Protest, Pain, and Joy
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Juneteenth
Reflecting on the protests in the United States after the murder of George Floyd, writer Danté Stewart shares how, when watching video footage of protest marchers, he witnessed joy and hope amid suffering:
I saw scores of young folk, fists held high in the sky, their lungs exhausted from all the screaming they did. I saw scores of old folk, some with canes, some in wheelchairs pushed by another, their lungs exhausted from all the screaming they did. I saw scores of gay folk and straight folk, Muslim folk and Christian folk, American folk and global folk, rich folk and poor folk, all lungs exhausted from all the screaming they did….
I looked again at … the videos of millions marching in solidarity, and I saw so much more. I saw joy. I saw intimacy. I saw bodies let loose. I saw tears of strength in the face of danger. I saw heaven smiling as love was cast on Earth’s threshing floor. I saw so much joy. It was not simply resistance; it was power. I saw the good news. I saw a better story than the story we were offered. The beauty of this moment showed that suffering is not the total image. This is a moment of faith, flying one would say. I see an unexpected glimpse into public bravery, the willingness to rise again. There is something about these images that calls out to me to sit still; to ponder, to anticipate life beyond brutality.
This joy is love dancing with reality, humanity. I saw the complex and complicated relationship with hope, a tragic but necessary one if it is to become what it can become— beautiful. [1]
Essayist Ross Gay connects sorrow, joy, and solidarity:
What happens if joy is not separate from pain? What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of a refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?…
My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy. Which might incite further solidarity. And on and on. My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow—which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow—might draw us together. It might depolarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love. And though attending to what we hate in common is too often all the rage (and it happens also to be very big business), noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive. It’s why I think of joy, which gets us to love, as being a practice of survival. [2]
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Sarah Young Jesus Calling
I speak to you continually. My nature is to communicate, though not always in words. I fling glorious sunsets across the sky, day after day after day. I speak in the faces and voices of loved ones. I caress you with a gentle breeze that refreshes and delights you. I speak softly in the depths of your spirit, where I have taken up residence.
You can find Me in each moment, when you have eyes that see and ears that hear. Ask My Spirit to sharpen your spiritual eyesight and hearing. I rejoice each time you discover My Presence. Practice looking and listening for Me during quiet intervals. Gradually you will find Me in more and more of your moments. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me above all else.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 8:1-4 (NLT)
1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
Your glory is higher than the heavens.
2 You have taught children and infants
to tell of your strength,
silencing your enemies
and all who oppose you.
3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
Psalm 19:1-2 (NLT)
1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
2 Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
1 Corinthians 6:19 (NLT)
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself…
Jeremiah 29:13 (NLT)
13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
Additional insight regarding Jeremiah 29:13: According to God’s wise plan, his people were to have a future and a hope; consequently, they could call upon him with confidence. Although the exiles were in a difficult place and time, they need not despair because they had God’s presence, the privilege of prayer, and God’s grace. If we seek him wholeheartedly, he will be found. Neither a strange land, sorrow, persecution, nor physical problems can break our fellowship with God.
