On Joy

While following website links recently I found this: "One of the first goals in creating a...community...is to build the group around joy. While many groups form around a shared fear or problem, this is not a desirable long-term plan. Joy is our deepest motivation and need. Joy needs to be the way we live. [Therapists have] discovered a remarkable reduction in crises and the need for hospitalization when trauma and abuse survivors changed their main goal from dealing with trauma to building joyful lives." Perhaps this is one reason Paul exhorts us to "rejoice in the Lord! .... it is a safeguard for you."

This reminded me of the following paragraph: "Of the three sorts of knowledge proper to a child, the knowledge of God, of man, and of the universe,––the knowledge of God ranks first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making....we shall be astonished at the range and depth of children's minds; and shall perceive that their relation to God is one of those 'first-born affinities' which it is our part to help them to make good. A mother knows how to speak of God as she would of an absent father with all the evidences of his care and love about her and his children. She knows how to make a child's heart beat high in joy and thankfulness as she thrills him with the thought, 'my Father made them all,' while his eye delights in flowery meadow, great tree, flowing river. 'His are the mountains and the valleys his and the resplendent rivers, whose eyes they fill with tears of holy joy,' and this is not beyond children."

This summer my two youngest children were with me near Breckenridge we pulled over beside the road so my son could fish a bit.  He started pulling in beautiful trout as we enjoyed a magnificent sunset ever changing all around us.  We were in awe of the river, mountains, sky, and we took a moment to thank our Father "who made them all."  Before we got in the truck, and as the moon rose nearby, my son said, "I don't know why... I'm not sad...but I feel a little like crying."  Those, I believe, were tears of holy joy. They are not beyond children, and if we don't crowd our lives too much, they are not beyond us either.

May we build with joy, at home and at school, because it is a gift with which we reflect an accurate portrayal of our Lord, who is good. "Rejoice in the Lord always."

"These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." --Jesus