Not a Monk: Joy and Injustice

There are days when I think I should feel bad for all we have. Our family has been so blessed – we have three children, a home, stable income, and access to healthcare. In our current situation, it can feel a little tone-deaf to say “Choose joy!” when I have so much to be grateful for. I have two thoughts about that. First, I have a bit of salt that these basic needs aren’t a prerequisite for life in our country. As grateful as I am for all I have, I feel angry that many people haven’t got those things, rather than guilty that I don’t. As a society, we need to do better.

My second thought is that choosing joy and facing inequity and injustice are not at cross-purposes. I spent a lot of my 20s wondering how I could be an authentic advocate when I wasn’t even willing to live monk-like in a perpetual state of minimalist poverty, giving away every cent I ever had. Then I realized that way of looking things does nothing but demoralize and defeat me. In reality, finding and choosing the things and moments that make me joyful give me strength to do good work.

A lot of my work in the community is volunteering at our local school. I am usually so happy to come and help out, but some days are exhausting. Sometimes there’s a meeting where we are debating impossible alternatives in a world that funds a giant fence to keep out school shooters but not a playground that meets the needs of our students. Sometimes, I haul stuff to sell at a snack stand, sit there for a few hours and pack it all up again, just to make $20. Sometimes, I see kids who I know are having a rough time and there’s nothing I can do but smile and be kind.

And then I get to come home. To my sweet, messy house with colorful walls and hand drawn pictures of dogs on every available surface. Maybe that work out there is futile, but then again, when the twins were little and everything was chaos, the small choices we made seemed futile. And yet, here we are. All those small steps built up to something in the end.

We don’t choose joy because we’re ignoring oppression and hardship. We choose it because our brains need a rest sometimes. Some days, the small joys really are enough to keep us going for another working day.

How are you choosing joy today? How does that help you sustain your work?