Joy as an Act of Resilience

Rev. Richard Brendan • September 3, 2025

Choosing Light When the World Feels Heavy

As we navigate this strange and anxious world, choosing joy becomes more than a personal act of resilience—it is a gesture of hope. Joy can serve as a propulsive force, helping us reclaim our humanity and promote resilience and hope.


So why is it so challenging to choose joy in the midst of darkness?


Not surprisingly, the idea of claiming joy often seems like a distraction from what is truly pressing in life and the issues our world and country are facing. In moments of stress, anxiety, and depression, joy can feel like a selfish or guilty pursuit—precisely because everyone is going through so much. Drawing on our activist mentality, it is often easier to focus on the revolution than to find a place for pleasure and joy. This sentiment is affirmed by bell hooks:


“I often find it easier to be teaching or giving to others, and often struggle with the place of my own pleasure and joy.”


JOY LETS US RECLAIM OUR HUMANITY 


Joy is a sign of vibrant life—of thriving. It is one of the things that makes us truly human. So depriving a group of people of joy, whether through an outright ban or through economic means, is a method of dehumanization. Reclaiming those sources of joy is a way to refuse to be dehumanized.


Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel described a memory of a fellow prisoner trading a ration of bread for materials with which to piece together a makeshift menorah during Hanukkah. Shocked that the man would trade something so essential to his survival, Wiesel asked him, “Hanukkah in Auschwitz?” And the man replied, “Especially in Auschwitz.” The more dehumanizing the circumstances, the more we need these markers of our humanity.


As people who believe in putting love into action, we are primed to take care of others, respond to crises, mobilize, organize, and tackle the multiple injustices in our world. However, we also have to pay attention to joy. Otherwise, we might spiral into despair. Finding joy means doing the hard work of shifting our focus as often as possible to appreciate the good that happens. It's how we gather the energy to do the important work. Connecting to and claiming joy is about keeping the flame and fire alive—because joy is a beautiful generator of hope.


Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us,“Give the world your love, your service, your healing—but also give your joy.”


“I sometimes forget that I was created for JOY. My mind is too busy. My heart is too heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the Sacred dance of life. I was created to smile, to love, to be lifted up. O Sacred One, untangle my feet from all that ensnares. Free my soul that we might dance—and that our dancing might be contagious.” —Hafiz


JOY AS A POLITICAL STRATEGY


In a world where we are inundated by stories of our powerlessness, claiming our right to joy enables us to re-vision ourselves in ways that are meaningful and important to us—rather than conforming. Claiming joy politically also has a collective element. Employing joy as a strategy of solidarity provides us with an emotional tool to nurture optimism for the future.


Claiming joy reminds us that love, connection, and beauty are available in abundance to us all—and that we are worthy of living a full and beautiful life. Joy can connect us by affirming our collective humanity.


TIPS FOR CONNECTING TO JOY


  • Recognize that joy is not a luxury or privilege—it is necessary to our humanity.
  • Take little joy steps. Care for yourself in small ways. Slow down on watching the news. Build happiness breaks into your daily life. What brings you joy? What feeds your spirit?
  • Pay attention to your body. Make time for movement—walking, hiking, yoga, running, dancing.
  • Focus on gratitude. Create a gratitude or joy list. Appreciate what you already have. Gratitude is at the heart of contentment.
  • Create connection and community. We yearn for deeper connection and a sense of belonging.
  • Consciously choose joy. Choose joy. Choose joy.

World Wide Communion

By Rev. Dr, Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • September 29, 2026
Although we define our world with borders, walls, and ideologies, World Communion Sunday brings us a simple reality: we belong to each other. This Sunday, we gather around a table that expands across the globe, a table of radical hospitality where all are fed, all are valued, and all are loved. Together, we commit to the collective work of peace, justice, and healing for our planet. Join us as we break bread and build bridges.

The Art of Living: The Art of Prayer

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • September 22, 2026
Be honest: When you pray, does it feel like a genuine conversation—or just another item on your to-do list? Sometimes, the most familiar things are the hardest to truly see. This Sunday, we continue week two of our series, The Art of Living, by stripping away the routine and taking a radical new look at the most famous prayer in history. Diving into the Gospel of Matthew, we're looking past the familiar recitations of the Lord's Prayer to discover what it actually takes to build a thriving spiritual life. Whether your prayer life feels vibrant, completely stuck, or non-existent right now, Jesus' words offer the reset you need. This week, we're digging into the setup, motive, and heart of prayer—moving past empty repetitions and performance checklists to find a space where true connection and forgiveness can transform our daily lives. Mastering the art of living doesn't start with striving; it starts with humility and silence in the presence of God. Join us this weekend as we discover how a simple shift in our prayer life can change everything. See you Sunday!

The Art of Living

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • September 14, 2026
A new two-week series exploring how faith connects to daily rhythms and habits — with a visual artist and writer bringing "The Art of Living" to life.

Hunger is Rising and God Calls Us to Respond

By Michael Ransom • September 13, 2026
You can make a difference with the power of the pen

Kissing the Leper

By Rev. Richard Brendan • September 7, 2026
St. Francis's embrace of the leper reveals a truth about love: it grows not by avoiding what frightens us, but by moving toward it.

Where Were You?

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • September 1, 2026
Remembering 9/11

It's the Journey.

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • August 25, 2026
Life comes with no map. We try to make our own and we set out, sometimes with excitement, sometimes with fear or grief, or just because standing still isn't an option. Sometimes we go not entirely sure where we're headed or what we'll find when we get there. In one of the most quietly beautiful stories in the Gospel of Luke, two travelers, heavy with loss and confusion, walk a road from Jerusalem. They meet a stranger, who falls in step beside them. They don't know who he is. They don't know what's coming next. But they keep walking. Somewhere in the walking, something shifts. The Road to Emmaus isn't really a story about a destination. It's a story about what happens on the way there: the conversations, the companions, the moments of unexpected recognition that change everything. Join us Sunday as we explore what it means to be on a journey full of unknowns. Do we fear that which we cannot know, or can we embrace the uncertainty as part of the adventure?

Learning from the Mystics: A Pure Heart

By Rev. Dr. Brenda Freije • August 18, 2026
What if Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” are not about who gets to see God someday, but an invitation to learn how to see God now? The great Christian mystics believed that the heart is more than the center of our emotions. It is an “organ of spiritual perception,” a way of seeing beneath the surface of things into the deeper reality of God’s presence. Richard Rohr says this is what mysticism is really about. Mystics are not spiritual elites who have strange or extraordinary experiences. They are people who have learned to go beneath the surface and discover the “connected core of reality.” The result is not simply a different experience of God; it is a different way of seeing everything. They begin to see grace in all things and the deep connections between all things—seeing a neighbor instead of a stranger, a human being instead of an enemy, sacred creation instead of commodities, connection instead of separation, and Divine Presence where we previously assumed God was absent. And that gives us perhaps the most important test of genuine mystical spirituality: Are we becoming more loving? The goal of contemplative practice is not extraordinary spiritual experiences. Its fruit is a growing capacity for compassion, generosity, freedom, and love—a different way of being in the world. Let's explore what Jesus might mean by a “pure heart,” what keeps us from seeing clearly, how learning from the mystics and their practices can help us awaken to a God who may be much closer than we realize, and how all of this might enable us to act in the world with greater peace, hope, and clarity.

Mother Love, Mother Loss

By Joy Dyer, MSW, LCSW • August 10, 2026
The relationship we have with our mothers is one of the most meaningful in our lives. Sometimes sweet, sometimes difficult…or worse…but always full of complexity. And researchers have determined that this most significant of relationships actually begins in the womb. It’s the template where we first learn about love, whether we were fortunate to have loving mothers, or mothers who sadly were unable to love us as we needed and deserved. This primal, intense relationship continues throughout our lives, influencing and shaping who we become and how we relate to others as we journey through on our own paths. Is it any wonder then that the death of our mothers is one of the most impactful losses that we will experience? And yet, even after her death, it’s possible to have a continuing conversation and relationship with her…with her gifts and her flaws…that allows for connection and the possibility of repair and forgiveness. This Sunday, please join us as we explore the joys, sorrows, and possibilities of the eternal bond between mother and child. Joy Dyer, MSW, LCSW, brings 37 years of clinical social work experience, including work in end-of-life care and advanced bereavement training. She specializes in grief in all its forms. Joy returns to The Garden on Thursday, September 3 for Debunking the Myths of Grief.

It's All Fun & Games

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • August 4, 2026
On the Importance of Play