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      Treat Joy As It’s Your Birthday
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all the time- and in one’s work. And part of the rage is this: It isn’t only what is happening to you. But what is happening all around you and all the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference.
Living with pain can create an all or nothing belief system. There in no room for happiness amid misery. Because of its prevalence, grievers believe their pain is their identity. Once it becomes your identity, there is no room for other inhabitants. But the nature of being Black in America is such that our since of joy, peace and safety must come from a source other than our circumstances.
For me, that source is my faith. And it tells me that Joy is a fruit of the Spirit.