Comments on: Be Ready for Overwhelming Joy

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sun, 23 May 2010 03:04:09 +0000

Ever read the book “Suprised by Joy” by CS Lewis?

By: Hungry Hyaena

Hungry Hyaena — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:56:39 +0000

Thank you, Matthew, for this post.

“Be ready for overwhelming joy” is a declaration worthy of popular embrace. As something of a newly-minted mystic (or, perhaps more accurately, someone who has recently found cause for so much smiling celebration of the mundane), the statement is akin to what I now experience each morning when I rise. Certainly, there is still hot anger, frustration, and pettiness in me, but I’m working to turn away at those moments, to the sunlight reflecting off the pavement, to the smile of a passerby, to the twitch of my cat’s tail, to the cry of a bedazzled spring starling, and to glimpse in those events and moments a calming, “intimate place,” a mokam of “overwhelming joy.” It’s work, certainly, but it’s good work.

I wish you all the best in the job search, fatherhood, and beyond.

By: Carolyn Burr

Carolyn Burr — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:04:05 +0000

Matthew – thank you for your beautiful story. What comes up for me is to ask, what is the “overwhelming joy” that we find when we have a little baby, or are simply just with one? Isn’t it the Joy of unconditional love? A joy that comes from release from judgments, a joy made from a simple, clean, beautiful, heartwarming, compassionate openness? A joy of Innocence? And with all of that, finally, a joy of Peace and Freedom? I like to think that this is the Life Energy and that it is in us and around us and is directed toward fulfillment. The more we feel this joy, the more Life Energy there is and the more fulfilled we become. So, by keeping ourselves ready for overwhelming joy, we focus on it and the reach toward fulfillment quickens.

By: Gwendoline Y. Fortune

Gwendoline Y. Fortune — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:38:47 +0000

Congratulations and thank you for a sensitive portrayal of your work and that of others.

I wish I did not have tears rising. My third novel was just published, a unique, creative, healing view of African American l life and history by a woman of color. Here, there are no venues like the coffee shops and intimate places in NYC and learned, sophisticated towns. I remember the candy stores when I lived in the Big Apple. I, now, live(sic) in “Gatorland,” where ballgames are the consumption.. I would like for my new work be the charm. Meanwhile, the best to you. Now, to try not to eat chocolate (overwhelming joy.)

By: Dave Belden

Dave Belden — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:11:14 +0000

Matthew, so sorry to hear about getting fired, and for such a stupid reason, and one month away from fatherhood. I sure hope you find something else quickly. Thank you for this beautiful post.

By: E.J. Smith

E.J. Smith — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:20:39 +0000

You might want to correct the very minor error, ‘right of passage’; it should be ‘rite of passage’.

By: Rex

Rex — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:55:26 +0000

I am not familiar with any of the sources you mention, so I thank you for citing them.

The line you use as a refrain in this context strikes me as the essence of the blues. Our human pain can be tolerated because it is usually, not always, worth it. PBS currently is rebroadcasting its series on the civil rights struggle that it has titled “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” the phrase which then is followed by the lyric “Hold on. Hold on.”

It was my privilege to be a part of some of the scenes portrayed in 1965. The experience changed my life. Our hopes at the time have not all been fulfilled, by any means. But some changes for the better have resulted. When I get discouraged, I try to remind myself that we no longer practice slavery as once we did. And we will not again, no matter how hard times get. No, it is not enough, but it is something, something joyful.