Embrace the surprise of transcendent joy |
Last Sunday I missed writing my column because I was buried under a stack of final exams and research papers. I still haven't completely emerged. Grades are due, and while I have most of them ready, there are odds and ends I still need to bring together to wrap up the semester with a bow.
As I write this early this week, the hour is late. Adelaide is home from college for Christmas break, so for now we are back to the good ole days of the three of us girls: Stella, Adelaide, and me. They are both in bed. I am on the couch with Mugsy plastered to my side and the heat turned up. Baby, it's cold outside. All is calm. The Christmas tree sparkles and beams out good cheer from the corner of the room.
Last Sunday on the Advent wreath was the Sunday of joy. And ironically, I skipped it--the joy candle and the readings--because I was swamped, and my kids were too. But as I think about it to write to you, readers, it is not a scolding that comes to mind, a sermonette on how we get too busy to take time for joy, or an admonition to make joy happen. Instead, it is an observation: Joy is not contingent on our ability to conjure, celebrate, or contain it. Joy remains. And joy visited us over the third weekend of Advent not because........