by Rev. Lynne Hinton
I gave new books to members of my class today. One student, a somber woman who has only recently begun to share what she has written, told me she has never owned a book. I watched how careful she was when she opened it, how she moved her fingers across the cover as if it were the hand of a child or someone she loved. Tender, grateful, surprised at how it felt.
They all treated the gifts like treasures.
We have been talking about “perspective” in these classes I teach at the substance abuse recovery center, perspective and how it matters to our joy. I am awash in ideas they have given me, moved by the words of love written in letters, our last assignment, meant to be sent from a loved one now dead. This is the perspective of wisdom, of being out and away from this world, the perspective of unconditional love, coming from the other side.
I am unable to speak after every essay because they are so profoundly beautiful and there is nothing I can say.
This work of sobriety, this hard work of feeling the forgotten feelings they have pushed down and covered up and numbed themselves to for years, the childhood trauma, abuse, neglect, prison, loss, the list goes on and on, this hard work can sometimes seem overwhelming. It is not for the weak-minded or the faint of heart.
“I’m not sure I understand joy,” one of them says. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had it.”
I struggled with the focus on joy for our writing prompts for this class. Aren’t they just trying to survive? Doesn’t joy seem like a privilege they can’t afford to imagine? Do they even think it’s attainable? These are the questions I have asked myself as we read and study the sentiments of the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
And it’s true that there are days when I speak of joy as a spiritual discipline, joy as being available to everyone; and I watch as their eyes glaze over and I think maybe this was an ill-planned direction to take them.
But then there’s something else that gnaws at me every time I think I should choose another topic; and that’s the thought, the bothersome thought that they don’t comprehend the concept of joy because they don’t think they deserve it. And that thought, the one from deep, deep inside the hidden reservoir of my own self-doubt, one that is a direct result of my own brokenness, causes me to weep.
So, I asked them if such a thing is possible, if there’s the slightest chance they believe they don’t deserve joy. A few looked away, eyes averted, feet slide back and forth under chairs, heads dropped. No one answered. No one confirmed or denied the possibility.
“Well, whether that is true or not,” I said. “Hear me when I say you do. Every one of you deserves to have joy.” I waited though I’m not sure exactly for what.
“You hear me?” I asked, because I needed to know.
And they looked up and they nodded, but still, they didn’t speak. But somehow, just meeting their eyes, just seeing them nod, that was enough. And with that, we carried on. We opened our new books, The Book of Joy, some of them for the very first time.