Joy
On March 26, 2023, I posted the above quote on Instagram and my website. I’d come upon it by chance, not while reading a book by Campbell. In my post I said, “This sounds wise, but I'm pondering what the first sentence means.”
I’ve been pondering it ever since.
How can one participate joyfully in sorrows? Aren’t joy and sorrow opposites? Wouldn’t it be, well, evil, to feel joy about someone’s sorrow?
I’ve been very happy of late and Saturday morning I felt particularly joyful. Blue sky and sunshine graced my drive into town. I went to the used book sale at my library and came away with a treasure trove.
As I crossed the street to visit the farmers’ market, that quote burst into my thoughts like a floating sign in the middle of the crosswalk.
A couple of days before, I’d returned from my first summer visit with my snowbird brother and his wife. For a few months, they’ll be a three-hour drive away rather than a seventeen-hour one. I’d felt deep joy on seeing them again.
The love I have for my brother has a different quality than my other loves. I’ve loved him longer than any other human on the earth.
He was there when I came into this world. I wouldn’t fall in love with Hubby until my 21st year.
My grandparents, Mother, and sisters died long ago. My brother loved those same departed ones; we share the sorrow of their absence and joy in remembering them.
So it had been a happy week for me. But the mind being such a monkey, as I crossed that street to the farmers’ market, smiling at the flowers along the way and the music sung by a guitar-playing oldster under the pavilion, I thought of sorrows, and then that haunting quote.
Sad news was shared during the visit with the snowbirds. Life for someone in our family is difficult right now. Very difficult, with no clear path of how to overcome the obstacles.
My heart aches for that one, and for all those who love that one but cannot ease the burdens. It is a sorrowful situation.
I have other loved ones who are also suffering right now, some with an end in sight, others searching for answers.
I don’t think all my joy that morning meant I was participating joyfully in my loved ones’ sorrows. It seems more like I had set aside thinking about those sorrows for a time.
Or had I?
Did that quote pop back into my mind because I was experiencing both joy and sorrow?
I decided I needed to find out where that quote came from. Maybe I’d understand Campbell’s meaning if read it in context.
It comes from A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living. One mission of the Joseph Campbell Foundation has been to compile his previously unpublished work. This book was drawn from transcripts from a series of workshops Campbell led in his 80th year.
I get the sense a lot may have been edited out, so even ‘in context’ there’s not a great deal of explanation. It’s more poetry than prose. Below is a screenshot from my Kindle.
Although that’s not a lot of expository text, there’s enough there to give the quote a bit more context.
I struggle with the quote because, choosing to live in joy despite the world being a mess doesn’t seem the same as participating joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
Perhaps what Campbell is saying is:
Sorrow is an aspect of what the world is (i.e., the world is a mess).
You have to accept the whole package (i.e., say “‘yea’ to it all”) .
If you work on yourself, you can accept the whole joyfully (i.e., joy in the face of world-suck).
I choose to live in joy. I was doing a good job of that last week, even with the bad news I received during the snowbird visit.
There are times though, where my choice isn’t enough. Oft times, the sorrows of someone I love make it hard to feel anything but sad. At times, physical pain makes it hard for me to choose joy.
I have to remind myself to do it. I start the day saying, “Computer, good morning,” to prompt Alexa to turn on the lights, power the TV, and tell me:
Celebrate all that you are thankful for. Seek joy. See the joy in nature, in smiles, in love, in the little things. Act in ways that bring joy.
I know, I’ve already shared that with y’all a few times. It bears repeating. That daily reminder has, on many days, done what it is supposed to do. If I awoke grumpy, I change gears.
I want to seek joy!
I look to nature—birdsong, cricket-song, the flash of royal blue when the bluebird dives to the lawn for a bug, the flowers, the greens, the greens of all the oxygen-makers! The little things—Freyja’s soft fur, Hubby’s cackle when something strikes his funny bone, my grandson calling and saying in his sing-song request, “Tell me a story!”
Sometimes, we have to look for joy in the little things because the big things get so dark and scary.
I can’t fix the world. The world is a mess. The world is perfect.
I can try to fix me. I can try to find my joy, if only in the little things.
And there’s a funny thing about finding joy—you become a source of it for others.
In parting, here’s Lucinda William’s song, “Joy,” that brings me joy, even though it probably isn’t in keeping with what Joseph Campbell had in mind.
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