Today, our Spiritual Journey blogging group is writing about Joy, Finding Joy. I am gathering the posts in the Link button below this post.
I find joy on my morning walks. Over the years I have joined different gyms. I’d wake up in the dark, pull on some tights or other fashionable exercise wear, and go to a class or climb on the treadmill or rotate among the machines when Curves was around. Last year I gave up all memberships and just started walking. During the school year, I try to get out by 6 AM. But now that it’s summer, and the days are getting warmer, and I don’t have to be anywhere, I’m out at 7 AM. Charlie on the leash. I carry my phone in a pouch that fits over my pants and stays in place with a magnetic grip. Sometimes I talk to my Voxer pals. Sometimes I listen to a podcast, and sometimes I run into a neighbor to chat with or who will join me.
These walks have become my Joy.
I find joy in the songs of birds.
I find joy in watching Charlie explore.
I find joy in waving to neighbors.
I find joy in the flowers, the trees, and the bayou beyond.
Another source of joy for me is poetry. For this poem, I turned to one of my favorite collections, The Woman in this Poem. Georgia Heard signed my copy with these words, “For the joy of poetry–and life!”
Happiness
by Jane Kenyon
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
From The Woman in this Poem Selected and Introduced by Georgia Heard
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Reflections on the Teche 