I'm reading a book of the selected writings of Dorothee Soelle (1929-2003), the German theologian, feminist, mystic, prolific writer, and political activist who taught at Union Theological Seminary for a number of years, and finding her words inspiring and timely. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, she found herself in Nazi Germany, unable to accept a patriarchal and omnipotent concept of a remote God in the heavens who blithely allowed horrors like Auschwitz. She also rejected the hierarchical, institutional church and its alliance with authority and power - but instead found within Christianity a post-theistic God who suffered along with humanity: a God we find within, embodied in love.
In her book To Work and To Love: A Theology of Creation (1984), she quotes a poem about Ernesto Cardenal, who, when asked how he became a poet, a priest, and a revolutionary, "gave as his first reason the love of beauty." Beauty, he said, led him "to poetry and beyond it; to God and beyond; to the Gospels and beyond; to socialism and beyond."
Soelle writes:
The most terrifying quality about the life of the broken person - both the one I meet and the one I am - is the absence of joy. In the Jewish tradition, joy was understood as the most natural response to our having been created, while sadness was deemed a rejection of the gift of life. In this metaphysical sense, joy is not derived from special events or the presents we receive; it involves the mere delight in being alive and gratefulness for the gift of life. But for an increasing number of people in secular culture the expression "a gift of life" does not make too much sense: If the giver disappears, why should we see life as a gift at all, why should we not understand it instead as a biological accident, a casual event, an unforeseen occurrence that neither has nor requires an explanation? When life has lost its quality of being something given to us, it turns into a mere matter of fact. People grow up in this culture without any education for joy. Does the deep, reasonless joy of being alive die in a world without religion? Does it make a difference with regard to our capacity for enjoyment whether we live in a world we think is made by human beings or in one we believe to be created by God? I do not know the answer to these questions, yet I observe a remarkable absence of joy in secular, industrialized cultures. At the same time, my own spiritual experience teaches me that to recall creation, to be reminded of our createdness in a community of people who struggle together, enhances my own awareness of joy - of how much I need it, how much I yearn for it. A spirituality of creation reminds us that we were born for joy.
Does the deep, reasonless joy of being alive die in a world without religion?
Nope. In fact, I'd say if anything, the opposite may be true. For proof, look at small children: they know essentially nothing about religion, but their capacity for joy (and other strong emotions) surpasses that of most educated adults.
Posted by: Dave | July 03, 2007 at 04:41 PM
Life is. As a matter of fact, it's huge! I don't think the average guy on the street is going to show you his capacity for joy, he's going to keep it to himself. And I don't think any education is required.
Posted by: the sylph | July 05, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Good point, Dave.
Thanks, Sylph. I agree.
Posted by: beth | July 05, 2007 at 05:23 PM
I've been wondering for years why childhood is seen, in developed West, as a particularly desirable state. I am much happier as an adult than I was as a child -- my capacity for joy has certainly grown since then, and more particularly since I "got religion." In my case, anyway, there's a clear correlation between "being religious" and experiencing joy.
I don't know how much of that can be attributed simply to having a vocabulary for joy, a legitimate-feeling place for it, having a world-view in which it makes *sense* to experience joy. Surely everyone experiences joy, but I suspect that most people attribute it to its accidental occasions, and try to cultivate it -- if they try at all -- by reproducing its occasions. Which usually doesn't work; joy is not on call that way. Before I was religious I just didn't put myself in joy's way very much -- I didn't meditate, I didn't pray, I didn't practice opening my heart. Of course joy came and found me, sometimes -- it does that no matter what, I think, to everyone, every once in a while -- but not nearly so often as it does now.
I don't remember being joyful very often as a child, myself. I don't trust my memory, though, in these matters. (But likewise, I don't much trust observation of others: how much do we really know, ever, about other people's emotional or spiritual states?)
Posted by: dale | July 06, 2007 at 12:45 AM
Dale, thanks so much for your response. I think the "joy" of children is overrated, and not the same emotion as the joy an adult feels, which comes from holding the dark and the light together, and has a good deal to do with a developed sense of gratitude. Children aren't grateful by nature! My early childhood was pretty carefree and "happy" but in an unconscious way. Even when adults experience spontaneous moments of joy, they are always set in an overall context of consciousness, which for me flows from my spiritual life. I think Dorothee Soelle doesn't distinguish between what children feel and what an adult feels, and it's a flaw in her reasoning - but I didn't see that before you made this point!
Posted by: beth | July 06, 2007 at 09:08 AM
I like what Dale says about being open. I think this is a key to many good things.
Posted by: the sylph | July 06, 2007 at 01:18 PM
Apologies in advance for any upcoming confusion & obscurity: it's 5.45 AM & I'm surrounded by horribly wide awake kids!
I'm with Dave in the sense that the individual without religion has an option on joy as intrinsic to the simple processes of sentience & sapience. The burdens, the obligations, the protocols involved in belief in some externalised source for our existence are absent. Life becomes, or can become, our gift to ourselves & to each other. Meaning & purpose become, to a degree at least, negotiable & joy is an untrammeled response to the concomitant freedom & self determination. Option is all here, as both Beckett & Camus point out so graphically. Straining against the bonds of belief, we may turn as resolutely towards the dark as to the light.
I'm with Dale in recognising an increased capacity for joy with the advance of age. But mine arises from the gathering sense that without belief I am free.
Posted by: Dick | July 07, 2007 at 01:37 AM
Mmmmm....Food for my thoughts. I am a 70 year old elder who is learning, laughing, living this last quarter of my life without religious belief, yet with an openess to what the mystery of existence may be. I am also aware of an abiding sadness to this last stage of aging which I share with many friends who hold various forms of belief. So, I am thankful to Dorothy Soelle for talking about joy being derived from gratefulness for the gift of life. And so, sadness may be derived from the knowledge that the gift of life (at least here)is on the horizon. I am very interested in exploring this sadness via a blog or conversations. Judith
Posted by: Judith MS | July 13, 2007 at 09:56 AM
Judith, thank you very much for leaving such a thoughtful and honest comment at my blog. I'm aware of the sadness you speak about, even though it's only gradually coming into my consciousness at midlife, due to the many changes that happen now, especially the ones that involve loss, change, and relinquishment of youthful hopes. I hope you will decide to start a blog to explore these ideas; I'm sure it would find a readership.
Posted by: beth | July 18, 2007 at 03:33 PM