A Theory of Joy

Who has read the book Wild or seen the movie? Needing to reboot her broken life, Cheryl Strayed looks to nature for healing. She recalls her mother’s advice:

“There is a sunrise and a sunset everyday, and you can choose to be there. You can choose to put yourself in the way of beauty.”

A few years ago, I was staying at a friend’s house in Long Beach Island for Easter. She shook me awake before dawn: “YOU GOTTA SEE THE SUNRISE!” I kinda rolled over and mumbled, “Eh, seen it a bunch a times.”  And then a little voice in my head nudged me: It’s freakin Easter. Get up!  Like it actually had to be a debate?  Thanks to my friend’s persistence, I got to see this, a special Easter morning greeting:

And whether I drag myself out of bed to plop on the sand or not, that fantastic display of light and color happens every morning in all its glory.

What is it about the beauty of nature? I’m sure we can list many things.

One writer, Donald Miller, talks about feeling part of a larger story. He sees the beauty of nature as a powerful suggestion that we matter to the Author of the story. Beauty on purpose, not by accident. (A Million Miles in A Thousand Years)

Another philosopher, G.K. Chesterton, reflects that everything in nature has a “glorious and radiant end,” or an “architecture that builds itself without visible hands.” For him this suggests the presence of a “mysterious benefactor” who seems to have built and readied the world for our dwelling. (The Everlasting Man)

No matter how you think of it, it’s a miracle either way. I often imagine that, if I had been one of the first humans, --whether created or evolved (which is just another way of having been created), waking up to this world, yet without centuries of theory, theology, culture, war, disease, and industrialism impacting my assumptions of reality...that probably my most basic reaction to perceiving my alive-ness, would have been awe, perhaps even, gratitude, worship. Those inclinations can be dulled, though, and with my photography, I seek to put simple beauty in the way of the hurried human.

So the name “Surprised by Joy.” I’m afraid I can’t take credit for it: I borrowed it from C.S. Lewis, who wrote everything from fantasy to philosophy. He also wrote an Autobiography and called it--here we go-- Surprised by Joy. For being “surprised” by joy was an ongoing theme of his life that eventually helped him make sense of it. He first felt it as a boy, playing with his brother in the pastures of pre-world-war England, and it was directly related to the experience of beauty in nature. He felt an "unnameable something, [a] desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead..." He describes it as a “sensation which came over me,” a desire and a “glimpse.” A sensation of what exactly? A glimpse of what? He remembers being “stirred by a longing.” Longing for what? Oddly, he tries to explain, “something long ago or further away.”  So hard to grasp!

Even more mysterious is that, once the world became “commonplace” again--i.e. once you turn away from the Grand Canyon sunrise, or the crystalline reflection of light on water-- that he would be “stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased.” What the??  But think about it-- have you felt this? Not just in nature, but when you see glory in the faces of your children? When you feel the warmth of near-perfect community? When you experience a timeless moment of beauty and depth and laughter with some best friends? When you and a significant other look into each other’s eyes and feel a mutual connection? You ache for it to last-- whatever that "it" is.

He noticed that these “glimpses” and “sensations” of that It kept popping up in life, and eventually he came to recognize them as JOY.

We chase objects we think contain that Joy. A vacation in paradise, the arms of a lover. And yes, we may find it, but it all seems temporary doesn't it? Pressured by time, threatened by change, like a ghost just out of grasp. Lewis, once a Hedonist (a person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life), admits coming up empty handed. His conclusion? "..the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given--nay, cannot even be imagined as given-- in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal experience." Whoah that's deep. Hmm.

So Joy is just a tease?

Kinda...

Joy for him was not a satisfaction, but a kind longing. But NOT the kind of longing you feel, say with an unrequited crush-- that can make you want to jump out of your skin sometimes--  but a kind of longing that, in itself, is actually sweet and satisfying to feel, because it acts as a signpost, a reminder of that “something more” that we somehow have a taste for-- something beyond time and space-- which Lewis would eventually call, Eternity.

My all time favorite song-writer (see video below) sings that the world is "charged, glimmering with promises..."

A hard-headed intellectual and meticulous rationalist, Lewis called himself a “reluctant convert,” unable to ignore the hounding sensations of Joy that seemed to follow him throughout life. Over a couple of decades, he evolved from Atheism, to Theism, and eventually, to Christianity. He would warn, "you can't be too careful of what you read." Ha! "Joy" eventually started to feel like a Presence, gradually becoming more defined and personal. For him, our experience of beauty was a clue about Life and the Universe, about our origin and destiny. And hey, perhaps the beauty-as-proof-of-eternity is somewhat of a stretch for you, but nevertheless, I’m sure it points to something. But don't worry, it's just a theory :)

In fact, as a contemplative prone to over-analysis, doubt, and melancholy, I have so appreciated Lewis’s reflections of Joy; they keep me grounded, help me get out of the corners I often think myself into. Pondering his ideas, I can’t help but know exactly what he was talking about. What about you?

And so. I wander with my camera, chasing these glimpses, chasing Joy. I have made “Surprised by Joy” the theme of my photography, and I hope that by sharing it, I have helped to put you in the way of beauty.

Now I can see the world is charged

It's glimmering with promises

Written in a script of stars

Dripping from prophets' lips

But still, my thirst is never slaked

I am hounded by a restlessness

Eaten by this endless ache

But still I will give thanks for this