“That man, Moshe decided, was a joymaker.”
“Malachi had a lightness and boundless enthusiasm about worldly matters. He seemed to bring light and air and goodness to everything he touched.”
Countless passages in James McBride’s The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store reflect the poverty and racism of the pre-Civil Rights Movement. Within this tangle of injustice that brought sorrow and endless labor to many, the novelist touches us with hope through his compassionate and resilient characters. One of these is the joy-hearted Malachi. In spite of every reason to be depressed and despairing, Malachi literally dances with joy.
We may not feel much like Malachi at Easter, nor be inclined to sing an “alleluia.” The newsfeeds on our phones can elicit fear and dread. Recently, I noticed four out of five messages containing warnings about “dire situations.” If you listen or watch daily newscasts, they’ll come to you in clipped sentences, hurried language, urgent voices. We are constantly being bopped on the head with fear, fear, fear, which then travels on to the heart.
With the world situation in constant upheaval, we have reason to be hesitant about claiming joy. The alleluias ringing out in bells and congregational voices may sound false, but let’s not give in to this defeatism. Rather than allowing fear-filled news to soil our hearts with fatalistic suggestions of doom, the hope-filled message of Easter rinses off the grime of discouragement. This is not to deny the reality of power, greed, and violence presently occurring. But Easter invites us toward alleluia, to recoup a Malachi-spirit and boldly whisk fear out the door.
In her recent newsletter, well-known author Anne Lamott refers to the relentless bad news we are receiving. She follows this by emphasizing a turning toward joy, and wisely encourages her readers to take time to rest from the weariness that results from world-news. After noting some of the things she imagines joyful people doing (such as feeding the poor, planting things, and waving happily to people) Lamott ends with , “…we will be the peace and love and generosity and quiet joy people. Joy! Isn’t that wild to imagine? My pastor used to say that joy was peace on its feet, peace was joy at rest. I will do what Mother Teresa suggested, a few small things with great love, every day; and I am going to actively rest.”
John Stanczak in America magazine also writes about this topic: “Joy must be honest about suffering without giving suffering the final word. It must be sturdy enough to survive real life. .. (Joy) is less a feeling than a posture of the soul—an orientation toward love, truth and goodness.”
Joy begets joy. When we bring hope and a joy-filled alleluia into our relationships, despair and discouragement have much less room to reign. This is the time to unwrap the burial shrouds around our hearts and release joy. At Easter and beyond, let’s look for joy, be joy, entertain joy, share joy, resound with joy, and by all means let’s keep the alleluia in us alive.
Abundant peace,
Joyce Rupp
