Joy to the World

It's a Tuesday evening and I'm at my Ministry Internship class. My compadre', Joe, is waxing eloquently on the Ministry Management Tool. While he teaches, I am thinking, pondering if you will, the Advent season we're in -- this season of Joy.
Yes, it's one of the older Christmas hymns of the Church...
"Joy to the World,
the Lord has come,
Let earth receive her king."
What precipitated my pondering was a result of what I will be teaching in a couple of hours from now in my class -- the early 20th Century of Church History, and more specifically, among other things, the life of C.S. Lewis. It was while re-reading some of Lewis' background and his writings that I once again ran across this theme of "joy"...namely, in "Surprised by Joy". From early moments in Lewis' life he had known moments of what he called joy; meaning, very precisely, a sweet aching of sensing -- and in that moment longing for -- a reality of life, light and beauty beyond ordinary experience. These aching moments of life were things that he believed were common and a person searching for them could discover them with frequency.
Joy...surprised by Joy.
Every Advent I'm surprised by the joy of pondering the incarnation of our Lord. It is a "joyous" season for me...fulll of light, full of life, full of beauty. The decorations, the carols, even the cheesy holiday films like "It's a Wonderful Life" all add up for me as a season of joy.
I think I'm a product of this from my childhood. I don't have lots of fond memories of growing up, but I have lots of joyous memories of Christmas. It wasn't because there were lots of presents...we weren't that well to do to have lots of gifts. But, it was a season of surprise, and a happy time in our household...a time of family, food and fun...the stuff of what Community is made of. So, I carried that into my adulthood and sought to replicate some of that in our own family life. We made it a fun season, and the fact that it was surrounded by a greater family time, music, celebration, and real reflection on the incarnation served over and over again to lead me to moments of JOY.
That is what provoked me as I prepared for this evening...something settled over me in my memories and I smiled...a warm joyous feeling settled in. I have pictures in my head of family time...of early morning times of pondering the incarnation, of music, of my "Christmas village", of cookies, sleds, snow, of Kelly, Chris, Lindsay, Andy and Linda that flood over my soul in ways that leave me feeling full of Joy. I only wished that this season lasted all year long...I don't have any excuse for why it doesn't...just a realization that it doesn't, and I wished it would. Still, right now, for this season...even though my family is somewhat scattered and I only have the memories...I am filled with Joy.