During the Advent season, we will feature artwork each week by ChanMi Jung Pyles. The theme for the third week of Advent is Joy. Enjoy ChanMi’s painting entitled “Shout for Joy.”

“Joy Everlasting”
Poem by Joyce Koo Dalrymple

Sometimes joy feels daring.
It does not wait for skies
to be washed clean of night;
It begins in the darkness,
flickering in the shadows,
trembling with courage,
a small flame that refuses to go out.

Sometimes joy doesn’t feel like joy.
It comes alongside lament and unmet longings.
It doesn’t betray its companions
or pretend that everything is good.
It can hold space and quietly sit
with pain named and unnamed.

Sometimes joy feels like grace.
Despite being bruised and battered,
worn and weary,
it continues to breathe in and out.
Its very survival a testimony,
to the divine breath that has kept it alive.

Sometimes joy feels like rest,
accepting the boundary lines of the season,
embracing limitations as an invitation.
to be at peace with oneself,
and present with others,
without needing to perform.

Sometimes joy is jubilant.
Birthing new life,
bursting in color,
beholding love incarnate,
the mystery of Christ in me unfolding,
the Joy of becoming…

Joy everlasting.