For many people living in the United States, 2025 has felt like an unrelenting freefall, but rather than despair, people of faith are compelled to confront reality while we work to improve it. In a new Netflix biopic called Being Eddie, Jerry Seinfeld noted that comedians are great observers of their environment: “You’re not normal. You’re not seeing the world at all in the same way. You’re here, but you’re either looking through things or your perspective is above the terrestrial world, and you’re looking down at it.” As Eddie Murphy said, “Sense of humor is ultimately just an acute sense of proportion.” Instead of judging what we see as abject insanity, we can get curious about what makes people think the way they do, and acknowledge the fact that most of us take ourselves too seriously.
Joy is an incomparable gift to humanity. Happiness is ephemeral but joy satisfies because it is real and enduring.
Attending to Joy
The relentless assault on decency this year calls for frequent, unequivocal reminders that our species has not forfeited human dignity. Joy, a central Franciscan virtue, is inherently potent: it is a salvific gift, and an antidote to dehumanization. Though we feel besieged by chaos, the Christian tradition has spiritual resources that help offset a freefall into spiritual desolation. Humor and delight are sturdy tools that can help stabilize society.
The documentary Mission: JOY — Finding Happiness in Troubled Times illustrates that delight can bloom when opposites coincide. The 2022 film witnesses to the life-giving relationship between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of blessed memory. Their mischievous, uncontrollable laughter spontaneously erupted during their conversations. Sometimes it occurred not even when they were speaking but simply in sitting next to one another. Such meetings created a poignant, timeless image of two sages delighting in their differences while shifting between deep listening and lively banter. During a 2008 panel discussion that included the Dalai Lama, and other spiritual leaders, Archbishop Tutu impishly noted to a group of young people that, whether God likes it or not, we are all God has. Far from disparaging humanity, his comment highlighted the fact that our species is a masterpiece in God’s eyes. God sees, touches and enters the world through us. Our job is to get out of our own, and one another’s way. The Spirit calls us into relationship as a corrective to destructive behavior.
JOY captures exquisitely the goodness that two religious leaders discovered in each other across a decades’ long friendship. The film includes a scene that has surely upset some and delighted others, as both are predictable responses to radical hospitality. During a celebration of the Eucharist in Dharamshala on the occasion of Archbishop Tutu’s eightieth birthday, the Dalai Lama received Communion from the archbishop. The tacit starting point for their interreligious bond was an appreciation for advaita (similiarity-in-difference): delight in the unique beauty and receptivity to holiness witnessed in another self. On that occasion, the meeting place for their intimate celebration was the table of blessing marked by the joy of being together.
In any Eucharistic event, appropriately called “Thanksgiving” (eucharistia in Greek) a shared experience of divine immanence prepares participants for new awareness of divine transcendence, provided that we are open to it.
The invitation to the banquet from Archbishop Tutu to the Dalai Lama reminds Christians that we do not have the right to extinguish the wildfire of the Holy Spirit.
Our many attempts to make God small bring us dangerously close to mistaking our small selves for God. In witnessing the cherished friendship between a South African Anglican cleric and a Tibetan Buddhist monk, the world was gifted a glimpse of heaven. What could be a fuller witness to catholicity than their friendship?
With ongoing market volatility, cuts to social services, and the devaluation of ethical behavior, not only is there a widespread experience of loss, the future, too, is unsure. It is easy to despair, yet our better selves know that we need to cultivate greater tolerance for ambiguity. We can be engulfed by uncertainty and grief or prayerfully confront chaos.
Isolation and Anxiety
Having noticed a spike in anxiety among young adults following Covid, I asked a group of undergraduates to reflect on something they dread doing. One student said “smiling.” I will admit that not only did his answer catch me off-guard, my heart broke for him. As we were approaching midterms a week later, I tried to impress upon the students the potential benefit of studying in small groups. Every semester I make this suggestion, assuring them that they are each other’s best resources. I note that it also benefits students who are excelling to include those who are underwater because if we can explain something well, we understand it. However, they rarely see the value of working together. Through no fault of their own, many young adults have no awareness of what can be achieved through collaboration. Why would they when our centuries’-old institutions are normalizing divisiveness and celebrating vitriol? Billionaires endorse toxic exceptionalism, commend bullying and advocate for exclusivity. The values and behaviors young people see in older adults are antithetical to the Gospel. Their lived experience is of a world that glorifies pugnacity. How could this not be anxiety-producing for people with limited life experience?
About half of my students confessed that they would prefer to feel nothing than experience emotional pain. However, as a majority student-athlete community, they also understand the axiom: “A body in motion stays in motion.” They realize that if they continue to workout, they will become stronger and more proficient at their sport. They understand that no two workouts are the same and that by doing hard things, they can do the next hard thing. They know that choosing to pull the covers over their heads instead of getting out of bed at dawn and struggling through practice usually results in more of the same. Nothing plus nothing equals nothing, whereas suffering plus time yields growth.
The Joy of Connection
Having lived half of my life in the twentieth century and half in the twenty-first, I feel fortunate to have been born into a society that was trying, with various degrees of success, to uphold the value of human dignity. It was presented as an attribute that belonged inherently to all people. In school I received the message that people are more similar than different. As a young adult I believed we were moving in the right direction, albeit incrementally.
To spark their imaginations, in the last few months I have described for my students how dramatically different the end of the twentieth century was from the first quarter of the twenty-first. I have illustrated how we relied on one another and that it was normal to have face-to-face conversations. Pay phones made us aware of the layout of urban neighborhoods. As a ten-year-old child, if I needed change in order to use the phone, I went to the corner store to ask the clerk to break a dollar. If my watch stopped, I would ask a stranger for the time. Bookstores provided a window into the larger world and libraries had books. Both types of establishments were abundant. Professors did not have to devise a technology policy since computers did not fit into backpacks. If we wanted to reach someone we might have to leave a message at the beep. Universities had libraries rather than coffee shops with TV screens, which meant that streaming services and social hour did not compete for our attention.
Without pocket-sized ear buds to drown out the world, we were attuned to what was happening around us. I have offered a snapshot not of small-town America, but of San Francisco in the 70s, 80s and 90s. One of my earliest memories of the world beyond my family and play group was of the yellow ribbons tied around the trees at the school bus stop. I learned that there were U.S. hostages in Iran and that Jimmy Carter was trying to bring them home. The news was delivered unsarcastically by Walter Cronkite and with little, if any, running commentary.
On September 11th, 2001, I had heard that the newscaster was on vacation in Florence while I was there doing dissertation research. Remembering comfort, clarity and often optimism with which he delivered the news, I wandered through the city, dazed and half-listening to the news on my Walkman. With Walter Cronkite as symbol of security, I knew that I would feel less disoriented if I could spend even a few moments with him.
When I began teaching in 2003, it still made sense to suggest to students who were discerning their future that they go into a bookstore and pay attention to the sections that drew them in. I have yet to find a satisfying alternative to a bookstore. For ten years I have had a brief letter to the editor from a satirical magazine in London by Peter White of Derbyshire posted on my office door:
SIR: I haven’t got a computer, but I was told about Facebook and Twitter and am trying to make friends outside Facebook and Twitter while applying the same principles.
Every day, I walk down the street and tell passers-by what I have eaten, how I feel, what I have done the night before and what I will do for the rest of the day. I give them pictures of my wife, my daughter, my dog and me gardening and on holiday, spending time by the pool. I also listen to their conversations, tell them I ‘like’ them and give them my opinion on every subject that interests me…whether it interests them or not.
And it works. I already have four people following me; two police officers, a social worker and a psychiatrist.
I leave the statement there not for students but as a chronometer to remind myself about how quickly things change. Although astute, White’s commentary lacks the poignancy it had even a decade ago. Today we have constant access to GPS data, but are losing track of ourselves. What I shared about my experience of the 20th century might remind those who also lived it that we can still affirm a worldview in which our neighbors are friends rather than threats, and we can embody the joy of being together for those who have no lived experience of that historical period.
Shifting Perspectives
In the 1930s, Germans were fed a form of virtual reality in which salvation was in the hands of Hitler. In truth, he held in his hands the demise of a generation. The German people did not know why they were suffocating until the war ended and they found relief. Buildings and lives had to become rubble in order for people to see a lie for what it was. Germany worked religiously for several generations to create a new reality. Now that the last Holocaust survivor has died, the future of remembrance is uncertain.
However, faith does not depend on certainty, but on perseverance.
Virtual reality must not be mistaken for the Really Real, which is what Archbishop Tutu entered into with his Buddhist friend at the Eucharistic banquet. Germany’s resurrection from the ashes was inspirational: it made room for the Holy Spirit that brought about remorse, understanding and a commitment to change.
Humanity is at an inflection point in our ability to distinguish between human and artificial intelligence, in part because humans are beginning to analyze the world inorganically. The psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist provides a compelling argument about why this is so. He notes that our dependence on social media and mechanization has privileged the function of the left-brain hemisphere, which is adept at slicing and dicing information, to the detriment of the right hemisphere, where creativity and a fuller, nuanced understanding gives primacy of place to beauty and ambiguity. Fields like art, music, poetry, literature and spirituality provide necessary correctives to the self-destructive process of left-brain meaning-making, or the lack thereof.
Resilience
The moving relationship between Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama offers a retrospective about an era in which people made eye-contact and engaged with one another as beloved living creatures. True joy challenges the disastrous impact of dictatorship and is a bi-product of peacemaking. It also functions like a B-12 shot. We can choose to bring about an end to violence, decongest work relationships, or help young people experience joy in school and friendships. Whatever efforts we make to rectify things in our little corners of the world, it’s helpful to remember that our earnest efforts bring about engagement (or reengagement) with the world. It is impossible to be joyful in shallow relationships. People are either fully present or not at all.
Last April I learned something invaluable by observing a raspberry bush that I was convinced had died. Though I truly believed it was a futile effort, I weeded the area around the original stalk. Within a few days, I noticed that new shoots and leaves had emerged not from the original branch, but from rhizomes a foot away. God and nature surprise and delight us when we work and wait for the good that is the gospel promise. Joy is perhaps the most prominent hallmark of the Really Real. It also reveals the capacity of every living creature to overcome hardship.
God Is Still Making All Things New
For many people living in the United States, 2025 has felt like an unrelenting freefall, but rather than despair, people of faith are compelled to confront reality while we work to improve it. In a new Netflix biopic called Being Eddie, Jerry Seinfeld noted that comedians are great observers of their environment: “You’re not normal. You’re not seeing the world at all in the same way. You’re here, but you’re either looking through things or your perspective is above the terrestrial world, and you’re looking down at it.” As Eddie Murphy said, “Sense of humor is ultimately just an acute sense of proportion.” Instead of judging what we see as abject insanity, we can get curious about what makes people think the way they do, and acknowledge the fact that most of us take ourselves too seriously.
Joy is an incomparable gift to humanity. Happiness is ephemeral but joy satisfies because it is real and enduring.
Attending to Joy
The relentless assault on decency this year calls for frequent, unequivocal reminders that our species has not forfeited human dignity. Joy, a central Franciscan virtue, is inherently potent: it is a salvific gift, and an antidote to dehumanization. Though we feel besieged by chaos, the Christian tradition has spiritual resources that help offset a freefall into spiritual desolation. Humor and delight are sturdy tools that can help stabilize society.
The documentary Mission: JOY — Finding Happiness in Troubled Times illustrates that delight can bloom when opposites coincide. The 2022 film witnesses to the life-giving relationship between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of blessed memory. Their mischievous, uncontrollable laughter spontaneously erupted during their conversations. Sometimes it occurred not even when they were speaking but simply in sitting next to one another. Such meetings created a poignant, timeless image of two sages delighting in their differences while shifting between deep listening and lively banter. During a 2008 panel discussion that included the Dalai Lama, and other spiritual leaders, Archbishop Tutu impishly noted to a group of young people that, whether God likes it or not, we are all God has. Far from disparaging humanity, his comment highlighted the fact that our species is a masterpiece in God’s eyes. God sees, touches and enters the world through us. Our job is to get out of our own, and one another’s way. The Spirit calls us into relationship as a corrective to destructive behavior.
JOY captures exquisitely the goodness that two religious leaders discovered in each other across a decades’ long friendship. The film includes a scene that has surely upset some and delighted others, as both are predictable responses to radical hospitality. During a celebration of the Eucharist in Dharamshala on the occasion of Archbishop Tutu’s eightieth birthday, the Dalai Lama received Communion from the archbishop. The tacit starting point for their interreligious bond was an appreciation for advaita (similiarity-in-difference): delight in the unique beauty and receptivity to holiness witnessed in another self. On that occasion, the meeting place for their intimate celebration was the table of blessing marked by the joy of being together.
In any Eucharistic event, appropriately called “Thanksgiving” (eucharistia in Greek) a shared experience of divine immanence prepares participants for new awareness of divine transcendence, provided that we are open to it.
Our many attempts to make God small bring us dangerously close to mistaking our small selves for God. In witnessing the cherished friendship between a South African Anglican cleric and a Tibetan Buddhist monk, the world was gifted a glimpse of heaven. What could be a fuller witness to catholicity than their friendship?
With ongoing market volatility, cuts to social services, and the devaluation of ethical behavior, not only is there a widespread experience of loss, the future, too, is unsure. It is easy to despair, yet our better selves know that we need to cultivate greater tolerance for ambiguity. We can be engulfed by uncertainty and grief or prayerfully confront chaos.
Isolation and Anxiety
Having noticed a spike in anxiety among young adults following Covid, I asked a group of undergraduates to reflect on something they dread doing. One student said “smiling.” I will admit that not only did his answer catch me off-guard, my heart broke for him. As we were approaching midterms a week later, I tried to impress upon the students the potential benefit of studying in small groups. Every semester I make this suggestion, assuring them that they are each other’s best resources. I note that it also benefits students who are excelling to include those who are underwater because if we can explain something well, we understand it. However, they rarely see the value of working together. Through no fault of their own, many young adults have no awareness of what can be achieved through collaboration. Why would they when our centuries’-old institutions are normalizing divisiveness and celebrating vitriol? Billionaires endorse toxic exceptionalism, commend bullying and advocate for exclusivity. The values and behaviors young people see in older adults are antithetical to the Gospel. Their lived experience is of a world that glorifies pugnacity. How could this not be anxiety-producing for people with limited life experience?
About half of my students confessed that they would prefer to feel nothing than experience emotional pain. However, as a majority student-athlete community, they also understand the axiom: “A body in motion stays in motion.” They realize that if they continue to workout, they will become stronger and more proficient at their sport. They understand that no two workouts are the same and that by doing hard things, they can do the next hard thing. They know that choosing to pull the covers over their heads instead of getting out of bed at dawn and struggling through practice usually results in more of the same. Nothing plus nothing equals nothing, whereas suffering plus time yields growth.
The Joy of Connection
Having lived half of my life in the twentieth century and half in the twenty-first, I feel fortunate to have been born into a society that was trying, with various degrees of success, to uphold the value of human dignity. It was presented as an attribute that belonged inherently to all people. In school I received the message that people are more similar than different. As a young adult I believed we were moving in the right direction, albeit incrementally.
To spark their imaginations, in the last few months I have described for my students how dramatically different the end of the twentieth century was from the first quarter of the twenty-first. I have illustrated how we relied on one another and that it was normal to have face-to-face conversations. Pay phones made us aware of the layout of urban neighborhoods. As a ten-year-old child, if I needed change in order to use the phone, I went to the corner store to ask the clerk to break a dollar. If my watch stopped, I would ask a stranger for the time. Bookstores provided a window into the larger world and libraries had books. Both types of establishments were abundant. Professors did not have to devise a technology policy since computers did not fit into backpacks. If we wanted to reach someone we might have to leave a message at the beep. Universities had libraries rather than coffee shops with TV screens, which meant that streaming services and social hour did not compete for our attention.
Without pocket-sized ear buds to drown out the world, we were attuned to what was happening around us. I have offered a snapshot not of small-town America, but of San Francisco in the 70s, 80s and 90s. One of my earliest memories of the world beyond my family and play group was of the yellow ribbons tied around the trees at the school bus stop. I learned that there were U.S. hostages in Iran and that Jimmy Carter was trying to bring them home. The news was delivered unsarcastically by Walter Cronkite and with little, if any, running commentary.
On September 11th, 2001, I had heard that the newscaster was on vacation in Florence while I was there doing dissertation research. Remembering comfort, clarity and often optimism with which he delivered the news, I wandered through the city, dazed and half-listening to the news on my Walkman. With Walter Cronkite as symbol of security, I knew that I would feel less disoriented if I could spend even a few moments with him.
When I began teaching in 2003, it still made sense to suggest to students who were discerning their future that they go into a bookstore and pay attention to the sections that drew them in. I have yet to find a satisfying alternative to a bookstore. For ten years I have had a brief letter to the editor from a satirical magazine in London by Peter White of Derbyshire posted on my office door:
I leave the statement there not for students but as a chronometer to remind myself about how quickly things change. Although astute, White’s commentary lacks the poignancy it had even a decade ago. Today we have constant access to GPS data, but are losing track of ourselves. What I shared about my experience of the 20th century might remind those who also lived it that we can still affirm a worldview in which our neighbors are friends rather than threats, and we can embody the joy of being together for those who have no lived experience of that historical period.
Shifting Perspectives
In the 1930s, Germans were fed a form of virtual reality in which salvation was in the hands of Hitler. In truth, he held in his hands the demise of a generation. The German people did not know why they were suffocating until the war ended and they found relief. Buildings and lives had to become rubble in order for people to see a lie for what it was. Germany worked religiously for several generations to create a new reality. Now that the last Holocaust survivor has died, the future of remembrance is uncertain.
Virtual reality must not be mistaken for the Really Real, which is what Archbishop Tutu entered into with his Buddhist friend at the Eucharistic banquet. Germany’s resurrection from the ashes was inspirational: it made room for the Holy Spirit that brought about remorse, understanding and a commitment to change.
Humanity is at an inflection point in our ability to distinguish between human and artificial intelligence, in part because humans are beginning to analyze the world inorganically. The psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist provides a compelling argument about why this is so. He notes that our dependence on social media and mechanization has privileged the function of the left-brain hemisphere, which is adept at slicing and dicing information, to the detriment of the right hemisphere, where creativity and a fuller, nuanced understanding gives primacy of place to beauty and ambiguity. Fields like art, music, poetry, literature and spirituality provide necessary correctives to the self-destructive process of left-brain meaning-making, or the lack thereof.
Resilience
The moving relationship between Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama offers a retrospective about an era in which people made eye-contact and engaged with one another as beloved living creatures. True joy challenges the disastrous impact of dictatorship and is a bi-product of peacemaking. It also functions like a B-12 shot. We can choose to bring about an end to violence, decongest work relationships, or help young people experience joy in school and friendships. Whatever efforts we make to rectify things in our little corners of the world, it’s helpful to remember that our earnest efforts bring about engagement (or reengagement) with the world. It is impossible to be joyful in shallow relationships. People are either fully present or not at all.
Last April I learned something invaluable by observing a raspberry bush that I was convinced had died. Though I truly believed it was a futile effort, I weeded the area around the original stalk. Within a few days, I noticed that new shoots and leaves had emerged not from the original branch, but from rhizomes a foot away. God and nature surprise and delight us when we work and wait for the good that is the gospel promise. Joy is perhaps the most prominent hallmark of the Really Real. It also reveals the capacity of every living creature to overcome hardship.
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