Joy is actually dangerous, and I need to do it anyway

Joy is an Easter feeling and a virtue in my faith tradition.For reasons fairly obvious to me, it is not the leading line in any descriptionanyone would ever write about me. After all the fasting and sacrifice of Lent,I am worn out before the fifty days of Easter even begin. To be honest, I ambetter at repenting (and the accompanying self-criticism) than I am at rejoicing.Besides, doesn’t everybody know that joy is dangerous?

When an opportunity for joy presents itself, my mostfrequent response is fear. What if I delight in that little spaghetti face andthen he dumps the whole bowl on the floor? What if right behind that posinggirl in her Easter dress is a tantrum just waiting to get me? It feels safernot to enjoy those fleeting moments at all. The feeling isn’t lying: joy is notprimarily safe.

Because of the nature of time, joy is risky: it invites me to attach pleasure and purpose and possibility to a moment which will pass away imminently. The world is a beautiful place and everything in it is dying.

If I choose emotional safety over intensity, I protectmyself from feeling loss, devastation, destruction, and pain deeply. The costof this choice, however, is that I also restrict my ability to feel elation, delight,hilarity, happiness and joy.

I have need self-protection, and I can see how those choices also hurt me. Learning how to care for myself without blocking all risk has become necessary. Out of the good Fridays and holy Saturdays of the last few years, I am learning something new about joy. Or maybe three new things.

First, I think joy is a radical acceptance of the present.It is in fact dangerous and scary to showup fully to this moment because all the moments are not as fabulous as a tiny,warm loaf of bread I get to eat all by myself. Some of the moments are awful. Andthey are passing away too. To meet God in whatever is right now opens the doorto receive joy –and any other emotions that come – as gift.

After recognizing joy’s existence in now, I am also learningthat joy is not only something we feel, but something that we live, do, andpractice. I pull up at a red light and the man in the car beside me is rockingout in the driver’s seat as though he has the privacy afforded him in a showerjam session. The light is going to turn green in a moment, and I will rememberthat I’m trying to get to the grocery store before daycare. But right now, Ican practice allowing his dancing to fill up my heart, to crack the smile linesin my face, to bring laughter out loud into my car. While I sit beside mysister’s grave, longing to visit her instead in my kitchen, I let the sunsetcomfort me. I notice for the first time that the sun set at the same time thatshe died. This joy can coexist with the pain.

Tentatively, I think I am discovering that doing joy is activefaith in resurrection. Laughter in the middle of my grief allows my fear ofwhat if to take a backseat to what is. As Brené Brown says, “It’s our fear ofthe dark that casts our joy into the shadows.” What if the reverse is alsotrue? What if living joy can be an anecdote for fear?

Easter is here and for this season, I am practicing joy. Iam smiling on a park bench while my meticulous one and her cousin fill in all the shapes with chalk. I am revelingin the deformed mittens taking shape on my first set of double pointed knittingneedles. Right here on Tuesday evening, I am embracing the danger of delightingin the wobbly training wheels because the grin of mastery is worth the scrapedknees.

In world with too much sorrow and fear, there is alreadydanger. We can shield ourselves from the danger or we can take the risk thatthere might be joy even here. I am choosing joy, and practicing recklessly.