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Joyful Participation
Choosing Joy in the Midst of a Sorrowful World
Of late, I’ve known joy. The kind of joy that lasts more than a fleeting moment. The kind that results from more than a momentary victory or material acquisition, no matter how coveted. The kind that honestly makes no sense, especially given the horrifying situation of the world at large, and my country specifically.
After decades of almost constant depression, to know such joy is unfathomable. It’s the most profound of gifts.
Joseph Campbell Gave Me Hope
When I trace it back carefully through decades of books and obsessions, I can uncover the moment of, or at least the circumstances around, my discovery of Joseph Campbell.
I was 19 and attending community college in a suburb of Dallas. The instructor of my humanities class, Luke Barber, introduced me to books and ideas that continue to have a tremendous influence on me to this day. Among those books was Carl Jung’s “The Undiscovered Self.”
By that time I’d been briefly introduced to Jung through my own spiritual quest; Ram Dass mentioned Jung’s work in his “Be Here Now,” the first book that cracked open my brain (in a good way. In the best way). I had found a ragged copy of the floppy, purple tome at Half Priced Books — the big…
