In our world of so much suffering, it can feel hard or wrong to invoke the word “joy.” Yet joy has been one of the most insistent, recurrent rallying cries in almost every life-giving conversation that Krista has had across recent months and years, even and especially with people on the front lines of humanity’s struggles.
Ross Gay helps illuminate this paradox and turn it into a muscle.
We are good at fighting, as he puts it, and not as good at holding in our imaginations what is to be adored and preserved and exalted — advocating for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. But without this, he says, we cannot speak meaningfully even about our longings for a more just world, a more whole existence for all. To understand that we are all suffering — and so to practice tenderness and mercy — is a quality of what Ross calls “adult joy.” Starting with his cherished essay collection The Book of Delights, he began to accompany many in an everyday spiritual discipline of practicing delight and cultivating joy.
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Ross Gay is a poet, essayist, teacher, and passionate community gardener. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he’s a professor of English at Indiana University. His books include The Book of Delights, The Book of (More) Delights, and Inciting Joy, as well as the poetry collections Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and Be Holding.
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Krista with David DeSteno: How God Works podcast
We’re excited to share this with all of you. In this interview, Dave DeSteno drew out Krista in profound and new ways, connecting her experience and perspective as a former diplomat to what the kinds of questions we pose at On Being have to do with our political life. Krista is honored to explore how "the role spirituality (or the lack thereof) plays in our individual and societal wellbeing" alongside Dave’s interview with US Senator Chris Murphy in this episode.
Listen to "How God Works" here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Rather than discuss how much I loved the entire conversation, which I did, I'd like to challenge one idea expressed in the conversation, which is that there is no answer to the question of how to use a word like "mercy" right now. It seems to me that we're all born knowing the answer even though we often act as if we don't.
I give Luke's answer an A+. For me, The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37, is at the intersection of justice, mercy, and how one individual must perceive another individual even when the other is a stranger who does not appear to be "one of us." Note how the word "mercy" plays a prominent role in the final verse.
I can't practice driving a car until I get a beginner's license by passing a knowledge test, and then I have to practice under adult supervision before I can get a full license by passing a road test that determines whether my behavior is consistent with my knowledge. Wouldn't it be nice if we could have something analogous to that for how we practice living together in the 21st century?
We fail by trying to control each other's behavior. We will succeed when enough of us are all willing to constrain our behavior according to our born-with knowledge of how to get along. For me, the difference between "constrain" and "control" is the same as the difference between up and down.
Krista, your conversations really are “life-giving”!