Today We Choose Joy

...because we can't afford despair

“We’re fucked!”

My BlueSky this morning was filled with people verbalizing where their emotions are while waking up in America and staring directly into the face of fascism on this of all days - July 4th.

I’m not going to tell you how you should feel. I have no idea how you should feel. I barely know how to feel these days myself. What I will offer, instead, is to share what I choose. 

I choose to try, even when I don’t see a reason. New opportunities will emerge, if I persist - they always do. 

I choose joy, even when I don’t see a reason. The ancestor I want to be remembered as was always smiling and making others laugh and smile, even in the darkest of times.

I choose to love, even when I don’t see a reason. Everyone brings value, ideas, talent, pain, trauma, baggage, and their stories to their encounter with me. I can’t build solidarity with people whose pain and value I can’t see, so I am working very hard to be able to see their pain and breathe before responding to them or assuming their motives.

I believe love, hope, and joy aren’t just things I feel. I believe they are things I can choose as well - decisions I can make, if I have the courage and capacity in any given moment to make them. Sometimes I do, many times I don’t, but I keep practicing and persisting. 

Trust me, “we’re fucked” is a phrase that runs through my head several times a day. But rebellions aren’t built on “we’re fucked” - they’re built on hope. 

“I never have been in despair about the world. I've been enraged by it. I don't think I'm in despair. I can't afford despair. I can't tell my nephew, my niece. You can't tell the children there's no hope.” - James Baldwin

In community and in solidarity with everyone reading this who isn’t a fascist and/or billionaire,

Iain Hamp

Secular AZ Board Chair