“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore.

My father and his two older brothers were athletes. Through high school and university, they competed, often winning medals.  My father’s main event was long distance: cross country, they called it then.  He often told a story of how he learned to run long-distance.  As a young child, his mother had sent him to the store to buy some sugar.  An older boy stopped him and made a suggestion.  He would take him to a store further away where the sugar was cheaper, and they could spend the extra money on ‘sweets’ (as candy was called in England).  Off they went, to an area my father was not familiar with.  As the story goes, once the transaction was complete, the older boy grabbed the sweets and started running.  My father, who did not know the way home, knew the only way he would not get lost was to keep up with the bigger boy! And thus began his athletic career!

None of my siblings or myself showed any particular sporting ability.  In my case it was not for want of trying.  I was the most enthusiastic member of any team, definitely winning an ‘E’ for effort.  But despite my efforts, I lacked that star, that spark that would have won me medals. I was, however, the loudest cheerleader for our teams at school.  Every football (I do believe we no longer have to say ‘soccer’, I think the world agrees that football is football, now!) match at home or away, I would be there, cheering myself hoarse on the sidelines.  It was in the era before Clarendon College won a championship. Yet we were ecstatic even when we managed to score against the champions (they still won, but, hey! we scored a goal against them!). We found joy in small successes.

As an adult I have not been an attentive sports fan.  In Jamaica we are called ‘wagonists’ – jumping on the bandwagon only at times of great success, going quiet at other times.  I blame my worklife – when you work shifts and weekends, you rarely join in the Sunday afternoon routines, the great sporting events.  So it is only the odd Olympic race, the occasional World Cup football match that catches your attention.  You are used to catching glimpses on a patient’s TV, or see the highlights at some later point in time.  Of course, nowadays with ‘streaming’ this, and YouTube that, you can at least see the whole event at some later point in time. 

Even though I am now retired, somehow I managed to miss many of the early drama of this year’s FIFA World Cup games.  I read of some of the excitement, but of all the games to suddenly catch, it was the last fifteen minutes of the Norway-Brazil game that reminded me of what a wild and unpredictable game football can be! And I was introduced to the Viking phenom: Haaland.  As I posted on my Facebook page at the time: Could anyone look more like a Viking than Haaland?

When you (as a last minute, fair-weather fan) join the parade, it is good not to have skin in the game.  I watch each game rooting for the underdog, and looking for the stories behind the scores and this year there have been a ton of them.  But as I watch, I find joy in the opposing team player pulling up his competitor after he tackled him; the banter between a goalie and the player who just got past him with a penalty shot; the referee who makes the two players who were jostling and about to get physical, shake hands! Reminds me of my father’s favorite punishment, making two squabbling siblings spend time together and not come out until they had made up. 

My social media feed at the moment abounds with feel good stories (and some may be true!), especially related to this World Cup season.  Visiting fans falling in love with the US, being shown kindness and warm friendliness they were not expecting.  The image of the US in the world had fallen so low, that many came prepared for the worst of us, and found the best of us.  How do we amplify these acts, how do we replicate this feeling

There has been so much to find despicable in the actions of our leaders.  Daily we read of new blaring acts of corruption; government agencies which previously tracked down parasites, or dangerous weather events, or acts of civil right violations, have been decimated; 10,000 people (human beings) were detained by ICE in a five-day push in June; the list is endless.  How do we not feel helpless in the face of so many unspeakable acts, so many cruelties?

And yet, there are at the same time so many glimmers of hope, acts by individuals, not leaders.  One of the goals of authoritarians is to engender fear in the citizens.  Even for many naturalized citizens and legal immigrants, the environment seems hostile enough that we are cautious about what we post, where we go.  There have been threats to ‘denaturalize’ citizens, stories of revoked permanent resident status, which may be difficult to enforce, but imagine the disruption to your life.  But the antidote to fear is joy.  And we are challenged in such times to elevate the joyful, to diminish the scarier aspects of life.

We can see the racism that undergirds current administration policy.  The injustices which were thought to be abolished through amendments to the Constitution, through Civil Rights Laws, are still there.  Avowed white supremacists marched (masked) through the streets of our nation’s capital on July 4^th without challenge (imagine if you can, a group of Black Lives Matter protesters being permitted to march, unchallenged).  In the face of all this, can we still find, can we celebrate, can we demonstrate joy?

These are the times when it is multiple small acts that will be the resistance.  We remember the frog suits in Seattle; the clarinetist who protested by playing ‘Ghostbusters’ outside a detention facility; the many, many hilarious memes that flood our social media feed pointing out the ludicrous, the barbaric, the unprecedented acts of greed and grift; the courageous acts of defiance demonstrated daily by non-violent protesters.  We must remember that this is happening, that we the people have power, even while our news feed is full of the latest attempts of voter suppression.

On this Friday morning, I encourage everyone to look for, and then amplify joy wherever you see it, for it is always to be found.  When we give in to fear, to doubt, to hate, then those who wish to control us have won. 

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.