And as we made our way out of the church and then jumped into cars to file over to the cemetery, she was the one who, along with local Black Lives Matter activists led her community in a chant to Say His Name!!. Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. After all, struggles for justice are often also struggles for the acknowledgement of an oppressed groups full humanity. Willie Jennings: As I like to say, I'm a child of the church. For in that moment, he truly was. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God. Featured peformers: Joe Talbot (vocals), Mark Bowen (guitar), Lee Kiernan (guitar), Adam Devonshire (bass), Jon Beavis (drums), Space (producer), Adam Greenspan (mixing), Nick Launay (mixing). Miroslav Volf: Yeah. Joy As An Act Of Resistance / - ( CD, Album) Partisan Records, Hostess Entertainment Unlimited. So did the divine right of kings. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too., Most gun control arguments miss the point. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave., You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone., Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. And the clear example I'm drawing on is African diaspora communities in which there's a reality of joy built inside the forced segregation. Seeing her and PARCES gives me hope for Colombias future. It could not have lasted for any more than two minutes. And when the horse drawn carriage with the bullet riddled body of her slain son passed by, someone from the family in the slowly driven car behind the carriage once again did something that I did not expect. Miroslav Volf: So if you have a kind of cultural logic that sets patterns for expressions of joy, but it ends up being segregated joy, how do you break open out of the enclosure? And lastly, joy provides a glimpse of a better future that keeps us motivated to work toward it. And there's something very powerful about that because as one artist says, "It's how, especially oppressed in poor people, can make something really beautiful out of what has been thrown away." In the current national climate, it is more crucial than ever that we resist and repel the misogynist forces arrayed against us, and that we unconditionally stand with the women and LGBTQI people who are put at risk under the dangerous policies of the current administration. This episode featured theologians, Willie Jennings and Miroslav Volf. That feeling is the perfect combination of knowledge, experience, skill, luck, and magic called Fundraising. It certainly wasnt my intent to include negatively pointed thoughts, so its good for me to know that this is how it felt to you. And like an old cassette tape, the world presses stop, rewind, and play. This talk will give viewers a bird's eye view into what it means to be Black, millennial, and socially conscious. Fernando Pessoa But there's also another side, not only to just African diaspora forms of joy, but the joy in many communities. What would be great is if we start to think more intentionally about how such spaces are constituted and how might such spaces, the constitution of such spaces be a fundamental part for those of us who are Christian in our discipleship. Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks. Without that belief, theres no point in fighting. And at the end of the day, once you got your hair cut, you leave thinking and things are going to be better. I get to have all that no matter how ugly things look. Slowly but surely shes changing the lives of those she directly works with, while also helping to create legislation that ultimately will transform Colombias society into a somewhat more just and inclusive place. My pleasure. This is the joy of the Lord that is our strength. Can you expand on that? Marsha was a performer and activist who dedicated herself to supporting the most vulnerable LGBTQ New Yorkers with clothes, food and resources. While communal joy represents an outright danger to a repressive regime, individual joy can also empower resistance. There's a very powerful analogy to, if you will, the work of the spirit at that moment, that a space is created not by you, but in a strange sort of way without you knowing it, it's for you. Even though looking back now I have some mixed feelings on the group, at the time they did provide a new type of role model to young women and paved a path for other women in the industry by not fitting into the existing generic mold. And how do we nurture hope? Join our email list for theological and cultural commentary, educational resources, and more. I began to realize this when I was studying animal celebrations. John Keats Your success and happiness lies in you. "Peace without justice is tyranny." - William Allen White. What would that space look like for you? Joy takes something that might be threatening to people, such as difference or otherness, and makes it less so. Resistance is the secret of joy wrote Alice Walker in her 1992 novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy Walker. UK & US. The language of oppression is one of scarcity and fear, and I think to some extent, the activists goal must be to remind those who have been convinced that progress is a losing game for them that there is in fact enough to go around. Photo by Maria Baranova. This is not what they imagined. Equipping Knox with an endless and unconditional amount of love is what carries him through each day. - Sam Storms. To me she was the embodiment of my existence as resistance. People who refuse to stop believing. This inexplicable power to dance in the midst of mourning is not to be smugly dismissed, as has many suggest, as some sort of slave religion or momentary hyper-spiritualized pie in the sky delusion. I dont know what she meant when she said that, but I know for me it means that I still get to have my joy, my laughter, my sassiness, my thinking, my love of people. Joy in that regard is a work that can become a state that can become a way of life. It's the parade . Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. Henri Nouwen" 3. To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil. It is counter-intuitive in that regard. Every year African American History month has a new theme. Joy is an Act of Resistance Chapter Leadership Brief 2.10.2023. Last week I attended a dinner party inspired by Marsha P. (P for pay-it-no-mind) Johnson, who ignited the Stonewall Rebellion. We also need moments of release and celebration to mark the small victories and restore body and mind. Choir singers heart rates synchronize; musicians playing the same riff have brain waves that line up. I could not help but hear Nehemiah encourage his people to rebuild by saying that the joy of the Lord is your strength when they were being oppressed by a brutal and ruthless power. Joy is the currency that is flowing between hands in such situation. Open Preview. Its a mass movement. a piece on the power of the garden at Rikers Island. I want our guests to know that I love them and appreciate them. Every single person let the healing waves of music wash over them with their soulful and buoyant caress, and just danced their hearts out right where they stood. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear. takes aim at everything from toxic masculinity, nationalism, immigration, and class inequality - all while maintaining a visceral, infectious positivity. But, there's also the goodness of the joy that transcends, that reach us out, that includes the other people, and music is one of the spaces where that can happen. If we relinquish our joy, we not only lose a profound source of unity, strength, and resilience, we also lose the point of it all. (646) 846-3896 | admin@nycafp.org. Sometimes people in the coffee shop offer to help me out, even though I tell them they dont have to, but when they do help I say to them, Hey, on fried chicken day, I got you.. It's the idea that in order to be a good woman, you have to be self-sacrificing. She is a badass! We relive the same ritual again, and again, and again. Willie Jennings: Despair in all of the ways that despair wants to drive us toward death, and wants to make death the final word. Update on December 22, 2015 by Pastor Jack Wellman. Im so, so glad to hear it resonated with you! I grew up in such a situationlearning how to have a good time with nothing because we had nothing. 330 Ellis St., San Francisco, CA 94102 | info@glide.org. When asked about her experience of being an Asian American woman . Continue to get inspired by watching the movie Hidden Figures which features brilliant women like Dorothy Vaughn who used mathematical formulas to launch John Glenn into space. So somebody can walk into a space that have been marked by joy. She resisted violence and oppression by asserting her existence and that of those around her. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. Often there is no reason to make such choices outside the context of the primary choice that calls for them.". She said she tries to acknowledge the difficulties that others might encounter in these unprecedented times while also caring for herself and those around her. It counters and contrasts with the rigidity and control of oppressive structures in a non-violent way. Miroslav Volf: Thank you very much, Professor Jennings. How was she coping? I have no earthly idea how it happened. According to the survey, which was released in 2019, only five percent of authors are Black; four percent are literary agents; one percent comprise editorial; and less than 5 percent . And that is: segregated joy is fundamentally a part of the reality of segregation, which means that it is a joy that in many instances is built on insult, is built on hatred of the other. Cal State Fullerton African American studies professor Mei-Ling Malone explains: "Black joy is an act of resistance. Celebratory joy creates unity on an emotional and a physical level, and a unified populace is harder to dominate. He provides a perfectly painted picture that shows the pain, joy, and triumph of resistance. And what we have to understand is it's precisely that kind of geographic dimension that we have to think about, if in fact we want to think beyond segregated joy. The throngs of mourners and supporters lined the isles of the church, crowded the lobby and balcony areas, and spilled out of the church onto the outside lawn. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Miroslav Volf: I'm here with Willie Jennings, a very good friend of mine. Mine was always mint- because the bottom left corner is struggling a little! So when people. Professor Jennings, it's great to have you with us. We are not attuned to a world in which we have to work with what's been thrown away because we are the ones who throw away. Joy in that regard is a work, that can become a state, that can become a way of life." "That's the heart of rock 'n' roll, that's its . He had a way of speaking that made you feel like magic. We are planning a team day at work, and youve given me lots to think about, and a framework for justifying some fun activities. And if you're not, please continue listening and engaging the content. Recognize that pleasure is a measure of freedom, writes Adrienne Maree Brown, author of a book called Pleasure Activism, which takes as its premise that the states of being that activists are striving for, justice and liberation and wellbeing, are highly joyful states, and therefore pleasure can be a powerful tool for helping us achieve them. a : the inherent ability of an organism to resist harmful influences (such as disease, toxic agents, or infection) b : the capacity of a species or strain of microorganism to survive exposure to a toxic agent (such as a drug) formerly effective against it 3 : an opposing or retarding force 4 a There were incredible women like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth before the end of Slavery, the women making lunches and marching during the Civil Rights Movement, and the women of the Black Panthers supporting the social programs and keeping the organization running. "For Black folks, joy and resistance aren't really that separate," Waheed tells me over Zoom. I think that's the first thing you have to have. And we know thatand my own experience in churches is that that's often what happens, a kind of infection of joy. Miroslav Volf: So you walk and you think, "I need to walk into a space of joy." Essentially, hope is the belief that tomorrow can be better than today. She abruptly ended their interview . It takes hold of them. Joy, and celebrations in particular, focus our attention on our commonalities, not our differences. When thinking about how you can celebrate African American History month this month and throughout the year, remember that poet Toi Derricotte said, "Joy is an act of resistance." No point in fighting have all that no matter how ugly things look knowledge, experience, skill,,! 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