Joy in Solidarity

 

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

 

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

 

 

Week Forty-One: Dancing with Divine Fire

 

Joy in Solidarity

 

 

 

CAC faculty member Dr. Barbara Holmes highlights God’s call to joy and partnership in all circumstances:  

We are born with an inner fire. I believe that this fire is the God within. It is an unquenchable, divine fire. It warms us, encourages us, and occasionally asks us to dance.  

Suppose that at the entrance to heaven there is a scale—not a scale to weigh good and bad deeds—but a scale to measure joy. Suppose our passage into the next life will not be determined by the number of souls saved, sermons preached, or holiness pursued. Just joy.  

We’ve become very somber Christians in a very somber age. It’s not that we don’t have things to be concerned about. There are wars, natural disasters, deficits, broken relationships and viruses. But in the midst of this, we’re called to joy by a joyful God and a joyful Savior. Hierarchies have always been afraid of a dancing, joyful Jesus. They’re not so worried about the institutional Christ, but they fear this living, singing Jesus who can boogie, who sings all the way to Gethsemane, and tells jokes. Remember the one he told the Pharisees about the camel and the eye of the needle?  

No matter the circumstances, we’re called to joy. 

Holmes tells a story exemplifying the surprising joy that can be found in solidarity and struggle:   

A few years ago in December, I took a group of twelve seminarians of various races and denominations to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico…. In a migrant shelter, a small man comes in for soup. His name is Manuel. He tells us he’s crossing the desert into the US tonight. He has no work. He has no idea of how far it is or how deadly the desert is. He’s wearing a thin jacket. His feet are bare inside his thin sneakers. Seeing one member of our group serving him a steaming hot bowl of soup, he smiles. 

Someone notices the filthy bandages on his foot. Without a word, students kneel to wash and bandage his feet. They rub ointment and silently pray for his safety. They anoint this person, deemed to be the least in the kingdom, but whom God loves.  

Then Sam, a very big man, takes off his huge socks and hands them to him. Manuel's eyes dance with joy as he pulls on Sam’s socks. In the circle we pray and bless one another for the last time. He goes into the desert loved by Jesus and saved a bit from the cold by Sam’s socks. In the silence that follows, we don’t bother to debate the issue of illegal immigration or whether temporary work permits would solve the problem at the border. All we can see in our mind’s eye are Sam’s socks, white and worn and offered at the right time. We don’t know if Manuel will make it into the US…. We do know that whatever happens, his feet will be warm and that’s as good as a dance in the world.