REFLECTION: ‘A week rarely goes for me without the company of one version or another of Henryk Gorecki’s Third Symphony (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs). One of the many interesting things about this powerful piece in three movements, based on searing experiences of abandonment and death, is a tangible sense of hope within sadness. Gorecki’s sublime composition suggests that even death cannot hold back the human and divine spirit. It seems to suggest that joy may deeper than both loss and finding, stronger than desolation or happiness. Live From your Joy is a stance for all of life, a way to live that we can choose to pursue (however tough that may prove), and a stance that we can nurture with practice…’
PRACTICE: ‘Find something that helps you relocate the joy within you. For me that’s often around music. I keep returning to ‘Kind of Blue’ by Miles Davis, his extraordinary album from 1959. In the track ‘Blue in Green’ anything seems possible as Davis and friends improvise around the theme, surfing the joy (of green?) within the melancholy (of blue?) Find a piece of music – or something else – that opens up the path of joy for you. Let whatever you choose be your call into joy. Keep returning to it during the day. Let it break open the joy within you, and enable you to begin again to run over rocks…’
©Ian Adams 2013 ‘Running Over Rocks: spiritual practices to transform tough times’ (Canterbury Press)
Look out for short daily posts around the week’s theme on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll be doing the practices wherever we are, and we’ll look forward to hearing how you get on – do let us know!