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Jeanette's avatar

Amen to this post! And I’ve never heard joy defined quite like you did at the end of the post. It implies a heart fully engaged in both the victories and vicissitudes of life in this broken but beautiful world. I’m going to chew on that for awhile.

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David Diehl's avatar

It might be worth reading “Surprised By Joy,” C.S. Lewis’ autobiography. My guess is that Klavan was referencing it when he called Joy “the signpost that points the way home.”

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Jeanette's avatar

It’s been a long time since I read that. Thanks for the suggestion.

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David Bethea's avatar

Joy: a great start, and a great ending.

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Rebecca Burgess's avatar

I'm a Strong's Greek scholar, so a superficial one, but it would be no surprise if there were as many words for "hug" in that language as there are for "love." Hugging it out in a group study is as starved for depth of meaning as the English language having one word for "love." Hug is to embrace as happiness is to joy.

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Louisa Stinger's avatar

" and there was rejoicing"

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Jan Hollerbach's avatar

I love this! From the beginning and back to it shedding and discerning all the we’ve latched onto during the trip.

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Sierra Charlie's avatar

I’m old enough to remember that Nolan Bushnell joystick. It seems like I had every Atari and Activision cartridge for the 2600. I don’t have the VCS any longer, but I still have the sticks and paddles, and an old 800XL 8-bit computer. One game, called Steeplechase, would cause my wife to go into uncontrollable laughter, whenever a player’s horse stumbled on the bar. Her laughter made it impossible for me to ever win at that game. There was a lot of joy and happiness in those days at the simplest of things. 🥰

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