Weekly Wide-Awake: Taking a Joy Excursion

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Weekly Wide-Awake: Taking a Joy Excursion

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.
Eudora Welty

I have heard it said that joy is a decision. That makes sense to me in the way we find what we look for. Taking an excursion can mean meandering through moments, sashaying around corners, and lilting through decisions. That is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about excursion as quenchable thirst, deliberate choice, and desire-fueled quest.

What would it look like for life’s falling apart and coming together to become a joy excursion?

On a joy excursion, beginnings and endings are sacred, awe is steadily sought, delight is drawn from details, morning perpetually invites hope, connection is the point, and love is abundant. On a joy excursion, we know we don’t have to carry the weight — we share, forgive, shed, lift, and hold. We don’t hesitate. We praise the sun and rain. Joy becomes a life-or-death pursuit.

Joy can feel a million miles away — distant, abstract, decadent, fluffy, even pointless in the face of sorrow. It is precisely in times of sorrow that joy holds the most importance. I am searching for joy right now. Joy embodied in truth Joy embodied in peace. Joy embodied in love.

What I Keep Learning

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,/don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty/ of lives and whole towns destroyed or about/ to be. We are not wise, and not very often/ kind. And much can never be redeemed./ Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this/ is its way of fighting back, that sometimes/ something happens better than all the riches/ or power in the world. It could be anything,/ but very likely you notice it in the instant/ when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the/ case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid/ of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. — Mary Oliver

“Joy is not made to be a crumb.” Joy is the whole chocolate chip cookie. Joy is wisdom, plenty, redemption, kindness, and possibility. Joy is the instant when love begins. Seek it like shelter in a storm. Sail it like a yacht on an ocean. Wield it like a magic talisman for good. Protect it like a newborn baby. Cherish it like a precious jewel. Build it like a monument to love.

Life-or-Death Pursuit of Creative Joy

I have been thinking about the number of times I have laughed so hard snot flew from my nose and tears came to my eyes. I have been thinking about the magnetism of joyous people. I have been thinking about the sound of children on a playground. I have been thinking about the look on my nieces’ faces when they showed me their new puppy on Christmas. I have been thinking about how joy can win in the face of anger, cruelty, and despair. It simply must. Joyful people fill our hearts. Joyful sounds resonate beyond what words can explain. Joy is big and powerful. I want more joy in my life.

Praise the Rain

Praise crazy. Praise sad./ Praise the path on which we’re led./ Praise the roads on earth and water./ Praise the eater and the eaten./ Praise beginnings; praise the end./ Praise the song and praise the singer.// Praise the rain; it brings more rain./ Praise the rain; it brings more rain. — Joy Har

Touch it all. Taste it all. See it all. Feel it all. Praise it all. On the journey to being whole, praise it all. Lift every voice. Rise up and sing. Pass it on. Let it shine. Light a fire. Hosanna. Hallelujah. It comes from the same place.