differences between one thing and another. The only problem is that everything is related, or in relationship with everything else, and Jesus sees reality in this way. Modern science is even recognizing the interrelationship of all things. Nothing can exist without influencing or being influenced by other things. There is nothing that is not already in relationship with everything else. This includes you. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Relationships with God will not be impeded, destroyed, or obstructed. The love of God will not allow it in the end. God will not leave us as orphans, as destitute, as without. And this is how a mystic sees, not things in parts, but things in wholes. Not things in separateness, but things in relationship. Not as objects and subjects, but as subjects and subjects. This mystery is also shown in Ephesians 1, that “all things will be gathered up under the headship of Christ.” All things, in their wholeness, will be gathered up into the oneness of God. (“Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God is One.”) Jesus was inviting us into this mystery from the start, the only problem is that we assume that the starting point is disconnection, and therefore the ending point is a possibility of disconnection as well. However, Jesus experientially knows the deep mystery of God that we are in Christ and Christ is in God and God is in us… if only we could wake up to the reality that all things are already related to God. Prayer Lord, help us to remember that we are never alone. You will not leave us or forsake us. You will not leave us as orphans. Help us to settle into the mystery that we are already in you and you are already in us, that all things are held together in you. It is easy to forget, to dismiss, to distrust this reality so help us to have open eyes and open hearts to this mutual indwelling and live from that deep reality. Amen. |
