Undaunted Joy | The Revolutionary Act of Cultivating Delight by Shemaiah Gonzalez

Shemaiah asked readers to post a picture of her book with something that gives us joy. For me, that’s breakfast, a latte, and a book in bed!

I don’t remember how or where I met Shemaiah Gonzalez, the author of Undaunted Joy. It had to have been online. A fun story about our meeting in real life: We both attended the 2024 Festival of Faith & Writing, she coming from her home in Seattle and I from mine in Lynden, Washington. We knew we were both planning to be there, but had not made specific plans for a meeting. I went to a coffee shop on the first morning. It was rainy and cold. As I sipped my latte, a woman walked in, bundled up with a hood fastened tightly around her face. We looked at each other, and I had a feeling that she looked somewhat familiar, but with only her face visible, I was unsure. However, she looked at me and said, “Mavis?” She had walked to the same coffee shop from her hotel. I gave her a ride to the Festival that morning. She probably thought I was weird because, although I should know the way to Calvin University right down the road, I was, as always, totally clueless. I knew the general direction, though (surprisingly!), but my GPS was telling me a different route. I drove past where it said to turn so that it would re-route itself to the way that seemed better to me. Shemaiah looked rather dubious as I ignored the GPS.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the book, which I loved! The back cover says:

In this collection of essays, Shemaiah Gonzalez finds delight in both the mundane and the magnificent—in naps and capybaras, taking out the trash and wandering the Enlish countryside—and encourages readers to see the joy present in similar moments from their own life. When we turn our attention to see the joy around us, we become attuned to God’s constant presence with us.

I have read other collections of joy essays, specifically including The Book of Delights by Ross Gay. I loved his collection, too, and highly recommend it. One significant difference between Shemaiah’s book and others is the emphasis on finding God in the joy.

Shemaiah is younger than I and grew up in a very different family dynamic, but I still feel like we are kindred spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would say. (Shemaiah mentions Anne and kindred spirits in one of her essays.) One thing we have in common is a love of reading. It was fun to see references to books and characters I consider friends.

Those references to books, writers, and characters are one of the reasons I appreciated this book. I often write and think about what I’ve read, relating it to something that has happened in my life or insights and questions that arise from my reading. I enjoyed reading Shemaiah's work, as she does the same in many of her essays. She would summarize a book or story, or reference a quote or concept from another writer, and use that as a launch pad to her own stories and thoughts.

As I walked to the front door of my workplace one day, I saw this snail and its trail (left or above). I snapped a photo and posted it on Facebook. This quick moment often comes to mind when I read about noticing beauty or joy, as Shemaiah often writes. “And me? I am to notice. I am to look for goodness and beauty and joy in the world. That is him [God], there, working and moving in the midst of it all” (page 10). God is there: from the mundane, tiny movement of a snail to the enormous, awe-inspiring waves of an ocean. Noticing is finding God.

And God is love. When we find him, we find love. We remember we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We are connected.

One of Shemaiah’s essays is about her son’s inborn friendliness. He would smile and sing, “Helllooo” to family, friends, and strangers alike.

Coming from a toddler, the smile was disarming. I could see it change people. They warmed—first to him, then to me.

I remember a nine-year-old saying, “It’s like he’s looking right into my soul.” And once, in my car at a stoplight, my son’s smile softened a homeless man, standing with a sign, into a pool of tears. I rolled down my window to hand him a mandarin orange I had in my purse. “You’ve got a sweet one there,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes (pages 35, 36).

She goes on to write that she’s been smiling more herself.

So I smile again and say hello as I pass people on the street. I don’t care if people think I am simple or a fool. I want them to know there is another way. We do not have to live in isolation or avoid eye contact. We do not need to hide from each other. We can connect.

When I was growing up in the Air Force, moving every couple years, I was repeatedly the new girl in school. As relationships developed, my new friends often told me, “I thought you were a snob; you never smiled.” It puzzled me. Why would I smile unless I had something to smile about? What crazy person goes around smiling all the time for no reason? Um, me—now. I don’t know exactly what made me change. Shemaiah said, “that smile, that hello, reflects what has happened in my heart. I have been transformed by God’s love…And I want to acknowledge and honor the imago Dei, or image of God, within others—even if only for a second.” I want to think that’s what happened to me, too.

Shemaiah wrote about letting God love her.

I had been trying to run away from him, … But it was as if he were right behind me as I ran away. He pursued me. Me!

It was then that I simply gave up. Fine. You can love me if you want. (page 80)

It reminded me of Anne Lamott’s story of conversion, which I often say is the funniest—perhaps bawdiest—conversion story I’ve ever heard.

But I never felt like I had much choice with Jesus; he was relentless. I didn’t experience him so much as the hound of heaven, as the old description has it, as the alley cat of heaven, who seemed to believe that if it just keeps showing up , mewling outside your door, you’d eventually open up and give him a bowl of milk. Of course, as soon as you do, you are fucked, and the next thing you know, he’s sleeping on your bed every night, and stepping on your chest at dawn to play a little push-push…

I was tired and vulnerable and he won. I let him in. This is what I said at the moment of my conversion: I said, “Fuck it. Come in. I quit.” (“Word by Word: Spiritual Chemotherapy” by Anne Lamott, Salon.com)

“Fuck it,” “Fine,” whatever it is, you give in, you quit, and Jesus sneaks in. He’s been loving you all along, and you finally acknowledge “it was not I that found, O Savior true; no, I was found of Thee,” as the old hymn says. God loves you.