I never thought it coincidental that I was named Lakisha (thanks, Dad). The name comes from the Latin name Leticia, which means “great joy.” Joy – this simple, three-letter word – has always felt like my home base and where I have always felt most myself.
I remember being a very joyful child. I was happy, smiled often, was genuinely optimistic, and always tried to find the good out of any situation (annoyingly so). Like in the movie “Inside Out” by Pixar, I thought joy was just another emotion that I had to express who I was and how I was feeling. It felt good, and I was great at it.
As I grew older, I was still full of joy, along with myriad other emotions like anxiety, sadness, disappointment and anger. I remember feeling conflicted by these complex emotions that were often complicated further because I am a Black woman in this world. I was supposed to be joyful, always smiling to appear non-threatening. I was never supposed to show my anger or anxiety, or I would get in trouble, be labeled an angry Black bitch, seen as dangerous or going against what God wanted for me, which was a good life full of joy. Many times during these young and early adulthood years, I “faked the funk.” I wore that fake smile, said the right things and sang the right songs, but I did not feel joy inside. I felt anger, heartbreak, sadness and then disappointment that I could never seem to be joyful like I used to be. These negative emotions tainted my joy and praise. I felt like I needed to bury these feelings to forget they were there or to turn their violent screams into dull hums.
As I entered adulthood, married life and parenthood, I began to understand the complexity of my joy and how it can sojourn with anger, sadness and disappointment. I started to see that sadness didn’t mean my joy wasn’t present or that I no longer deserved joy because I was full of rage. My joy was and is always here, offering perspective and bringing me back to hope when times feel hopeless (shout out to my therapist.)
I was sad and disappointed with some family, friends and this country this past fall. I remember very vividly thinking, with tears running from my eyes: Does this country still hate Black women this much? Then I pondered all the unseen, undervalued, and underappreciated labor that I and many of my Black women friends do in this world, and I couldn’t help but think that the answer was yes, which saddened me. As I entered the new year, I intentionally welcomed back my joy remembering that, in times like these, joy can help me resist and disrupt oppressive systems and structures. In this way, joy becomes a spiritual practice that protects me and brings me back to the love of God. As the song says, “The world didn’t give it, and the world cannot take it away.” So, I choose joy. Yes, I am still angry, disappointed and sad, and at the same time, I am still hopeful in my call and my purpose. I still deserve joy, even when the world would have me believe I do not.
… joy becomes a spiritual practice that protects me and brings me back to the love of God.
I have come to see the complexity of my joy as necessary and beautiful. My joy is not simply an emotion or a disposition. It is an intentional disruption, an act of resistance and a spiritual practice to see and be open to the good — regardless. It is only by embracing its complexity that I am my most authentic self. As spring and the next four years come, I look forward to allowing myself more moments of anger, rage, sadness and disappointment, along with laughter, play and joy. I will make space for the facets of my joy during this crisis and honor it in all the ways it shows up.
I have come to see the complexity of my joy as necessary and beautiful. My joy is not simply an emotion or a disposition. It is an intentional disruption, an act of resistance and a spiritual practice to see and be open to the good — regardless.
Joy as an intentional disruption
I am blessed to live out my call as an educator in some fantastic institutions. No matter the place, there will always be challenging teaching moments (disagreements with administration, misunderstandings with colleagues, dealing with a verbally violent student, or even handling tech issues that make it difficult to do what you’re called to do in the way you feel called to do it (yes, pedagogy matters). However, in the face of these occurrences, I choose joy. I choose to laugh when technology malfunctions (over and over again). I choose to smile and remind a student of their worth and value in the face of their violence.
This act of choosing joy becomes a disruption of the situation. Instead of technology and circumstances getting the best of me, I have disrupted space to take back the power and the moment to focus on the learning and not the lack. One of the beautiful things about disruptive joy is that it becomes contagious. I have often had students laugh with me when these moments happen, and then we move on to the next thing and keep going. A student once told me that my laughter in the face of hardship gave them hope, so they were going to start trying it. I pray they find it healing, disruptive, and transformative.
I will make space for the facets of my joy during this crisis and honor it in all the ways it shows up.
As a spouse and a mother, I find myself choosing joy, not just for my amazing family, but for myself. There are times when I am still working through various traumas, and something happens that is triggering and makes me want to react out of a place of hurt and fear. In those moments, I intentionally choose to disrupt the space with joy. Sometimes, I just stop and sing a song, do a silly dance, laugh, or offer a smile and a hug. At those moments, choosing joy disrupts me in such a way that I can see my baggage and not put it on my spouse or my children, and I realize there is more I need to work through that they are not responsible for (I am not always successful at this, but I will never stop trying.) These moments of joy also remind me to be gentle with myself. I am a work in progress. Joy’s disruption can make space for healing and hope.
Joy as an act of resistance
I have experienced racism and sexism on numerous accounts. I have experienced violations that no one should have to endure, as have many other Black women and others that I know. Yes, there is hurt, anger and rage. Yet, in the womanist experience and tradition, we will hope in the face of suffering, hardship and malice — because we must. We still have unspeakable joy because we know that Christ, too, suffered and suffers with us, and our faith tells us that “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). There might be many nights of weeping, but we believe that the joy will come, and it does. Joy comes because we refuse to be beaten down. Joy comes because we reject oppressive systems. Joy comes because we resist the narratives told for and about us and boldly offer our own.
As resistance, joy can amplify voices and bring liberation. In Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia Hersey writes about rest being an act of resistance to overproduction and oppressive systems, saying we are worthy and deserve rest. “Joy,” writes poet Toi Derricotte in “The Telly Cycle,” “is an act of resistance.” In this space, joy pushes back against distorted and oppressive narratives. Poet and essayist Audre Lorde writes in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches that joy is a source of power that “can provide energy for change” and that can shift and resist in necessary and liberating ways.
Joy as a spiritual practice
My biological father suddenly died only a few months after I married in 2014. I remember being so angry with God. Yes, I have a fantastic bonus father in my life. But I wondered, “Why now when my biological father and I were just starting to have a real relationship. I was beginning to get to know him, and he was getting to know me. We danced and laughed at the wedding. We danced and laughed at the wedding, and I heard him jokingly threaten to break my spouse’s finger if he ever broke my heart or made me cry (which I had to shut down). I remember being so angry and filled with despair with God.
I knew my fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) but felt that if God wasn’t going to give me more time with those I love, then why did I need to practice these (expletive deleted) fruits? The more I internalized, the more I began to feel myself affected physically, feeling pain that started in my shoulders and ran down my back anytime I thought about my father. It changed how I moved and danced, and I could feel the physical hurt and anger in my body and muscles. I learned that the fruits are not just for the Lord or others. Oh no, they are for us. I learned this from both Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score and Cole Arthur Riley in This Here Flesh.
During that time, I chose joy as a spiritual practice to bring me back to God and my body. Yes, I was still angry and hurt, but I knew God could handle my anger and hurt and the complexity of my joy, which God created within me. As I began to practice joy in this way, it helped me feel closer to God, myself, and my dad. Joy can keep us spiritually and physically well and whole.
Joy can keep us spiritually and physically well and whole.
Complex coexistence
I have always had a special relationship with Easter – Resurrection Day. I was born on a Sunday morning in late April, so I have often celebrated my birthday on Resurrection Days. Then, in 2019, my spouse and I were blessed with our first child in the early hours of Resurrection Day. Our oldest child and I were born into joy, celebration and rejoicing.
During April, we are blessed to celebrate Christ’s resurrection so that we may live, but not before we take time to remember the suffering and sacrifice of Christ. We make space to live with sadness and happiness, joy and anger. We understand, as Richard Viladesau mentions in The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance, his notion of the converted cross: that there is beauty in Christ’s sacrifice, but so much ugly in Christ’s death. Complexity fills the living out of our faith — why wouldn’t our joy be the same? “Joy and sorrow can, and will, coexist,” writes Jessica Young Brown in her article “The Well of Joy.” I believe it is important to remember those words this month and every month.
What is complex and coexisting in you that you might need to name and honor? What might be complex and coexisting in the lives of your children, friends, family, partner, congregants or neighbors that might need to be named, honored and seen as divinely human? Joy, while significant, is not the only thing we can or should experience. How are we creating space for all the complexity of who we are to rise and be known? How are we making space for our complex resurrections, whether they be joyful or not?
May you know that you are worthy and deserving of deep and complex joy. May you experience the joy that makes space for the beautiful and the ugly, whether as an intentional disruption, an act of resistance, a spiritual practice, or however you experience it. May you laugh so hard that your belly hurts. May you lose track of the time while you play. May you embrace the complexity of the joy within you and celebrate it.
