Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. You'll also receive periodic updates on new things from The Aesthetics of Joy. Black History Month, the creation and celebration of it, is such a cause and proof that a powerful story can change the world! To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. "You were not just born to center your entire existence on work and labor. Weve seen how joy restores, unifies, and propels. In the current national climate, it is more crucial than ever that we resist and repel the misogynist forces arrayed against us, and that we unconditionally stand with the women and LGBTQI people who are put at risk under the dangerous policies of the current administration. The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds. Eugene H. Peterson We are two abysses - a well staring at the sky. But, the reality of it is that I have been in spaces of joy in hospital rooms, gathered with a family and a loved one who's passing on, but there are rituals of remembrance going on, grief processes being begun, and in the midst of that, incredible joyjoy connected to sorrow. This episode featured theologians, Willie Jennings and Miroslav Volf. In a nation that denied our humanity, surrounded by neighbors who harbored hate for us in their hearts, our futures and our children's futures have perpetually been kept under the boot of the police state, our lives snatched away by a cop's pistol or the smack of a judge's gavel. In context where your energies have to be focused on survival, it doesn't leave a lot of energy for overt forms of complaint. Black joy, as an act of resistance against white supremacy, takes center stage on Juneteenth. Prolonged states of heightened negative emotion raise blood pressure, cortisol, and respiration rate, putting stress on the cardiovascular system. Other soldiers wrote home requesting flower seeds to plant. For activists, who live with chronic stress, the risk of burnout is physiological. As in so many fields, burnout is a serious risk, especially because activist work is rarely well-compensated and because the strong sense of personal responsibility many activists feel makes it hard to take breaks. Willie Jennings: Public rituals bound to real space. While communal joy represents an outright danger to a repressive regime, individual joy can also empower resistance. Last week I attended a dinner party inspired by Marsha P. (P for pay-it-no-mind) Johnson, who ignited the Stonewall Rebellion. Take this 3-minute quiz and find out. 13. I appreciate your feedback. Christopher McCandless It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. But isn't difficulty, suffering, hardshiparen't these necessary conditions for joy to even take place? As I began to slip in the depths of my own sorrow and yield to the temptation to surrender my heart to the dreadfully stark nihilism in this ritual around black bodies, I looked up and saw Dariuss mother, Rishawna Myricks. Produced by Space and mixed by Adam Greenspan & Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Kate Bush, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Joy as an Act of Resistance. Im constantly moved and inspired by her passion to fight for underrepresented and marginalized people. How to reclaim freedom from all kinds of bullshit. Many of us have had the experience of being annoyed at a coworker, but then going to the company picnic, having a beer and a laugh together, and forgetting our annoyance. History month and why rewriting history to exclude the African American's place in it is so perfidious, its founder said it best, "If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the . //]]>. "We must risk delight. What does a life of healing, flourishing, and joy even look like for communities that are constantly riddled with deeply traumatic pain? I remember people handing flyers to the guy I was with and not to me as if I werent autonomous, or men saying things to me like, youve got a really good record collection for a girl. As I became more aware, I found myself influenced by girls and women who were challenging the existing power structure of rock n roll. Joy As An Act Of Resistance ( LP, Album, Orange, CDr, Album, All Media, Limited Edition, Rough Trade Exclusive) Partisan Records. Featured peformers: Joe Talbot (vocals), Mark Bowen (guitar), Lee Kiernan (guitar), Adam Devonshire (bass), Jon Beavis (drums), Space (producer), Adam Greenspan (mixing), Nick Launay (mixing). One way is through joy in the present. In this live workshop series, you'll learn evidence-based strategies to reclaim your joy and create a life you love. From the likes of Ari Up and Poly Styrene, who didnt sing about obtaining male affection or rely on stereotypical concepts of female self-worth, to outrageously hyper-sexualized women like Wendy O. Williams and Marian Anderson, who recaptured ownership of their bodies, these women were bold, outspoken, and as the kids say nowadays, woke. Love the ones you claim. Like Romeo, Juliet sees love as a kind of freedom, "boundless" and "infinite.". Miroslav Volf: So it's almost like a Pentecost joy, each speaking in their own tongue, but speaking that language of joy together. For more information, visit faith.yale.edu. Kathleen Hanna, like Marian, suffered from sexual abuse at a young age and used the stage to not only wrestle with her pain, but also to establish the riotgrrl movement. Part of HuffPost Black Voices. Released 31 August 2018 on Partisan. Willie Jennings is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Africana Studies, and Religious Studies at Yale University; he is an ordained Baptist minister and is author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race,Acts: A Commentary, The Revolution of the Intimate, and most recently, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. $j("#facebookRegPrompt").hide(); There is a joy that draws peoples together rather than a joy that's built within segregated spaces. , The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community., I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light., After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was., We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil., Protest is when I say I don't like this. I think for me this topic brings a mingling of sadness and hope, so perhaps that carried through into the post. "Go find your joy. I have no earthly idea how it happened. Barbara Ehrenreich notes that in South Africa among the Namaquas, it was said that someone who converted to Christianity had given up dancing.. Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. It cannot., Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history., People don't resist change. Joy, and celebrations in particular, focus our attention on our commonalities, not our differences. Acceptance and support is what encourages Autistic kids like Knox to advocate for themselves. The Handmaid's Tale is a study of an ordinary, non-heroic person's response to severe repression. To me she was the embodiment of my existence as resistance. I thought it might give him something to look at, like the center of a house you keep coming back to . There can be complaint, but you're spending a lot of energy just trying to hold it together. To laugh in the face of fear is possibly the bravest act, which is why Saffiyah Khan became an instant hero in the United Kingdom when she smiled at fascist thugs from the far-right, racist movement English Defence League who began harassing Muslim women in her hometown. Joy lets us reclaim our humanity. Miroslav Volf: They're slightly drunk, in any case. This sleeve has quite a fragile wide spine. That is, especially in the face of a brutal and oppressive empire, the power to have joy is the power to resist. Willie Jennings joins Miroslav Volf to discuss the definition of joy as an act of resistance against despair, the counterintuitive nature of cultivating joy in the midst of suffering, the commercialization of joy in Western culture, joy segregated by racism and slavery, how Jesus expands and corrects our understanding of joy. $grfb.init.done(function() { They are killed. In the Gospel of John, Jesus explains that the very point and the purpose of his teachings on love and keeping his commands are "so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.". Miroslav Volf: So you need a kind of public spaces and public rituals possibly. We're talking about people entering a space and in some very powerful way that we can't really chart out specifically. She poured her heart out on stage, she demanded that the men stand back so that women could literally and metaphorically come forward as she very bluntly called out misogyny. Yet, as the onslaught of trauma and terror continues to reek havoc on our communities both through the systematic racism of state violence and through the deeply internalized racism of gang violence, families and communities like the Smith and Myricks families in Northwest Pasadena point each of us of the power of joy. This week, we're featuring a conversation between Miroslav and Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and africana Studies at Yale Divinity School. Joy Suffering God. Coming back to Audre Lorde: The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference. Joy, and celebrations in particular, focus our attention on our commonalities, not our differences. Segregated joy is most often sequestered joy, bounded joy territorially, in particular places. 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