When Joy Becomes Strength
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In Traditional Chinese Medicine, joy is one of the seven emotions that we experience as humans, but its meaning implies a state of mind (over- or under-excited) rather than a spiritual calling. So what is joy? And where does it come from?
There’s a beautiful passage in the Book of Nehemiah in which its author writes, “Do not be sad, for the joy of YHWH is your strength.” YHWH, is the unspoken name of god for the kingdom of Israel, and what became Judah. Christians later adopted the name, and I grew up hearing it belted out as “Yahweh” in Sunday morning worship service. A line in one song rendered from scripture always stood out to me: “The joy of my Lord is my strength.” Taken from the Book of Nehemiah when the walls of Jerusalem were being rebuilt, the modern praise hymn replaced YHWH with Lord, but the meaning remained: Joy in what we are doing gives us strength.
Rumi, the 13th-century Sufi poet, also had this to say of joy: “Heart sorrow prepares you for joy. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
And that far better thing is joy. Sorrow, then, is the fertile soil that gives life to joy.
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