Dear friend,
I hope this newsletter finds you and your families and friends healthy and safe these days.
What an unprecedented summer… impact of changing climate showing up in tropical weather in New England, drought in the midwest, and more wildfires in the west, surging COVID cases, and the overall state of the world, we are all feeling weary these days. I’m not sure about you, but I’m struggling.
All that’s been going on has zapped my joy, without which I find it easy to get mired in worry and grief.
So how do we get our joy back when the world around us is literally and figuratively on fire?
Lucinda Williams has a song called “Joy” that is giving me some inspiration. In the song, she’s determined to find her joy and not allow what has zapped it from controlling her destiny.
As I get older, I am learning that we can’t fight against something without fighting for something that at least has the potential to replenish the supply of peace, joy, love, and community on this planet.
Many of us feel called to act and respond to the times. Whether it’s those who are putting out literal fires or those of us who are working on the fires of corporate consolidation, economic injustice, and food insecurity. As the fights get harder and fires burn more fiercely, I see joy as an essential element to bring into each day. But it’s been hard to find recently.
It feels much easier to tap into the anger we feel for those who extract wealth from our communities and the planet that it does to find joy. But like Lucinda Williams, I’m determined to find it and not let those forces keep me from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
But where do we find joy?
A few years ago as a friend and I were walking our dogs in the woods, she said watching dogs run and play brings her joy. I hadn’t really thought about the concept of joy that way and how even a little bit of it can lift our spirits for quite a while.
