By Chris Paige

Originally published as the "Roots and Branches" column in The Other Side magazine (March-April 1999, Vol. 35, No. 2)

"Be not afraid. Behold! I bring you good news of great joy!" --Luke 2:10

The scriptures clearly call us to rejoice. Yet how is it possible to live with a sense of joy and celebration in this broken world--a world that confronts us with so much pain and misery, so much work to be done?

But indeed, we are invited to joyful celebration. And this joy is strange and paradoxical, subversive and powerful.

For the joyful dance of the soul is a Spirited resistance to the forces of death. It is the ultimate witness of the church--a community brought to life through One who overcame death.

This joy is not the same as happiness. It is not tied to success or prosperity. And it does not deny genuine pain. Rather, this joy is a holy response to the worst the world has to offer. Indeed it must, by necessity, walk hand in hand with weeping.

So it is no surprise that this joy often breaks forth in communities that are familiar with suffering. Joy shimmers in the colorful celebrations of Central American communities who persevere despite having family members executed and disappeared. It undergirds the soul-filled spirituals of African American congregations who've weathered hundreds of years of brutal and deliberate racial hatred. It weaves through the flamboyant laughter breaking over lesbian and gay Christians disinvited from family and church homes.

This irrepressible joy springs up when we have been stripped of our illusions of control; when we accept our own powerlessness. For this joy is rooted in the strength we find when we humbly claim our deepest wounds and vulnerabilities.

In these secret places of emptiness and disorder, we are confronted by God. A God who sustains. A God who comforts. A God who heals. We hear God beckon: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Now choose life" (Deut. 30:19).

Each moment of our lives confronts us with this decision: Will we live in fear and anxiety, or will we live in a joyful testimony to the sacred Life within?

This is a fearful and challenging choice. For in choosing joy, we cling to nothing but the abundance of God's grace. And through this grace, we become bearers of joy in a world that crushes the simple and the vulnerable. Because of this grace, we dare to sing.

Frankly, over our thirty-three years, The Other Side often has found it difficult to claim this radical joy. Despite the inspiration of sisters and brothers, we have found it easier to remain captive to our own privilege and illusions of control. Too often, we've been better at nurturing fear and anxiety than at claiming joy.

Yet God has not given up on us yet. Time and time again, we are confronted with the reality that, by God's grace, the work and witness of The Other Side has unfolded--often in spite of our efforts rather than because of them!

So, day by day, we too are learning joy. We are learning to let go in trust; to take time for laughter. We are trying out new steps in the dance of the soul.

We will continue to weep for the brokenness in our world and work for healing. But we pray that we will not forget to celebrate the life we have been given, and the miraculous ways God sustains each of us.

© 1999 by Chris Paige.