In the last installment of Undaunted Joy, I wrote how it is the small things that sustain us. I didn’t just mean small moments, like watching my sons knock picture frames off the walls with their newly morphing bodies. I also meant small things.
The photo album on my phone is full of photos of small things that delight me: a flower, a book cover, baby toes, and yes, even a toaster. (I thought this one from an Airbnb was a lovely shade of mint.) I’m fairly certain if I were to grab your phone, there would be at least one photo of a particularly welcome cup of coffee. I even have a “Liturgy for the Ritual of Morning Coffee” at the ready for you.
When I reflect on how noticing these lovely and beautiful things stirs a sense of joy in me, I notice how it does so in others too.
This week I came across the poem “Meditation on a Grapefruit” by Craig Arnold. To read this poem aloud is a joy in itself. Arnold reflects on a the thrill of coming into the kitchen to
peel a little basketball
for breakfast.
And I can see the fruit as he writes,
To tear the husk
like cotton padding a cloud of oil
misting out of its pinprick pores
I have taught my sons ALWAYS to inhale that “cloud of oil” when peeling an orange. Sometimes they call me over to breathe in the citrus scent as they start their snack. They offer the moment as a gift to me.
Anne Sexton wrote a poem about these small things too. In her poem, “Welcome Morning” she writes,
There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed.
She lists all the small, seemingly mundane things that begin her day. They are beautiful. They are bright. Even her eggs are a “chapel of eggs.” She, and we, begin to see that “all this is God.” Not that He is eggs or hair or a towel, but that God is Joy. When we allow ourselves to experience Joy we experience Him too.
It’s the last line of Sexton’s poem that always stays with me;
The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
Dies young.
Joy isn’t for hoarding and hiding for only ourselves. When we share it with others, it lives on. I suppose that’s what I am trying to do with this Substack and I hope you will share your joy with me too.
What small, mundane item brings you more joy than you ever expected?
I love this practice and am happy that me and my family also do it. It sets the tone for continuous JOY!