Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Something for the Ordinary

I played with the name for this for quite awhile. I just wanted something simple, something to do with the thoughts and happenstance of every day. I looked up the Latin word for thought, cogito, or sententia, but that sounded too complicated for the simplicity I wanted. I looked up Tolkien's elvish words for joyful thoughts, ossanwe alasse, and though I find them quite beautiful, they too seemed to carry too much weight for the sense I wanted.

And then, it being Christmas, I turned around to look at a Christmas book I had sitting on my chair, and was stopped in my tracks by the big red letters of an old favorite. TAKE JOY, it said, in the title of a book by Tasha Tudor. And right then, I knew I'd found the name for my collection of small, daily thoughts.

I love the concept of taking joy, as if joy were a penny staring up at me from the ground, just waiting for me to pick it up and be enriched, even if only by a cent. There are a thousand joys, a countless number of instances in the day when joy is to be had for the taking, thoughts are to be had simply for the thinking, beauty is to be found, merely in the seeing.

So, there you have it.
Take joy indeed.
Merry Christmas!

3 comments:

Andrew Price said...

Hi! I'll have to put this journal on my list of favorites. I can't wait to see more!

Eucharisto said...

Brilliant! It's like where Bob Bennet says that love is in
'The small graces, the little moments when the miracles come
The small graces, little glimpses of the Kingdom Come'
Wonderful!

Chanelle said...

I'm linking this on my page! I love what I see and can't wait to see more.

What you've said is simply beautiful! I'm reading C.S Lewis's "Surprised by Joy" right now and your site has definitely surprised me.

Thanks!
Chanelle