Last week, after the marathon, I was in a meeting with some of the folks joining the Camino trip this summer. They asked about my post‑race reflections, and I told them how grateful I was that Elizabeth had asked what I’d learned from six months of writing letters and practicing joy and gratitude. Among many of the threads I was weaving together from the whole experience, I wasn’t just naming the joy embodied in the wonderful people who have walked with me through the years—I was also leaning into joy myself as playful, embodied, and sometimes delightfully absurd. Another way to say it is simply this: joy deserves a body.
Celeste wrote me this email after the meeting, and it was so poignant as she is holding a big ache after losing her sister who was also her best friend last week to cancer:
Dear Emily -
Your life has been and continues to be a means of grace for me. So many examples! Last night in our zoom meeting when you said “Joy deserves a body” and then later we adapted it to “Grief deserves a body,” God spoke to me. And something of that truth became embedded in my heart and mind. In fact, it was a multi-layered experience for me to receive that message. So good at the time - something to hold and treasure and write down and ponder in the moment.
But later in the night when I wasn’t sleeping, and feeling so overcome and frustrated and lonely and sad, the message came back to me. And ultimately I received it in my body as I heard God say, “you’re grieving, dear Celeste, that’s what this is, and your grief, this grief deserves a body. So your wakefulness is not wasted. It is not a problem to be fixed. It is not an indication that something is wrong, but rather than something is very right as you and your body metabolize grief and anger and fear.” And I was able to give myself a new level of permission for all the BIG feelings that were and are so overwhelming. Because I could believe GOD was seeing and honoring and caring for these feeling - God was welcoming them. Such a gift that came through you. Didn’t take away the grief, but offered a palpable sense of God’s presence, a huge comfort.
I thank God dear friend for your wisdom, your generous love, your ongoing openness to me and to our gracious Lord. And I thank you for living and embodying joy amidst so much that you hold and carry in your heart and mind and body. Yes, JOY deserves a body and lives so beautifully in you.
“I thank my God on every remembrance of you.” Blessings for this day -
Celeste
Here was my response back to her:
Dear Celeste,
Your email was beautiful. To hear how “grief deserves a body” met you in the middle of the night—how God used that phrase to name what was happening in you—humbled me in the best way. What a holy thing, that the same truth that carried me through the miles could keep close to you during the night (like the wonderful maritime flags) and remind you that nothing in you is wasted, nothing is wrong, nothing is too much. Just grief doing its sacred work. Just your body metabolizing what your heart has been holding. I’m grateful beyond words that God spoke through our Camino meeting last night.
And thank you for seeing me so clearly. This whole season—these 26 weeks of writing letters, practicing gratitude one person at a time, letting joy have a body—has been such a beautiful journey. I’m so glad that one of my best friends asked me what I had learned from it as that phrase (gratitude/joy deserves a body) came out of me looking over the letters and trying to find the through line.
I am giving thanks for your open heart that allowed that to be a doorway for God’s comfort.
Know that I’m so grateful for your friendship, your wisdom, your tenderness, your way of naming God’s presence in the real and the raw.
Blessings on this day, and on every feeling your body is holding with such courage.
With love,
Emily
