All joy emphasises our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings." - C. S. Lewis
Ah. I love this quote. I just found it, but it goes along with everything Lewis. He wrote a book on it - that longing which is in itself better than anything - a longing for something indefinite, something indescribable, something he called Joy.
One of my favorite authors at the C. S. Lewis conference actually told me that my name was "a good name for a fan of C. S. Lewis."
And so it is.
All of Lewis' life he sought after that seldom-experienced "stab of joy." He titled his autobiography, written before he met his wife, Surprised by Joy, leading me to think it was about his marriage to Joy Davidman. How strange.
I'm just basking in that sentence. Our best havings are wantings. When I was young we would go to Wisconsin Dells every year with friends. The anticipation of this trip was nearly always more fun than the trip itself, which were usually roaring good times, or the memory of the trip. On my old Xanga website, I even listed "anticipation" as one of my favorite "things" because I recognized that impulse in myself. That impulse to love the waiting and expecting, that incandescent feeling of basking in the rays of a glorious future.
Sometimes, beauty is a flavor. It's the whole scene together. It's not the apples or the cider or the pumpkins or the haybales; it isn't even the "autumn air" - whatever that is, exactly - or the wind or the fire or the stars. It's not something you can describe - it's something that evaporates as soon as you've caught it, a shadow or a sunbeam, a mist of some un-snatchable glory.
Lewis somewhere wrote about us longing not only to be hold beauty but to be taken into the beauty, become a part of it and have it become a part of us.
Have you ever seen something that was so beautiful it hurt to look at it? A picture online, a startling sunset, seeing your son and your husband with their heads together, your daughter asleep in her crib, the stars on a clear night.
Sometimes I prefer the homely beauty. Give me some tree bark. (I love trees; that sounded like a joke, but it's not. lol.) Give me an imperfect room to love. Give me a rainy November day. I can take that in. I can taste all it's beauty. There's nothing shouting at me to look at it. It's almost peaceful for a soul who sees beauty in many things.
But a fall day. A golden sunset. A cherubic face. A million stars. Sometimes these things are hard for me to take in. No... they are always hard for me to take in.
They're too big for me.
They're glorious. They could eat me whole. I'm not certain I don't want them too. Just eat me, stars; swallow me whole, sunset. Just - throw me into your gloriousness.
And when you stop laughing at my ridiculous way of expressing things, and maybe when you come face to face with some inexpressible beauty, you'll taste it.
That - that sweet longing - That's Joy.
One of my favorite authors at the C. S. Lewis conference actually told me that my name was "a good name for a fan of C. S. Lewis."
And so it is.
All of Lewis' life he sought after that seldom-experienced "stab of joy." He titled his autobiography, written before he met his wife, Surprised by Joy, leading me to think it was about his marriage to Joy Davidman. How strange.
I'm just basking in that sentence. Our best havings are wantings. When I was young we would go to Wisconsin Dells every year with friends. The anticipation of this trip was nearly always more fun than the trip itself, which were usually roaring good times, or the memory of the trip. On my old Xanga website, I even listed "anticipation" as one of my favorite "things" because I recognized that impulse in myself. That impulse to love the waiting and expecting, that incandescent feeling of basking in the rays of a glorious future.
Sometimes, beauty is a flavor. It's the whole scene together. It's not the apples or the cider or the pumpkins or the haybales; it isn't even the "autumn air" - whatever that is, exactly - or the wind or the fire or the stars. It's not something you can describe - it's something that evaporates as soon as you've caught it, a shadow or a sunbeam, a mist of some un-snatchable glory.
Lewis somewhere wrote about us longing not only to be hold beauty but to be taken into the beauty, become a part of it and have it become a part of us.
Have you ever seen something that was so beautiful it hurt to look at it? A picture online, a startling sunset, seeing your son and your husband with their heads together, your daughter asleep in her crib, the stars on a clear night.
Sometimes I prefer the homely beauty. Give me some tree bark. (I love trees; that sounded like a joke, but it's not. lol.) Give me an imperfect room to love. Give me a rainy November day. I can take that in. I can taste all it's beauty. There's nothing shouting at me to look at it. It's almost peaceful for a soul who sees beauty in many things.
But a fall day. A golden sunset. A cherubic face. A million stars. Sometimes these things are hard for me to take in. No... they are always hard for me to take in.
They're too big for me.
They're glorious. They could eat me whole. I'm not certain I don't want them too. Just eat me, stars; swallow me whole, sunset. Just - throw me into your gloriousness.
And when you stop laughing at my ridiculous way of expressing things, and maybe when you come face to face with some inexpressible beauty, you'll taste it.
That - that sweet longing - That's Joy.