Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” —Matthew 11:30
Father Richard names the dance between joy and sadness as a necessary paradox of life:
It’s hard to hear God—but it’s even harder not to hear God. The pain one brings upon oneself by living outside of evident reality is a greater and longer-lasting pain than the brief pain of facing it head on. Enlightened people invariably describe the spiritual experience of God as restful, peaceful, delightful, and even ecstatic. John of the Cross writes of being seized by the same delight that is in God, being caught in God’s great being, and breathing God’s same air. [1] St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that for him, Jesus was “honey in the mouth, music to the ear, and joy in the heart.” [2] Sufi mystics Hafiz and Rumi and poets like Tagore and Kabir made life with God sound downright fun and fantastic, a poem instead of a trial.
Seek joy in God and peace within; seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful. It’s the only resting place that also allows us to hear and bear the darkness. Hard and soft, difficult and easy, painful and ecstatic do not eliminate one another; they actually allow each other. They bow back and forth like dancers, although it is harder to bow to pain and to failure. We can bear the hardness of life and see through failure when our soul is resting in a wonderful and comforting sweetness and softness. Religious people would call this living in God. That’s why people in love—and often people at the end of life—have such an excess of energy for others. If God cannot be rested in, then it must not be much of a god. If God is not juice and joy, then who has created all these lilacs and lilies? [3]
In The Book of Joy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu offers this blessing, reminding us of the joy of abiding in God’s love:
Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be there long after everything has disappeared. You are precious, with a preciousness that is totally quite immeasurable. And God wants you to be like God. Filled with life and goodness and laughter—and joy.
God, who is forever pouring out God’s whole being from all eternity, wants you to flourish. God wants you to be filled with joy and excitement and ever longing to be able to find what is so beautiful in God’s creation: the compassion of so many, the caring, the sharing. And God says, Please, my child, help me. Help me to spread love and laughter and joy and compassion. And you know what, my child? As you do this—hey, presto—you discover joy. Joy, which you had not sought, comes as the gift, as almost the reward for this non-self-regarding caring for others. [4]
References:
[1] See John of the Cross, commentary on The Spiritual Canticle, stanza 39.
[2] See Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs 15. The Latin text is Jesus mel in ore, in aure melos, in corde jubilus.
[3] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation (New York: Crossroad, 2004), 153–155.
[4] Dalai Lama [Tenzin Gyatso] and Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (New York: Avery, 2016), 298.
Image credit and inspiration: Nah, Untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Iran, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Dancing with a Divine Partner is an intuitive dance: step by step we learn when to take initiative and when to receive, when to sway, when to breathe, when to pause.
Story from Our Community:
James Finley’s meditation “Moment of Divine Fire” affected me profoundly. For many years, I have felt blind to God’s constant oneness, hidden deep inside my being. I had glimpses of God during difficult times, embedded in play, art, and music. Baseball, fishing, listening to Mozart’s Requiem, Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage, and gazing at Van Gogh’s Olive Trees were moments of deep stirring that often brought me to tears. I now value these moments as mystical experiences. In those moments of transcendence, I felt clarity that life is hard but beautiful, and that I am imperfect, but I am seen, heard, loved. Thank you for helping me see the Divine moments that have always been present in my ordinary life.
—Brad R.
