Abstract
People may see the pain, suffering, and injustices in the built environment before thinking of joy in the city. There are many ways of responding to the challenges facing global cities including creating rhythms and spaces of joy, identifying sources of joy, practicing kinship and mutuality as well as sharing and building joy. The gospel at its core is a revelation of the joy of Christ, a joy that is present in cities, in our cities. This article relates stories and explores scriptural themes such as shalom seeking (Jeremiah 29) that weave joy into the fabric of urban life. Joy flows like water through our lives and cities.
Introduction
Joy in the city is a hard sell. If asked to describe cities in ten words, few people would come up with joy as one of them. It is easy to see why. Around the globe, cities face many challenges—rapid growth that exceeds infrastructure, poverty, growing economic inequality, masses of refugees with no place to call home, gentrification displacing residents, environmental degradation, division, fear and hatred of the other. When looking at the city, people often see the suffering and injustices caused by these realities rather than experiencing joy. Yet the gospel at its core is a revelation of the joy of Christ. As Evelyne A. Reisacher (2016: xiii) wrote, “How can a missiologist like me not mention joy, when joy is so deeply embedded in the biblical narrative and is so clearly at the heart of God and his love for the world?” Joy is meant to flow through our lives and our cities. We (Jude and Mary) are students of, shalom seekers and neighbors in the city, living in the Greater Los Angeles region. We have witnessed and experienced the deep pain and brokenness of the city as well as tangible expressions of joy.
For as long as I (Mary) can remember, joy was a close companion. My baby photos show joy in my face, bright eyes filled with wonder and expectation. When God called me to Los Angeles in 1997, my prayer went something like this: God I will go anywhere you send me. Anywhere but . . . Los Angeles. Lo and behold, God called me to Los Angeles. My first months and years of living in LA felt more like punishment and dread rather than anything remotely joyful. Since moving to Los Angeles I have journeyed with young people, law enforcement, churches, and communities. I have witnessed injustices and trauma as I have walked with people through grief, death, and loneliness. God’s presence sustained me. It took a while to find joy in the city. As I discovered urban beauty, as I received the gift of deep friendships, as I recognized the presence of God in the suffering, hope, and joy grew. Joy has carried me and sustained me in the city.
Joy is not what initially drew me (Jude) to life in Los Angeles. Los Angeles was not on my bucket list of places to live, and it was with reluctance that I answered God’s call, or as I understand it now, joined God in God’s restoration work in the city. What began as obedience became, over the months and years, a place of deep connection and joy. Joy did not first draw me, but joy has kept me here. As the women in my struggling immigrant neighborhood welcomed me, the stranger in their midst, new joys were revealed to me. The women’s embrace and their laughter in the midst of their struggle to survive in LA changed me. As I accompanied the youth, like a second mom to some, the joy deepened, even as I listened to difficult stories of suffering and struggle. As members of InnerChange/Novo, we say that we live lives of gratitude and joy in our communities. We understand there will be hardship, but joy as well, as we accompany those that society keeps hidden on the margins.
Joy flows through the city and through our lives. New and unanticipated joy is what keeps us (Jude and Mary) grounded and committed to the city. There are countless (and many untold) stories of joy in the city. Together we witness and testify that God’s joy gives life and flows through the city. This article is a call to notice and recognize this joy that is in our cities through hearing the narratives, exploring the built environment, considering the challenges to joy, discovering the strength of rhythms as well as the sources of shared joy and joy building. We can develop a spirituality, theology, and missiology of joy in the urban. In this article we hope to unearth where joy flows through our lives and in our cities.
Joy flows like water
Water is a metaphor for life, healing, and restoration. It can bring these figuratively and literally. Scripture describes Jesus as living water, our source of life, and because of him, living water flows in us. John 7:38 Jesus said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” 1 Indeed, water is life for people and the land. Isaiah 44:3–4, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. They shall spring up like a green tamarisk, like willows by flowing streams.”
A watershed is a place where various streams of water flow together through a common place in the city. This imagery of water undergirds and shapes our understanding of joy flowing through and in the city. The city is a type of watershed, a place of convergence, bringing people from many corners of the world into a shared space.
Water is life. Water is the life source of cities. Cities depend on water because it provides sustenance to its inhabitants. God’s living water and joy flow in and through the city and her people. Joy is a response to the hearing and receiving of the gospel and joy is an outcome of our encounter and engagement with Jesus. This joy flows through us and in the city. We have been studying the role of water and power in the history of Los Angeles and throughout California. We have challenged ourselves to look for places of water and places of refreshment in the city. In a concrete environment, water reminds us of God’s presence and that not everything is human-made. It reminds us that we have a Creator who is daily breathing life into our lives and into the land we live in.
Built environment
Two Latin words for city provide some insight into how we see the city. Urbs refers to the building and physical places in the city. Civitas refers to people and their interactions and life together (Sheldrake, 2001: 109). The topic of joy in the city can be seen through these two lenses.
One of the unique aspects of life in the city is this built environment and the role of place in the city. People in cities are placed, in context, in specific locations with unique built environments. The built environment (made up of buildings, parks, public spaces, boulevards, and sidewalks, or lack of them) is designed and created by people. Neglect of the built environment has a serious impact on the quality of life in a city, yet the built environment is often overlooked and can result in what can feel like hostile urban spaces.
The apartment building where I (Jude) lived in my early days in Los Angeles had a large courtyard, in fact we picked this building for that reason. This courtyard created a safe space for children to play and adults to interact, away for the frequent drive-by shootings that occurred weekly on the street beyond. Here parties and Posadas could be hosted when small apartments housed 6–8 people with little room for guests. Common areas like courtyards can provide shared space for community. Laughter could often be heard coming from the courtyard. When our building became a neglected “slumhouse,” the residents were connected enough to begin a community organization to work together to bring change to the building. The community began to seek the common good of all in the building. 2
Cities need spaces where care for the common good can develop and grow. A brief walk around LA will reveal spaces that clearly communicate unwelcome to its citizens, spaces that mediate against interaction—park and bus benches with spikes to discourage sleeping, vast stretches of concrete and boulevards that prefer cars to pedestrians.
Other places communicate welcome, places that can nurture connection and joy, inclusion rather than inclusion. Well-designed public spaces, such as plazas and fountains, bring together the diverse peoples of the city. The flow of fountains are reminders of the flow of life with God as the wellspring, the source of life and joy.
What would it mean to intentionally create spaces for meaningful, human, mutual interactions, places where joyful encounters have a chance to take place? Do joyful urban encounters take place in spite of “hostile” urban spaces, or can a city be created and planned in such a way as to encourage joyful encounters across the range of the diversity of the city? What are ways that churches can be involved in joy creation through such places?
Responding to the challenges
Seeking joy in the city can be a daunting task in light of urban challenges. I (Mary) have served as a local law enforcement chaplain with two agencies in the Los Angeles region. As a chaplain, my responsibilities include delivering death notifications, responding to crisis situations, assisting in domestic disputes, walking with people as they recover from losing loved ones to homicide, suicides, and traffic accidents. I serve members of the law enforcement family as well as the community. I have stood in emergency rooms with parents lamenting the death of their child. I have walked through my own loss of losing my chaplain partner. I have seen grief and tragedy up close and personal as I have journeyed with people experiencing deep pain and trauma.
Skid Row is one of those places in our city of Los Angeles where people assume there is no joy. Our friend Sista Mary is the founder of a beautiful ministry Worthy of Love (http://www.worthyoflove.net/), hosting birthday parties monthly for children living on Skid Row. As these children grow up on Skid Row, some have never had a birthday party thrown for them until Worthy of Love. During the monthly parties, children dance to the music, eat birthday cake, and participate in the festivities. There is laughter, unbridled joy, and fun, all in the middle of Skid Row. Kids are like that. They experience joy in the here and now. They can have a total abandonment to the present reality and show us how to enter into joy. They don’t deny the reality of the pain and fear they live with but somehow they know how to embrace joy.
Suffering can be experienced both personally and communally. Barbara Holmes in her book Unspeakable Joy: African American Contemplative Practices discusses the development of black spiritualities that originated in Africa through the global diaspora and during slavery in America. These practices can serve to bring healing from the evils of racism (2004: 184). Holmes asserts that as we come together in our shared journey and sufferings, we find comfort, solace (2004: 185). The Apostle Paul further develops this idea by calling us to identify with the sufferings of Christ. So Philippians 3:10: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.” For the joy set before him, Christ endured the cross. We follow Christ, for the joy set before us. When we share in the suffering, shared joy can be our strength.
Rhythms that create space for joy
One of the challenges of creating and seeking joy in the city is the pace of life and lack of healthy rhythms, making it difficult to find space to encounter joy. Growing up in the countryside (Jude), the natural rhythms of creation, and needs of a dairy farm, ordered our lives. For most of human history, lives were ordered by the natural world—the seasons, the weather, the rising and setting of the sun.
Present-day cities are ordered by very different means. The rhythms of global cities are those of commerce and knowledge, with an internet that is “open” 24/7. (Some of us remember when TV signals ended for the night, and it was time for bed.) Supermarkets and Amazon are open all day, and access to the internet means a seemingly endless variety of ways to stay awake, even if we can stop ourselves from endless working. The struggle is most acute for those who have to work double time to pay high rents at minimum wage jobs.
Developing rhythms is countercultural, and we must be intentional to set them in place. The structure of the city makes rhythms difficult, thus we need to take action. We need each other to make this happen. Embracing a rhythm of joy and sorrow is an important place to start. Learning to lament through Psalms and songs can help us to express the sorrow that creeps into our souls. This lament then also makes way for joy to emerge through the sorrow. We were created for joy, but God knows our sorrows and wants to hear them. When we do, we find we are joining God’s own lament over evil and injustice.
Sources of joy
Research and experience provide us clues to where joy originates. Joy is at the heart, if not the very breath, of the gospel. Jesus restores relationships and joy to the human experience. We are made for God and made for relationship with God and each other. When relationships are restored, joy is shared. Joy is experienced and exchanged in Jesus’ accompaniment with us, and as we recognize our need for each other and come alongside each other in the city.
Kinship, mutuality, and joy
Father Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest, the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation organization in the world, and author of Tattoos on the Heart (2010) and Barking to the Choir (2017a). He has discovered the power of connectedness and mutuality for himself and for those coming out of prison and gang life. As we reveal our vulnerability and recognize our connectedness, we discover mutuality; our need for the other and that we belong to each other. As Father Greg says, there is no us and them, “just us.” In the mutuality, in relationship, we discover not only shared pain and struggles but also shared joy that flows between us.
I enjoy their [gang members’] company, for it is light and affectionate, and charming and good for the soul . . . Besides, it’s not for nothing that Pope Francis speaks of the “Joy of the Gospel.” Once the following of Jesus becomes a strain and a dour, odious task, a “dangerous” job, it’s lost its way. Once discipleship morphs into the deadline serious and unsmilingly grim, would it not be safe to say that we’ve wandered far from the gospel’s delighting heart? (Boyle, 2017a: 9)
Our faith is undergirded, led by joy. Living in the city can prove to be difficult, painful and taxing on the soul. However, life is not solely defined by the hard places, difficulties, and losses. We are not alone in the fight. God is with us and he has given us each other.
Shared joy
Our friends, Joe and Carmelita, have known each other since Joe was a teenager who attended the church and youth group that Carmelita and her husband pastored. Joe and Carmelita found each other thirty years later at a local rescue mission. Joe was in a recovery program at the mission where Carmelita volunteered. They reconnected as Carmelita was grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. They could not be more different in their cultural, family, and childhood experiences and life journeys. God brought them together and they adopted each other as family. Henri Nouwen wrote, “True joy is hidden where we are the same as other people: fragile and mortal. It is the joy of belonging to the human race. It is the joy of being with others as a friend, a companion, a fellow traveler. This is the joy of Jesus, who is Emmanuel: God-with-us” (in Reisacher, 2016: 29). God recreates and redefines family. In the midst of our grief, we can find strength in sharing our grief. We can be surprised by joy; joy in relationship. Yes, the joy flows between us and the joy increases as we share our lives with each other.
In the New Testament, Jesus introduces spiritual adoption to his dear friend John (who is about to lose a friend) and to his mother (who is about to lose a son). In preparing them for the void his death will cause in their lives, he leads them into a spiritual adoptive relationship. On the cross, Jesus explains this concept in John 19:25–27: “‘When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.’ The language that Jesus uses in this text is also legal adoptive language. He is directing Mary to take John as her son, and John to take Mary as his mother . . . caring for one another’s needs” (Glenn, 2014). In relationship, in family, including new expressions of family, we can find belonging, care, hope, and joy. The best kind of joy is shared. Joy is not intended to be experienced alone. Joy grows exponentially as it is shared.
The triune God invites us into the shared mission and joy of the gospel. Reisacher writes, “I show that joy is an important and neglected aspect of God’s mission. Current research on the nature of human attachment also reveals the importance of joy in the formation of healthy bonds. Both mission and human attachment research deal with the joyful aspect of personal relations” (2016: xiv). The relationship of Naomi and Ruth in the book of Ruth demonstrates the power of shared journey. Both women were widows, childless, and landless. Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth lived in a patriarchal culture where their value and voices as women were muted. In the midst of their suffering, God’s hesed, his loving-kindness, strengthened Ruth and Naomi, giving them hope. Ruth and Boaz welcomed a son which restored the lineage, hope, and joy for Naomi. Their journey is not just defined by their losses and grief but by their shared joy. The book of Ruth illustrates how caring for each other in the midst of the suffering can be a source of strength and joy. “Those who give to others set in motion a cycle of blessing that often includes feelings of satisfaction, fulfillment and a clear sense of purpose” (Reisacher, 2016: 115). The act of blessing others, even in the midst of our own suffering, brings a change in our emotions, brain, and outlook.
Joy building
The Old and New Testaments describe joy as a characteristic of the Kingdom. Joy is fundamental to living abundantly. Joy is deeply rooted in the essence of God’s and our existence. Miroslav Volf (2014) identifies three key components: agential (what you do), circumstantial (how the world is for you, both materially and culturally), and affective (how you feel). Joy integrates all three. God’s desire for our flourishing is deeply rooted in joy. In other words, the good life God offers us is marked by joy.
How do we become purveyors of joy in our cities, recognizing joy building as a spiritual practice? In his article “
The city is like a watershed, where cultures, stories, and neighbors converge. “Watersheds underlie all human endeavors and form the foundation for all future aspirations and survival . . . Every living organism within this basin is interconnected and dependent on the health of the others” (Dolman, 2008: 6). The watershed is the “Basin of Relations
As we engage with those who are different from us and our experiences, our potential to grow and experience joy multiplies. We give and receive joy. We find joy in being with each other. When we cross the barriers and boundaries bridged by Jesus (Eph. 2:14), we discover attachment and belonging. As we engage, we discover the unique ways we each bear the image of God in the city.
Shalom seeking in the city (Jeremiah 29)
God dwells, creates, and loves in the city. Cities are mentioned over 1,200 times in the Bible. Cities are the places where people are dwelling in greater numbers. Jeremiah 29 is the framework by which we understand God’s presence and call in the city. In this text God calls his people of Israel into exile, to live in the land of their enemies, making a home there generationally, and to seek the peace of a city not their own. They were promised that if they sought his peace, God would bring peace on them, shalom them.
God asks us to live in a city, to invest our lives in the city, to build relationships and dream in the city; to share the journey. As we develop a “theology of place,” we become more committed to the community in which we live and to seek its shalom. Shalom is a comprehensive concept that expresses society as God intended it to be, including a sense of wholeness, harmony, justice, and yes, joy. Joy is central to the flourishing God intends for us. We long for this joy and we need this joy. The people of God in Jeremiah learn to sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land, practice faith by blessing enemies, and serve the welfare of the city.
Jesus walked the earth (John 1:14) among us, embodying the love and grace of God. Joy is not only embedded and embodied in the person of Jesus, it is embedded and embodied in us, in the city and in our relationships. Joy shapes our identity and relationships. As we engage with neighbors, is the joy of the Lord visible in us? Where do we witness the presence of joy in place and joy flowing through our lives and cities?
Conclusion: When joy flows like water through our lives and cities
Psalm 85 describes peace, faithfulness, and love springing up from the ground like “flowers in the sidewalk.” Flowers can’t grow without the water that gives them life. If we look for it, we will see the intersection of urban and the presence of joy flowing like water through the urban landscape, and through our lives. Isaiah 65 paints the picture of the new Heavens and Earth and tells us that we will sing out of the joy of our hearts forever. God rejoices over and take delight in us and his Kingdom brings peace and joy. The urban reality can be a hard place. Joy is our life line, the water for our souls. May we become joy builders together and witness the joy of the Lord that flows freely and indiscriminately through our lives and cities.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
