"I look at joy as an act of resistance against despair and its forces. PTKF2158-2J . For Telly the fish. It is a parade of naivety, of a warm embrace, it is Young Thug's dress. And joy in that regard is a work that can become a state that can become a way of life. 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. I have no earthly idea how it happened. People who refuse to stop believing. No. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Professor Jennings, it's great to have you with us. Joy Is An Act of Resistance By Delonte Gholston, Contributor Pastor, Artist, Organizer Jun 23, 2017, 11:54 AM EDT | Updated Jun 26, 2017 This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. To be able to choose our joy and experience it, this is the freedom so many are fighting for. It's clear that joy is the crown of the good life, as Miroslav Volf has said. The ones who are yours. A funeral is held. 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. And here I'm not thinking primarily about African-American or African diaspora communities, but I'm thinking about the way in which multiple communities, their joy is inside of a hard segregation. For in that moment, he truly was. Miroslav Volf: I don't know whether I'm maybe romanticizing things, but it seemed to me that from what I have observed growing up, but also when I have traveled, that I find more joy in the midst of oppression in almost paradoxical way, than I find in plenty. Chair IDEA Committee
Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. "We must risk delight. We've been taught that silence would . Joy is Resistance - by Austin Channing Brown Joy is Resistance It's easy to feel like only the big stuff matters, but resistance to injustice is sometimes about pool, cake, and dancing. But the most celebratory of all animals are our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel described a memory of a fellow prisoner trading a ration of bread for materials with which to piece together a makeshift menorah during Hanukkah. This episode featured theologians, Willie Jennings and Miroslav Volf. It is a part of the empire of advertisement that they do the work, the creative work, of presenting to you what is joyful and what can become part of the reality of how you create enjoyment and pleasure. Miroslav Volf: So if I hear you correctly, there's something right and good about a kind of particularity of joy for an individual, particularity of joy of a family, particularity of joy of a cultural group. If you're in a position to support our show financially, please consider partnering with us. Take this 3-minute quiz and find out. 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. Football coaches, mentors, family members and friends told story after story of how this young man had made a positive impact on their lives and how devastated they were to lose him. We produce new episode every Saturday, and you can subscribe through any podcast app. "If you want to be the best, you can't take the path of least resistance. Audre Lorde sums this idea up this clearly in her 1978 essay, The Uses of the Erotic, In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. She goes on to point out that this has often been marshaled in patriarchal societies for the oppression of women. Images: Joy is an Act of Resistance by @rayoandhoney on Instagram; Publicolor before and after courtesy of Publicolor; Trash Any Color You Like by Adrian Kondratowicz. To me she was the embodiment of my existence as resistance. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email. Get 'JOY AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE' - https://idles.lnk.to/joy I plan to share it with my friends and families, just as I shared your book. Now I do want to take seriously the way in which a community finds joy and creates joy and creates patterns of pleasure that are imagined to only exist in integrity when the outside others are kept out. What does a life of healing, flourishing, and joy even look like for communities that are constantly riddled with deeply traumatic pain? "Black women have been conditioned to live for other people. Resistance is the secret of joy wrote Alice Walker in her 1992 novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy Walker. AFP NYC Board Member. Marsha was a performer and activist who dedicated herself to supporting the most vulnerable LGBTQ New Yorkers with clothes, food and resources. Join our email list for theological and cultural commentary, educational resources, and more. Aesthetics of joy can also disrupt complacency, drawing much-needed attention to a cause. $22. To laugh in the face of fear is possibly the bravest act, which is why Saffiyah Khan became an instant hero in the United Kingdom when she smiled at fascist thugs from the far-right, racist movement English Defence League who began harassing Muslim women in her hometown. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too., Most gun control arguments miss the point. When he first came to my house, I propped up her bright yellow shade with open window and a vase of flowers (post card size) behind his first fish bowl. I love you. 7. 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. So, simply put, joy can be considered resistance because its a form of energy for change, as Lorde puts it. Communal joy provides a kind of glue that unifies a group. 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. Miroslav Volf: Thank you very much, Professor Jennings. Thank you, Martha. So I thank them for being fighters and challenging the status quo for standing up for all of us. He is the author of the Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, as well as his most recent book After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging.Jennings' joy is not for the faint of heart, the fair-weather friend, or a life of ease. People who refuse to come to earth. When psychologists study people engaged in communal singing, dance, or other rhythmic forms of entertainment, they find that we become connected on a physical level. They have always looked out for the marginalized and supported them in how to equalize themselves and not victimize themselves. Joy Suffering God. Henri Nouwen" 3. By Crystal Fields-Sam Chair IDEA Committee . Joy, and celebrations in particular, focus our attention on our commonalities, not our differences. Miroslav Volf: How does one find the kind of strengths? 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. She abruptly ended their interview . Your joy is an act of resistance. As I said, there is the kinds of spaces constituted by practices of joy, like in music, as I call it "sonic space." I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Dancing was similarly reviled, and all types of celebration found themselves in the crosshairs of European colonists setting out to spread Christianity and civilization around the world. Released 31 August 2018 on Partisan. Put yourself in the way of beauty." Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God. There's also the other ways in which space exists. Not enjoyment. Willie Jennings: Yeah, this is where I wonder out loud if the life of Jesus, a kind of Christological intervention, is what's necessary for us to re-conceive joy that opens us out rather than encloses. Dr. Engram's "Black Joy as an Act of Resistance" takes the listener on a journey through the life of Black millennials. Local authorities often forbade or disrupted native rites, or at minimum made relinquishing them a condition of conversion. It wouldn't be easy to find her, now. I would say something similar, but I would probably read it in this way. Ethologists have observed chimpanzees celebrating the arrival of a caretaker delivering a bunch of blackberry vines, a favored food, to their enclosure. It could not have lasted for any more than two minutes. Welcome back. So the cultural haunts and habitat of a people, this is where their joy is made known. } My mother, and three sisters: Jean Cooper, Zwazzi Sowo and Lillian Mark! Would you say that these are joyful times? None of us want to be the rich people on the Titanic, sipping champagne in black tie while the water rises. If you're new here, please hop onto my email list so I can send you weekly emails full of GIFs (and also podcasts, articles, and generally amusing cheerleading for . Hallelujah. And it's commercialized. We also need moments of release and celebration to mark the small victories and restore body and mind. Absolutely that. Rewind. is one of the defining moments in modern punk and, with any justice, will stand as a testament to the working classes of the world and prove that new rock music is still being produced that can reach into your chest, tear out your heart-and then give you a great big hug that makes you feel like everything might . When people have worked to build entire systems to break you, they are angry that you still can have joy. Willie Jennings joins Miroslav Volf to discuss the definition of joy as an act of resistance against despair, the counterintuitive nature of cultivating joy in the midst of suffering, the commercialization of joy in Western culture, joy segregated by racism and slavery, how Jesus expands and corrects our understanding of joy. ("Joy of the Sabbath") and founded by historian Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-44). Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. 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." Last week I attended a dinner party inspired by Marsha P. (P for pay-it-no-mind) Johnson, who ignited the Stonewall Rebellion. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. And at the end of the day, once you got your hair cut, you leave thinking and things are going to be better. $22. Amid the devastating stresses of a prison so inhumane its being closed, These gardens help repair the damage that people have been through, both in prison and in their earlier lives. says landscape architect Amy Lindemuth They are quiet places to be alone with your thoughts away from the cacophony and stress of the prison environment.. Joy as an Act of Resistance (and who, pray tell, can resist a title like that?) In his poem, A Brief for the Defense, he writes: If we deny our happiness, resist satisfaction,we lessen the importance of their deprivation.We must risk delight. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? 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. Thanks for listening. 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