Of joy and pain, and Gibran.

Last night, I wrote a little blurb, which I'm going to edit a wee bit

I will not let fascism and white supremacy take away my joy. But I will also not let anyone tell me to mute my pain. And remember, “joy and pain. are like sunshine and rain.”

Thank you Frankie Beverly (the lyricist for Joy and Pain), and Khalil Gibran (the artist who inspired the song). I'm going to include "On Joy and Sorrow" from Gibran's famous oeuvre The Prophet, here.

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

This poem is in the public domain.

. . . . .

We grew up with books by Khalil (or the anglicized Kahlil) Gibran. Benji (our father) bought a few of them, and I'd never paid that much attention to them until either my last year in high school, or my college years. They traveled from Minnesota to Pakistan, and then to Oregon. He bought them in the 1960s. Alfred P. Knopf was the publisher and some of the books were $2.50 – Hardcover editions at that. But he knew of Gibran before Minnesota. My parents named my eldest brother after the artist/writer. I know some people do not care for his writing, but he remains dear to my heart for his criticism of authority (particularly religious), and his anti-dogmatism, among other themes. His writings in English, confessedly are not always easy to read: his poetry is easier than his fiction. But it's the thoughts we can glean through the writing that matter.

One of my Palestinian friends shared that his father loved Khalil Gibran, and I liked that we had that commonality.

I love going back to The Prophet every now and then. And I love reading the letters between him and the feminist writer May Ziadeh. They never met, but the letters even when discussing art and literature have an intimacy to them (the letters Ziadeh's estate allowed to be published).

In The Prophet, which is described as "biblically inspired," in the section where he speaks of Love, I am always struck by these words.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
     And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

And I am guilty of forgetting them, always. Also joy and pain do not always feel like they are both one and the same.