We hope this episode inspires you to embrace the transformative power of joy, even in the waiting.
Listener Resources:
- “The Guest House” by Jalaluddin Rumi was read from: Rumi: Selected Poems, trans Coleman Barks with John Moynce, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson (Penguin Books, 2004).
- If you’re a leader seeking to transform the way you lead in the new year, we invite you to join a Leaders Circle. This transformative 12-month cohort is designed for leaders who want to deepen their social sciences knowledge and cultivate a profound self-awareness that drives impactful leadership. To learn more, visit transformingengagement.org/leaders-circles.
About Our Guest:
Rev. Dr. Angela N. Parker is associate professor of New Testament and Greek at McAfee at Mercer University. She received her B.A. in religion and philosophy from Shaw University (2008), her M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School (2008-2010) and her Ph.D. in Bible, culture, and hermeneutics (New Testament focus) from Chicago Theological Seminary (2015). Before this position, Dr. Parker was assistant professor of Biblical Studies at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology for four years. While at The Seattle School, Dr. Parker received the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion’s ESF New Scholar Award (2nd Place) for her article “One Womanist’s View of Racial Reconciliation in Galatians.” She teaches courses in New Testament, Greek Exegesis, the Gospel of Mark, the Corinthians Correspondence, the Gospel of John, and Womanist and Feminist Hermeneutics unto preaching.
While not engaging in scholarship, teaching, and preaching, Dr. Parker can be found relaxing with her husband, Victor, while researching puppies to adopt. You can connect with her on Instagram @boozybiblescholar.
Episode Transcript:
Rose: I’m Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman, associate Director of the Center for Transforming Engagement. In this episode, I’m joined by Reverend Dr. Angela Parker to have a conversation around joy. This advent season, a time traditionally marked by anticipation and reflection will explore how joy can coexist with the challenges of waiting. Welcome Angela, thanks for being with us today.
Angela: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to be with you.
Rose: Well, we’re going to talk about joy in this advent season, the season of waiting and how in times of waiting, in times of challenge, in times even of adversity and suffering, how is it that we find joy? So how do you think about this?
Angela: Well, when I think about joy, because I’m a New Testament scholar, the first place that I go to, just to even ponder joy is the gospel of Luke. And I think about Luke’s writing about the coming of Jesus in Luke chapter one and chapter two. We have the juxtaposition of waiting for the coming of Jesus while also Luke placing the coming of Jesus in the timeframe of secular history. And Luke is the only writer of our gospels to do that. He talks about in the days a decree of Emperor Augustus went about, he talks about Quirinius, the governor of Syria. And so Luke talks about these fraught times where imperial political officials are doing things that make it frustrating for the average people to live. And so the shepherds are keeping watch over their fields and angels are appearing to them and unbeknownst to them, they’re entering into a season of great joy in the midst of troubling times. And so I think for me, as I ponder joy in the midst of troubling times, I have to recognize that we live in times of tension and I have to constantly remind myself that I can still be joyous even while living in tension. And for some people that is difficult. And so part of my outlook, part of my personal mission, part of my witness is to help people imagine even in the midst of trials, tribulations, how can we cultivate moments of joy? How can we be joyful presences? How can we sit in anticipation of experiencing more and more and more joy, even when we know that elements around us may be fraught with tension, political uncertainties? And just knowing that, we can usher in from the bottoms of our stomachs, from the bottoms of our beings, the joy that comes together. I think when people get together and have that affect of joy, because I really do believe it’s how we cultivate joy in collectivity. It’s about coming together in the midst of being with other people because the shepherds were together with themselves. Luke writes about Elizabeth and Mary coming together, and when they get together, the baby leaped with joy in Elizabeth’s belly. It’s about people coming together. I think
Rose: I love that so much and in a very, very practical way. I would say a few weeks ago I was not in a very good place. I had three days of really, really hard just sorrow, some rage, lament, all the stuff, right? Yes. And on Friday morning, my daughter called me and I have a heart condition, so she’s worried about my heart because I’m not supposed to have stress on my heart. And so she called me and she said, mom, why don’t you just come over and play with us today? We’re just here and play with the grandkids. And I thought, you know what? I need to get out of my house. So that’s exactly right. I went to my daughter’s house, my husband and I, we played with our grandkids, we played Monopoly, we played games, we laughed. And it’s exactly what you were saying. It didn’t change like what I am grieving or my sorrow, but boy did I find joy that day. And so that is exactly right. You may have heard this quote before and I don’t know who to attribute it to. I’ve tried to find it that joy and sorrow are sisters and they live in the same house. Whereas when you kind of started out by saying, I think people don’t realize that they can coexist, that you don’t have to deny joy because you’re in a state of adversity, challenge, sorrow, suffering – if some people feel guilty for having joy when external things right, but really they can coexist. And I think it’s really important for people to know that.
Angela: Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. I do not believe that we can, I don’t think we can survive on just sorrow alone as humanity. We have to find those moments of joyful connectivity. That’s what actually keeps us going. I also think that it’s a human virtue, but for me as a womanist scholar, and when I say womanist, that simply means that I take seriously the lived experiences of Black women in these United States of America. Part of what I do and part of a womanist tenet is to tap out for self-care when I need to tap out and then come back in for the fight when I need to fight. And part of tapping out actually is a conscious decision to tap out for self-care, but also to tap out, to find joyful replenishing so that I can tap back in for resistance work, for activist work, for fighting work.
Rose: Yes, I love that because one of probably the only lectures I really heard you give while I was at The Seattle School, we sort of crossed over, but you came to the Center and you gave a talk on the Sun Woman in the book of Revelation and the dragon ready to devour. But that has always stayed with me. And it was so powerful for me to realize when followers of Jesus are in the process of birthing God’s kingdom, God’s purposes on earth, there’s going to be resistance, right? And so you had said, instead of faithful endurance, we should think about what it means to be able to practice faithful resistance. And I feel like joy is one of those ways that we practice faithful resistance so that we don’t just fall into a deep sea of despair and give up.
Angela: I thank you. Thank you for bringing that back up. I wholeheartedly believe that. And when I think about the Sun Woman and imagine how John the Revelator was writing about her and actually thinking about a composite of a whole bunch of different women from Hebrew Bible, and then even thinking about perhaps Mary, the mother of Jesus in this particular moment, in our own particular history in these United States of America, I think it’s a composite of a whole bunch of different women coming together in joyful resistance that is actually going to help birth something new in these United States of America as well. That we do not have the luxury of falling down into some kind of pit of despair, even when we see a dragon ready to devour us, that in the midst of birthing something new, our collectivity means that we are joyfully birthing something new in the face of resistance, in the face of something ready to overtake us. But I think it’s that collectivity of coming together in joyful solidarity is going to be what gets us birthing together joyfully.
Rose: Yes, yes. And I think another thing when you talk about cultivating even practices to be able to be in touch with the things when things like the whole self-care, things are too much. I know that I’ve spent some time, especially with some women of color in spiritual direction over these last two weeks, and some women are just like, I don’t know if I can just keep going and I feel guilty for not. I mean, so it was just what you said, it’s okay to take a break and rejuvenate and replenish and practice gratitude. Like name the things that are good in your life even. And it’s not to say we need to just move through it smiling and let it go and move on. No, we have to name it. We have to. Do you remember the poem, the Guest House by Rumi?
Angela: I don’t remember that.
Rose: I want to read this because listen to this, because I think this is what we’re trying to say is you can’t do spiritual bypassing. We have to be in it and we have to care for ourselves and know what we need. So Rumi wrote this:
‘This being human is a guest house guest every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some monetary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house, empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight, the dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.’
Angela: Wow. I’ve heard and read some Rumi poems, but I have not heard or read that one. Thank you.
Rose: I feel like it’s kind of what we’re saying though. We can’t just let things go. We really have to move through them. And sometimes if you’re in a place of waiting, especially of waiting in uncertainty, I think about people that are waiting for a cancer diagnosis. Is this cancer, how bad, or the different weightings where there’s uncertainty and fear for what the answer might be. And I think it’s okay for us to name those things and know that this is scary. This is hard. Instead of trying to just suppress and not be in reality about what’s happening in our bodies.
Angela: One thing I often say is that faith is not certainty. Faith is not certainty. And I think that we are often living in a world where people think that faith is certainty, and that if you exude any kind of idea where you don’t live into that faith is certainty mode that you don’t have enough faith. And I think that’s the wrong mindset. That part of what we do, I think as honest human beings who follow Jesus is actually name those moments that you’re talking about. You name the moments of when you feel doubtful or you name the moments when you feel fear, you name the moments when you feel anger, you name those moments because if you don’t name them, they actually grow bigger. We have to name those things that can actually grow worse if we don’t confront them. And if you don’t confront them and try to put on those happy faces and those happy feelings, that’s not true joy. It’s the fake joy. And I would rather have the true joy and the true connectivity with other people and not the fakeness of something that’s just not real.
Rose: Right. And I love that you said that because I do think when we name those things and we move through it, when people go through death’s dark valley, they go through that valley and come out the other side. Again, I don’t know who to attribute this to, but I’ve thought about someone once said to me, it’s almost like the depth of your suffering is kind of the flip side of that is the heights of the joy that you will experience. You are able to experience the depth of both of those emotions deeper by what you’re saying by we don’t just let it go and move on, which so many people, I also believe if we just let it go and try to suppress any kind of anger, rage, lament, grief, sorrow, I can’t feel these. I think our bodies will get sick too.
Angela: Oh, definitely. Definitely. One thing I often do just to get things out of my body is hit my punching bag. I have a punching bag that I hit in order to get things out of my body. It’s the naming of those emotions. It’s the naming of those feelings. But also for me hitting something releases them out of my body. And we have to do those bodily movements to get things out of our systems. And I really do believe that just movement, even movement in celebration and joy is also a part of joy as well. We can use movement for all of these emotions. You raise your hands and worship for God. I mean, that’s also joyous movement. And for me, I box in order to get angry or sad emotions out as well. That’s the idea of our full humanity. I don’t think that we take seriously oftentimes how our body, soul, spirit are all connected, that we are complex human beings. And all of those connecting points really do come together so that if you don’t express those emotions that as you’ve said, they can settle into your body and make you sick. And if you don’t, you don’t find those ways to release them. You now are tapping into decreased moments of joy. What we’re trying to do is actually be full human beings. When God talks about creating humanity in God’s own image in the Imago Dei, that’s what we’re trying to get to that full image of God.
Rose: Yes. And when we look at Jesus, the image of God in human form, his humanity, we see all of the ranges of emotions. I mean with the joy set before him, he went to the cross knowing what he was, it’s like, but he cried. He wept at the news of Lazarus, he cried. I often imagine him sitting around the fireplace on that three year camping trip with all of his disciples, and there was probably music and dancing and celebration around that fire. But that full range of humanity and experiencing it versus denying our humanity, I think is so important, especially in the world we’re living in today where there is so much external uncertainty going on. Then you combine that, like I said, with the people that are going through just personal uncertainty around health or a relationship or children, whatever the uncertainties that come. Being able to have safe enough spaces to be with people to name these things, do the work of our nervous systems are so active right now, being able to do some kind of bodily thing, whether it’s dancing, boxing, to work that stuff out of our system so we don’t get sick. So I want to maybe end with you just talking a little bit more through your studies and your scholarship, how we can think about joy as we continue through this advent season. Just some final words from you about joy.
Angela: Yes, that’s wonderful ponderings. When I think about my scholarship and intersecting my scholarship with joy, oftentimes my scholarship is very heavy because my scholarship is rooted in, as I said, womanist biblical interpretation. And over the years since 2012 – 2012 began with the invocation of Black Lives Matter at the killing of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman. So a lot of my work has been rooted and grounded in how we read the Bible in the age of the Black Lives Matter movement, and then into the Me Too movement and then into white Christian nationalism. So for me, a lot of my work has been really heavy. And so how I find joy in the midst of doing so much of that heavy work has been thinking about what legacy looks like, and so what I think about what legacy looks like. I’m often pondering the questions that my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will be asking when they ponder this particular time period, hoping and praying that they will have an ability to ponder this particular time period and asking, well, what was Mother Angela, Grandmother Angela Great-grandmother Angela doing at this time? And I know that I will be leaving writings behind, thoughts behind, that they will be able to pick up and say, this is the work that she was doing in this particular time period. And I actually get joy from that because historians are going to look back on this particular time period and say, wow, what the heck was going on? And they’re going to be looking at the writings, the music, the pop cultural moments that were happening at this time, this. And I just know that we are going to be a particular study years from now.
Rose: That is right useful now, so complex. Right. And I love that, Angela. I love how you framed that. You are doing very, very hard work that takes a toll probably, I’m just guessing and putting words in your mouth now, but I would imagine the toll it takes on you emotionally and spiritually and physically to do the work that you do. So that is that faithful resistance, the fact that you find joy in this work because you’re thinking about legacy. What a beautiful way to think about joy and to be asking that question, what are we leaving the next generation, whether we have children or not. I think that’s a good place to leave it.
Angela: Thank you. I appreciate it, and I really do appreciate you inviting me on for this conversation. It was a pleasure.
Rose: Thank you.
