ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250133
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
It was just a routine trip into town.
Midmorning on a Sunday, the drive south on U.S. 220 through Botetourt County is a quiet one, absent of the weekday roar of trucks and buses and harried employees late to the office.
That was a good thing last weekend, since I could hardly keep my eyes on the road anyway for the appeal of the sky above.
Dark clouds were broken to reveal huge patches of beckoning deep blue sky and sprays of sunshine to brighten the mountains' fall palette.
In those moments behind the wheel, I realized I was enveloped in an armor of unrestrained joy.
It's such a simple, little word - joy. It didn't seem strong enough for the all-encompassing emotion that I felt.
But that day, on my way to visit with a Sunday school class in Roanoke, I realized how powerful the word really is - how it describes a feeling no other word quite captures.
When he wrote about his conversion to Christianity, popular author C.S. Lewis titled that work "Surprised by Joy." Understand that Lewis, who since his death three decades ago has become one of the most popular modern Christian apologists, was talking about life-changing forces.
Addressing the topic of how faith influenced his life, he wasn't describing some minor, transient emotional twitter.
Joy - via Christianity - was the driving power of his life. It was, coincidentally and appropriately, the name of the woman he later married.
Of course, one need not be a Christian to lead a joyful life.
Last Sunday's drive reminded me that often we simply have to be in the right circumstances to become aware of it.
For many reasons - some of them quite important - we are not always able to experience those feelings of unrestricted freedom from the anxieties and commonplaces of life.
Truly, in those minutes last Sunday, I could not have been able to understand or sympathize with those caught up in sorrows of life - in grief, poverty, hatred, depression, despair.
For a few minutes I was blinded by my armor's visor, aware only of that slit of pure happiness - joy - that beamed through straight to my soul.
As much as I might have wanted those moments to last forever, I know I would have missed some other important aspects of life if they had. I would never have cried at the death of a child. Never felt heartsick at expressions of racism. Never felt pity for a shivering, unshaven old man with no place to go on a freezing January night.
But though I must experience those unhappy circumstances to lead a complete life, I need not - must not - forget that mixed in with them all I have the ingredients to once again experience that joy.
Maybe our inability to overdo it is really an emotional protection for us, too. A former co-worker, when asked how he was, would always reply, "If I felt any better I couldn't stand it." Coming from someone who had experienced his own share of heartache in life, the comment amounted to a shot of encouragement for the rest of us, rather than just a trite witticism.
Perhaps the real skill is to be able to extract those ingredients for joy that we carry in us and mix them in just the right proportions to savor it at will.
And to discover how to share that joy with someone else.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB