Sometimes my husband and I like driving around our city on Saturday nights.  We drive because it's difficult to find parking. We don't usually talk much.  We hold hands.  This night it's dusk.  I feel as if we're driving into a lavender tunnel, the sky a delicate lilac.  Gas lights burn in lampposts on street corners.  Rows of palm trees border shop fronts, their fronds gently waving, brushing the violet evening. The car windows are down, and we can hear the banter of people speaking, tires grazing pavement, a distant siren.  A young woman skips down a side street.  She's wearing a black mini skirt and silver sandals. I'm thinking of all the memories my husband and I have collected in this town on nights just like this--dinners in expensive restaurants, eating a cup of gelato on a park bench, window shopping, strolling through parks--things that couples do.  Things that we take for granted--that we believe will never end.

"To know that which lies before us in daily life, is the prime wisdom."~John Milton, Paradise Lost

I have an affinity for lists.  Sometimes my lists are friendly directives and keep me on track.  Other times my lists shout that I have not accomplished enough, and I become discouraged when I see that only a handful of expcetations for myself have been checked off.  I've been known to actually add something I've completed to the list and then check it off to make me feel better.  

This week I picked up a list I'd made for last weekend:  Walk x2; paint nails; laundry; write; social media; work on talk; prepare for work; email x4; buy card and write editor; file appeal for health insurance; work on financials with husband.  I actually forgot about the list, then I found it a few days later. I realized I'd completed about half its assignments.  I didn't feel guility as much as I believed I needed to be more realistic about how to use my time.  I frequently pack my schedule, not to mention my shoulder bag that I take to work.  That bag is stuffed with items.  I'm sure if I took time to dig to the bottom, I'd find my favorite lipstick I've been missing for a while. Living life like this can cause me to feel so tired, I numb out.  Then when I get home from work I do stupid stuff like sit in front of the TV, mindlessly eating ice cream and watching shows that don't really matter--empty calories, empty mind.

I look down at my feet.  A piece of tin foil glitters through the scattered leaves on the road.  The foil is shaped like a heart.  I pick up the debris and place it on my gloved palm.  The edges are ragged, one side torn.  The heart seems to symbolize my own.  I've just come from a trip out west to say goodbye to my older sister whose heart is failing.  She'd said, "If you want to see me, you'd better come now. I don't have long."  My other two sisters and I find flights out the next day and travel across country to see her one last time.

When I walk into her house, medical equipment and beeping machines intermingle with the items she loves--shelves filled with books, oil paintings and family photographs.  Hand-sewn quilts, master works she's created for decades, are draped over chairs and sofas.  And there she sits in a chair, attached to a line that pumps medication into her body, keeping her alive.  If she turns off the machine, she will die within forty-eight hours. "I'm not going back to the hospital," she says. "I'll know when to turn the machine off."  Her body is frail, yet her eyes glisten with determination. She exudes a spiritual strength that is palpable in the house turned hospice.  She is, paradoxically, consoling us in her acceptance of traveling death's shadowy pathway.

My heart sank when I walked into the dentist's office. Angel would be cleaning my teeth.  While Angel was skilled as a dental hygienist, she often chattered on and on about activities in her life, expecting me to respond even with a mouthful of cleaning implements.  She would pause, in fact, after she relayed an interesting bit of information, waiting for a reply.  But I was only capable of making indistinguishable sounds.  Angel didn't seem to mind, however, when I made my garbled utterances. Angel accepted the babble as if we were having a normal conversation.  I sat down in the dental chair, resigned to once again hear Angel's loquacious patter. This day, though, she didn't have anything to say.  She sang.

I don't do joy well.  I'm more proficient at expecting the worst.  I began to pray, "God how do I do joy better?  Show me what that means."  He was quick to answer.  Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California says, "God does not hide things from us; he hides things for us."  Johnson states that this concept is like God hiding Easter eggs.  He hides them according to our age and maturity. In other words, a two-year-old will need  eggs to be in plain sight, as opposed to an eight-year-old who may derive more delight and challenge in finding Easter eggs hidden deep in folds of grass.  Regarding the theory of joy, I'm more like the two-year-old.  Here's what I found this week.  Joy manifested in the creative places God chose to hide His directives.

In the mornings before work, I have a detailed routine that helps me to prepare for the day.  One of the my last tasks is applying make up. I grow easily bored with eye make up in particular, so decided to break open a new box I'd just purchased.  The color palette contained four shades named:  Be Grateful,  Sure Thing,  Brilliant and Citrus Twist.  As I brushed the earth tones over my lids, I had to smile, God reminding me that his love is brilliant--a sure thing.  Being grateful for my life is a good start on the road to joy, adding refreshment to my life, just like a twist of citrus adds a burst of flavor to water.