A good friend of mine recently sent me  a podcast from Iconocast of an interview with Dr. Cornel West.  In the interview Dr. West discussed Social Movements in America and spoke heavily of the lack of fire and passion in the modern American Church for the poor and marginalized. As I was listening to his very lyrical and poetic comments to questions, Dr. West made a tiny comment, that to me, resonates to the very heart of this lack of true progress towards Jesus’ commandments for humanity.

When asked how to respond to oppression, Dr. West said: “There is no doubt…that if you don’t have Joy, you’re not in love.  That Joy is the fruit of love.  That if people are living joyless lives, they have to have the courage and the freedom to love in order to have access to Joy.”

This got me thinking about the complete and utter lack of Joy that I see in not only my fellow Christians but in most Americans.  It challenged my heart to think about what would happen if we all managed to get up the courage to be brave and love with no conditions. To build up our fellow-man without a thought of what it would do for us personally.

I also caved to my impulse of being critical of my fellow Christians. I wondered why, that if we believe in  loving, self-sacrificing  God, we could be so joy-less and out of love with him. How we could live, eyes turned from the poor and broken-spirited.  How we could be so not full of boundless Joy, that a large portion of us ascribe the violent, and hateful “End Times” theology that has run rampant in the modern Church, leaving us bitter, angry and cold to our neighbors and God’s creation.  How we could drop the ball so far as to think that we as American Christians are some how privileged and “special” enough to be above Christ’s call for radical, and barrier breaking love.

And how on earth, have depression, anxiety and melancholy bound our hands from receiving and giving this love?

Oh we of little faith.

I think these things and want to confess that I am very guilty of everything I just described.  I personally go through intense bouts of anger, depression, anxiety and melancholy. All  leaving me paralyzed to Joy. All leaving me with a bitterness towards loving people. Towards ultimately,  loving God.

But, I’ve found, that in pressing into the hope and wisdom of God, in embracing love and giving love, somehow, things just iron themselves out. Grace falls upon me.  It frees me to be who I was created to be, it frees me to love and it frees me to feel Joy, even when by all definitions, I should feel anything but. I see individuals who have lives, completely enlightened in this way. People who have absolutely nothing in terms of possessions. Who are sick, who have lost loved ones etc. But they have LOVE and JOY beyond comprehension. It’s mind-blowing.

So I say we stop letting joy divide we Christians. Let it unify us and pull us all from our deep, wasteful slumbers. Embrace the frightening, incomprehensible and all-encompassing love that we identify ourselves by and get shit done.

Sorry, it got too heavy, even for my liking, there for a while. Had to throw in a curse word to lighten things up!

Done with my mental chewing gum for the day.

Ah, check out this Colbert link. I’ve watched this one a lot lately, its fabulous and hilarious as per usual with The Report.  I think it ties in nicely with my rambling.

Full interview with Dr. West.