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.

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Easter Sunday | Choose to Belong

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 31, 2026

This Sunday we conclude our Lenten series with a heartfelt message, “Choose to Belong.” We’ll celebrate Easter—both as a remembrance of the resurrection and as a celebration of new beginnings, including welcoming new Gardner members into our inclusive community. Easter's beautiful expression of love and hope represents a tradition that calls us to notice the ways love rises again in our lives, dispelling darkness. Whether you interpret the resurrection story literally or embrace it as a metaphor of love overcoming despair, there is a place for you here. This weekend we’ll explore what it means to belong, and how our faith deepens through our connections with one another and with the sacred. Come experience the joy of community and discover how we can embody the transformative love of Christ together. Join us as we celebrate this meaningful day. Let’s embrace new beginnings and growth as one community. We can’t wait to see you.

Choose to Belong

By Matthew Vire • March 25, 2026

The experience of exclusion tempts us to blame ourselves, to think that we're falling short, that we are somehow wrong, damaged, unacceptable, or unworthy. To fix these perceived shortcomings, we may seek to fit in. There's nothing inherently wrong with fitting in — it can feel great — but it may come at the cost of our authenticity. In Letter to My Daughter , Maya Angelou writes, “You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” She does not mean that we are rootless, but speaks of abandoning the chase for approval so we can be free to show up authentically. We do not need to change who we are to belong. Brené Brown eloquently unpacks Angelou's profound statement in this video. May it offer you reassurance, comfort, and courage as we continue exploring what belonging means.

The Labyrinth Called Life

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 24, 2026

Have you noticed it? If you’ve been with us at The Garden over the past six weeks, you’ve likely walked right over it—the Labyrinth just outside the sanctuary doors. It’s easy to miss when we’re rushing in or out, but it’s there quietly inviting us to slow down, breathe, and pay attention to the path beneath our feet. As we move toward Easter, that invitation feels especially timely. This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the moment in the story when Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheers, branches waving, and a sense of possibility in the air. But that joyful procession is only the threshold of a much deeper journey. In the days that follow, Jesus moves through experiences that are profoundly human—sharing meals with friends, seeking quiet in a garden, wrestling with uncertainty, facing conflict, and ultimately walking a path that leads to the cross. The story does not shy away from suffering or loss, yet it also doesn’t end there. It moves through death into the promise of new life, renewal, and hope. Whether you connect with this story as history, metaphor, or a mirror for your own life, it offers a pattern many of us recognize: how celebration and struggle often sit side by side, how a single week can hold both joy and heaviness, and how transformation sometimes emerges from places we would never choose. As we enter this meaningful week, I invite you to consider your own path. What are you carrying right now? Where are you seeking connection, clarity, or courage? What parts of your journey are asking for attention, and what new life might be waiting just beyond what you can see? Let this be a week to walk with intention—to notice the twists and turns, the companions along the way, and the quiet hope that can rise even in uncertain places.

Be You. (What Does THAT Mean?)

By Matthew Vire • March 17, 2026

"Be you" is common advice. But what does it mean? The exhortation to "be you" is an invitation to relax into yourself and let go of worries that you don't measure up to someone else's idea of who you are or should be. "Be you" means be honest––to yourself first and then with the world––about your thoughts, feelings, insecurities, passions, interests, and inclinations. It means you're more than worthy. It means you are enough. It means you're worth knowing, seeing, and loving. Our resistance to be ourselves comes from fear, judgement, and insecurity. Fear tells us "hide." Judgment says, "you're not good enough, so you better pretend." Insecurity warns, "people won't like you if they really see you." But it can be easy to Be You. You don't have to do anything; you can just be. The only barrier is self-acceptance. Love can break through that. May this week give you space to breathe, to soften, and to trust that who you are is already held in love.

Paths to Belonging

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 16, 2026

This Sunday, we continue our Lenten journey with the theme of belonging. The National Institutes of Health recognizes belonging as a fundamental human need that shapes our mental, physical, and social well-being. One of the insights from our Greenhouse Challenge was the recognition that many people in the U.S. are experiencing loneliness. In response, The Garden has been exploring what it means to belong—not just socially, but spiritually and communally. During worship, we’ll check in with Scott Semester to hear how our grant initiative may help us create spaces of sanctuary—places where people feel seen, safe, and truly at home. Our Scripture this week, Ecclesiastes 4:12, reminds us that “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Belonging is not just about individual strength—it’s about the resilience we find in connection. When we walk together, support one another, and share our lives, we become stronger than we ever could be alone. May we continue to weave lives of compassion, curiosity, and courage—threads that bind us to one another and to the sacred truth that we belong.