This reflection was originally written for and shared at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York, NY, for the online Sunday service on August 23, 2020.

Our theme for the month of August is Joy.

There’s a funny paradox about joy: as wonderful and desirable as joy is, it can also be one of the hardest feelings to let ourselves feel.

The author and researcher Brené Brown writes that joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience. Even more vulnerable than grief. She writes about the experience of “foreboding joy,” how so many of us, when we begin to experience joy—that moment when we sense that we are deeply loved, or when we feel overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude or blessing—begin immediately to catastrophize, to imagine everything that can go wrong. Foreboding joy is like being handed a gift, and instead of receiving it unquestioningly, we begin to wonder what strings are attached to it.

When I first read Dr. Brown’s description of the vulnerability of joy, I felt deeply seen. Because hadn’t this been my experience throughout my life? Always wondering whether the love and affirmation I receive from others can truly be trusted, whether I have in fact fooled everyone, or whether the wheels of fate have tilted too favorably in my direction, and would soon correct themselves. Wondering when the other shoe is going to drop.

It’s natural for us to want to protect ourselves from the vulnerability of joy, the same way we tend to protect ourselves from the vulnerability of grief and loss. A sort of dull homeostasis is certainly the safest way to live life. But I think our spirits were built to hunger for something more, something more dynamic, if only we would open ourselves to it. Perhaps this is why, in my work as a hospital chaplain, I’ve often been astounded to find that it is often the people who have experienced the most unspeakably devastating losses in life who are also the most grateful and joyful. It doesn’t always happen this way, of course. If we don’t have sufficient support and safety to acknowledge and work through our losses, then maybe we will cope with denial, addiction, or anger instead. But if we can learn to have our hearts broken open—not shattered but broken open—by life’s greatest pains and disappointments, perhaps those same muscles allow our hearts to be open to joy. Perhaps even grief and joy will learn to live together, to coexist in a kind of dance. Maybe this is also what the Psalmist was alluding to when they wrote, “Though weeping may last for the night, joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

Let’s enter the day, taking a risk on the assumption that there is no other shoe. That the glisten of dew on that leaf really was placed there just for you. That you are loved and you are lovable, regardless of what you’ve done or haven’t done to deserve it. 

This is the day that God has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Amen.