A Personal Story of Joy

Benedicamus Domino!

Further to my last entry, I have a story which will illustrate the fact that I learned about true joy long before I had ever read C. S. Lewis's thoughts on the subject. This is important, because when I did read Lewis's ideas about what joy was for him, I felt a sense of familiarity which was immediate and piercing. The story I'm going to tell follows.

When I was a young girl, a friend of mine and I were walking in a park on a beautiful summer's day, when we found what seemed to be a hole in the fence. The park was rather familiar to her, and she had never seen this hole in the fence, but we wanted to go through it and see what we might find. Well, we found some slightly longer grass and I could hear the fact that there was a structure of some sort nearby, but no one was around, so we lay down on our backs and talked together. We sang songs and laughed, we shared our private thoughts and intimate dreams, and then her mother called us, saying that it was time to come home for supper.

Well, we went home, and we resolved to go back again the next day to find the hole in the fence and to figure out what it really was, and when we went to the park again and found the exact spot we were looking for, no hole in the fence could be seen. We had no idea where we had wandered the day before, but we were convinced that there had been a gap in the fence through which we had gone. Now, to this day, I don't know whether we had found a gap in the fence or whether what we found was just some untrodden corner of the park, but what I do know is that I still think about that day and the fact that our little doorway was not there on the next day. For me, the hole in the fence is one of the last truly innocent memories of childhood that I possess, and it was a time when both my friend and I were genuinely happy and free from care. We were simply enjoying the adventure of finding this strange little corner of the world, and it added magic to what was already a very magical friendship.

Now, when I think of the hole in the fence, I remember the wonder with which we found it, and I find myself remembering my childhood and the magical times that I had with my friend, and over time, this has become a symbol for me of what true joy can be. One of the properties of joy is that it is fleeting, but that the remembrance of it engenders the feeling again, and sometimes it's the memory which gives the stronger impression as time passes. It is this kind of joy for which I wish to live, and while I know that it will not likely be engendered by an adventure like that of the hole in the fence, it can be found if sought. We shouldn't command it to come, however. Joy cannot be engineered. I learned that from the frustration of the day after the adventure. When we tried to find out where the hole in the fence was and went systematically to search for it, we didn't find it and we never had an adventure like that again. This taught me a very important lesson, and that was to take the opportunities that we find on our paths. Even if they come to nothing, they are experiences, and more often than not, they will lead to amazing adventures of one kind or another, and some will lead to joy beyond all imagining.

I'll never forget the hole in the fence, and I hope that this story helps others as well.

Deo Gratias!