The Beautiful Lovely
Exploring the Wild Vitality of Joy
I was hammering the throttle of my John Deere across our second-acre field when I spotted my then six-year-old, Brielle, waving her hands wildly at me. I stopped, idled down, and waved her over to the mower.
“Can I ride with you?”
“Sure. Hold on.”
We took off. I let her drive down the hill. And then, there it was.
A huge doe leapt across our neighbour’s garden and right into our path.
Like a slow-motion scene in a movie, I released the throttle and stopped. We gaped at the bounding deer as it took off through our natural area and over to the hedgerow.
Bri immediately turned, her eyes the size of UFOs, her smile latched on each ear, and she shouted over the mower growl, “Did you see that! That was A M A Z I N G!”
We laughed and shouted our jubilation to each other, and then finished the second acre.
Beautiful, Lovely
Take a step with me into an old favourite, C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, and recall this very magical scene.
At the close of Chapter Eight of The Magician’s Nephew, Digory hears a song coming from “all directions at once.”
The tuneless wordless song sounded as if it rose from the earth itself. Despite its mysterious origin, Lewis describes the song as incomparably beautiful:
“… the most beautiful noise he [Digory] had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.”
The invigorating magic of the song is felt by the horse who, upon hearing the sound, experiences a “lovely” memory from its past as a foal.
The song brings newness—a life-giving change—to the horse that had laboured for years as a cab-horse.
We find here an echo from Prince Caspian and the victory romp of Aslan and Bacchus; the song, like Aslan’s physical presence, brings newness and life to the listless people of Beruna.
The song produces two wonders.
First, it harmonizes with a choir of high-pitched voices. The ensemble of voices then produces the second wonder: the starry heavens. The “beautiful,” “lovely” song possesses the power to create.
Digory believes he can differentiate between the voice of the stars and the “First Voice,” suggesting a Creator. The beauty of the creative moment prompts the Cabby into a moment of moral reflection:
Th“I’d ha’ been a better man my whole life if I’d known there were things like this.”
As the song continues Lewis frames the creation moment with movement: a light wind stirs, colors turn from dark to light, the approaching light reveals faraway forms in the landscape.
Polly, Digory, and the Cabby stand pierced with arrows of delight (Joy) as they witness the moment with “open mouths and eyes shining … drinking in the sound.”
The posture of the children (and the Cabby) communicates a state of Joy in response to the moment of beauty.
Movement continues as the song rises, seemingly without limit.
The sky changed, the air shook with the song, which produced the sun:
“… it laughed for joy as it came up.”
Lewis punctuates the scene with an economic explanation of his philosophy of beauty:
“The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot, and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else.”
The mixture of the visual movement of the creation process with the response of Joy on the part of Digory, Polly, and the Cabby communicates the quintessential Romantic motif of “abounding vitality.” (I’ll write more on this motif in, perhaps, the next newsletter)
Think about how our bodies communicate joy like Bri’s did.
A smiling face, upright shoulders, gleaming eyes—all are physical, bodily actions (or symbols) that convey Joy.
In the Bible, the gesture of a smile and the image of light, when given from a king, communicate a ray of life-sustaining sunshine (Prov. 16:15; Ps. 89:15; Num. 6:25; Is. 60:1-15).
The Old Testament describes joyful worship with images of animals, such as an ox flinging its head back and forth in wild jubilation.
It is suggested that “the zest of life is stored in the eyes.”
In 1 Samuel 14:27,29 Jonathan eats wild honey and his “eyes brighten.”
The prophet Ezra records: “Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery” (9:8).
The Old and New Testaments convey vitality as well as an emotional response to an object (i.e., God). The Hebrew root simcha (used as noun and verb), for example, conveys “the state of joyful well-being, but also its expression, rejoicing.”
Other, less-used terms convey exultation and sounds of joy, like cheering or shouting after seeing a deer.
The New Testament words for “intense joy” (chara and agalliasis) denote a personal reaction from the individual to the object of jubilation.
Think about how joy prompts deep feelings of hope within you.
Israel’s hope in future joy serves as a prelude and anticipates Messianic salvation.
The poetry of the Psalms and the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, for example, look toward a new fullness from heaven in the form of messianic deliverance that will end suffering and provide a solution to sin (Ps. 19:4-5; 89:5-18; Is. 35:1-10; Jer. 33:9).
This new object of joy affects not only the human condition but that of nature, such as the mountains, rivers, and animals, and the cosmos, such as the stars and planets, as well.
And so the anticipatory prophecies in the Old Testament determine the New Testament conception of the term, which is completely identified with the person of Jesus Christ.
The New Testament mirrors the Old Testament usage of joy in that there is a personal and ecclesial (community) response to the object of joy.
Joy marks the birth of Christ and highlights his ministry (Luke 2:10; Luke 12:19; 16:19).
Joy as a response to the person of Christ manifests itself in personal rejoicing for salvation in addition to a secondary joy, that which comes from the power to expel demons and heal the sick (Luke 10:17; 20).
The advent of the church is founded upon a response of joy (Acts 2:26; 46).
So joy conveys personal and even communal vitality.
Joy can describe a person’s countenance, nature’s mood, and denotes a responsive vitality toward its object, namely God. Joy is also a response to its object, such as joyful praise at the birth of Jesus Christ.
Joy is Wildness
There is something utterly wild, yet life-giving, about joy. I have spent long moments remembering Bri’s eyes and smile when the deer passed us. When we stopped she yelled to her sister, Lyric, who was standing on a log raising her hands in jubilation.
“Did you see that?” she shouted.
“Yeah, A M A Z I N G!” Lyric shouted back with arms raised to the sky.
That moment contained the essence, the whatness of life. Pure joy.
It touched more than pleasure. The moment resonated with wildness.
I look for moments of wildness, moments of aliveness—especially this time of year. And those moments don’t regard the state of my happiness or sadness. They simply touch me with their sizzling beauty and remind me.
I’m alive. Light has come. What joy.
‘Tis the Season to spread some joy. If you have little ones, or nieces and nephews, or cousins, or you just like inspiring Christmas stories, then I invite you to check out my new audiobook version of the children’s book Shine So Bright.
Now available on Audible! My girls will be excited that you and yours can share the story of LoLo Star this holiday season.
Catch up on my podcast, The Saturday Stoke. You can also subscribe on iTunes. It’s a short (5 min!) shot of inspiration for your weekend.