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A review by drbobcornwall
The Gravity of Joy: A Story of Being Lost and Found by Angela Williams Gorrell
5.0
Don't let the title of the book fool you. This isn't some clap-happy, sentimentalized book that advises you not to worry, but just be happy. This book is about as real as you can get when speaking about joy. In fact, you will come away with a very different vision of joy than perhaps you had before. This is a book that seeks to develop a theology of joy in the midst of deep suffering -- including that of the author.
The Gravity of Joy is a deeply personal book that brings together life experience with research on a theology of Joy. The stories involve opioid addiction, suicide, and prison life. The question is, where does joy fit into this picture? How might one experience joy in the midst of suffering?
The author, Angela Williams Gorrell, is currently serving as the assistant professor of practical theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary (Baylor University). The roots of the book, however, are found in her previous work at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture as a member of a team working on the Theology of Joy and the Good Life project. Her job was to research joy and teach a class at Yale titled "A Life Worth Living."
The stories you will read in this book begin to unfold right at the moment Gorrell was to begin teaching a section of the Life Worth Living class at Yale. Just a year after she was hired for this project, three family members died in quick succession over a period of four weeks, what she describes as her four weeks of hell. The first death came from the husband of a cousin, who committed suicide. The second death was a nephew who suddenly died of a heart attack in his early twenties. Finally, her father died as a result of his opioid addiction that had stripped away what had been a fulfilling life. All of this took place in December of 2016. Of her father, she writes "Chronic pain had changed him from a fun, loving, passionate person into someone holed up in a bedroom addicted to pills." (xv).
This is a book about joy in the context of a conversation about suicide, the opioid addiction crisis, and the realities of prison life. As she notes in her prologue to the book, her purpose in writing this book is to describe "connections between suicidal thinking, addiction, and despair, and it prescribes joy as the counteragent to despair" (p. xvii). She writes from experience, seeking to understand research joy even as the world around her was falling apart. She confesses that it took almost nine months of crying and seven months of therapy to get to the point where she could write this book.
The first death came just a week before Christmas, when word came that Dustin had killed himself. This death came not long after she had begun teaching this course about lives worth living. Then two weeks later her nephew Mason died, not long after Dustin's funeral. Then not long thereafter, Angela's father came into the picture. She speaks of her father, who had been an attorney by vocation, and who by her description had lived his life big, was dying of his opioid addiction. All of this takes place while teaching a class on a life worth living.
These deaths as they intersect with the class and the project on joy lead to more stories about addition, recognizing the realities of addiction and how it is perceived often as a moral problem. In these chapters, she speaks of her own wrestling with her father's addiction and trying to figure out how it occurred. She remembered the way he lived his life and the family that existed. Having spoken of these realities, she then speaks of her own grief, of her own sense of despair. So how do you teach about joy when grief has taken hold? Some deaths were more easily explained than others, but even then there was little comfort.
Interestingly enough, she began to find healing and hope after she began co-leading a Bible study in a women's prison. Gorrell tells the stories of these women whom she met, their challenges dealing with hopelessness at times, and yet finding a sense of hope in the community formed by these studies. And Gorrell found her own healing and sense of joy in their lives as she got to know them. Out of these conversations come opportunities to reflect on mass incarceration, often due to drug issues. How many people are incarcerated because of "drug offenses" but never get the treatment necessary. Instead, they live lives that at times don't seem worth living, which of course leads to suicides and suicide attempts. In the midst of these conversations, Gorrell brings into the conversation the importance of community.
It's hard to describe the book as it's rooted in Gorrell's own story and the stories of persons she comes to know in her life and through her research. These are woven together in a tapestry that speaks to the tragedies of life. Yet, there is this thread of joy. It's not always front and center, but it ties things together. She writes at one point in the book that "since joy is the 'present experience of God's being and becoming' ---a recognition of God, the very manifestation of goodness and meaning --- profound rejoicing is possible particularly in suffering." (p. 128). In many ways, the theology of joy that she was exploring at the time is present but with subtleness. That seems appropriate. Faith is central to the story, but it's not spoken of in a way that glosses over the realities of lives lost and hurt. So, theologically she can speak of joy as "a counteragent to despair because it can be sustained and sustain us, even when standing right next to sorrow." (p. 138). When it comes to experiencing joy, we can't simply create it like, to use her analogy, we make spaghetti. However, we can do things that can help us prepare to receive joy and recognize it when arrives. Thus, "we all can live postured toward joy, alive to its possibility, even in the unlikeliest of places, even in close proximity to our sorrow, even and most especially in the midst of our suffering" (pp. 169-170). What can obstruct joy are fear and anger. Thus they must be attended to if joy is to come. The pathway to joy, again, requires community. We can't find it alone. The good news is that we can experience lives worth living, and the path to that is to remind each other of this truth. That she believes will help rescue people from despair.
In her epilogue, she gives us some guidance regarding suicide, opioid addiction, prison/justice reform. She speaks to the root causes of despair and invites us to join together in reducing suicide, heal addiction, and change the prison system. There is much work to be done, but there is joy to be found in the midst of this work to which we are called.
I found the book to be profoundly moving. I believe that it offers a word of hope to many who may think that experiencing joy is an unreachable goal. The truth is, the path to joy in the midst of suffering, is a path that requires us to walk together with eyes wide open. I received the book as an advanced reader's copy that came without the foreword by Miroslav Volf, who directs the center that gave birth to the project that stands behind Gorrell's book. That foreword might give some more context, but even without it, the book is one to be read and pondered.
The Gravity of Joy is a deeply personal book that brings together life experience with research on a theology of Joy. The stories involve opioid addiction, suicide, and prison life. The question is, where does joy fit into this picture? How might one experience joy in the midst of suffering?
The author, Angela Williams Gorrell, is currently serving as the assistant professor of practical theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary (Baylor University). The roots of the book, however, are found in her previous work at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture as a member of a team working on the Theology of Joy and the Good Life project. Her job was to research joy and teach a class at Yale titled "A Life Worth Living."
The stories you will read in this book begin to unfold right at the moment Gorrell was to begin teaching a section of the Life Worth Living class at Yale. Just a year after she was hired for this project, three family members died in quick succession over a period of four weeks, what she describes as her four weeks of hell. The first death came from the husband of a cousin, who committed suicide. The second death was a nephew who suddenly died of a heart attack in his early twenties. Finally, her father died as a result of his opioid addiction that had stripped away what had been a fulfilling life. All of this took place in December of 2016. Of her father, she writes "Chronic pain had changed him from a fun, loving, passionate person into someone holed up in a bedroom addicted to pills." (xv).
This is a book about joy in the context of a conversation about suicide, the opioid addiction crisis, and the realities of prison life. As she notes in her prologue to the book, her purpose in writing this book is to describe "connections between suicidal thinking, addiction, and despair, and it prescribes joy as the counteragent to despair" (p. xvii). She writes from experience, seeking to understand research joy even as the world around her was falling apart. She confesses that it took almost nine months of crying and seven months of therapy to get to the point where she could write this book.
The first death came just a week before Christmas, when word came that Dustin had killed himself. This death came not long after she had begun teaching this course about lives worth living. Then two weeks later her nephew Mason died, not long after Dustin's funeral. Then not long thereafter, Angela's father came into the picture. She speaks of her father, who had been an attorney by vocation, and who by her description had lived his life big, was dying of his opioid addiction. All of this takes place while teaching a class on a life worth living.
These deaths as they intersect with the class and the project on joy lead to more stories about addition, recognizing the realities of addiction and how it is perceived often as a moral problem. In these chapters, she speaks of her own wrestling with her father's addiction and trying to figure out how it occurred. She remembered the way he lived his life and the family that existed. Having spoken of these realities, she then speaks of her own grief, of her own sense of despair. So how do you teach about joy when grief has taken hold? Some deaths were more easily explained than others, but even then there was little comfort.
Interestingly enough, she began to find healing and hope after she began co-leading a Bible study in a women's prison. Gorrell tells the stories of these women whom she met, their challenges dealing with hopelessness at times, and yet finding a sense of hope in the community formed by these studies. And Gorrell found her own healing and sense of joy in their lives as she got to know them. Out of these conversations come opportunities to reflect on mass incarceration, often due to drug issues. How many people are incarcerated because of "drug offenses" but never get the treatment necessary. Instead, they live lives that at times don't seem worth living, which of course leads to suicides and suicide attempts. In the midst of these conversations, Gorrell brings into the conversation the importance of community.
It's hard to describe the book as it's rooted in Gorrell's own story and the stories of persons she comes to know in her life and through her research. These are woven together in a tapestry that speaks to the tragedies of life. Yet, there is this thread of joy. It's not always front and center, but it ties things together. She writes at one point in the book that "since joy is the 'present experience of God's being and becoming' ---a recognition of God, the very manifestation of goodness and meaning --- profound rejoicing is possible particularly in suffering." (p. 128). In many ways, the theology of joy that she was exploring at the time is present but with subtleness. That seems appropriate. Faith is central to the story, but it's not spoken of in a way that glosses over the realities of lives lost and hurt. So, theologically she can speak of joy as "a counteragent to despair because it can be sustained and sustain us, even when standing right next to sorrow." (p. 138). When it comes to experiencing joy, we can't simply create it like, to use her analogy, we make spaghetti. However, we can do things that can help us prepare to receive joy and recognize it when arrives. Thus, "we all can live postured toward joy, alive to its possibility, even in the unlikeliest of places, even in close proximity to our sorrow, even and most especially in the midst of our suffering" (pp. 169-170). What can obstruct joy are fear and anger. Thus they must be attended to if joy is to come. The pathway to joy, again, requires community. We can't find it alone. The good news is that we can experience lives worth living, and the path to that is to remind each other of this truth. That she believes will help rescue people from despair.
In her epilogue, she gives us some guidance regarding suicide, opioid addiction, prison/justice reform. She speaks to the root causes of despair and invites us to join together in reducing suicide, heal addiction, and change the prison system. There is much work to be done, but there is joy to be found in the midst of this work to which we are called.
I found the book to be profoundly moving. I believe that it offers a word of hope to many who may think that experiencing joy is an unreachable goal. The truth is, the path to joy in the midst of suffering, is a path that requires us to walk together with eyes wide open. I received the book as an advanced reader's copy that came without the foreword by Miroslav Volf, who directs the center that gave birth to the project that stands behind Gorrell's book. That foreword might give some more context, but even without it, the book is one to be read and pondered.