Joy to the world! The
Lord is come: let earth receive her king;
Let every heart
prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.
With “Joy to the
world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of
these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation,
especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.
Today we drove through part of eastern Nebraska and into
Omaha. The land changed along the way from fairly flat fields to hills, and
then on through the Platte and Elkhorn river valleys with some wooded areas near the
rivers, and then into the suburbs and center of Omaha. Snow covered it all.
From the road, the rows of corn stubble stand out against
the snow. The clearly distinguishable rows recede into a common point, bringing
some geometrical elegance to the landscape. Coupled with seeing the fields
lying under snow cover, providing at least some moisture to the dry soil, the
fields bring quiet joy.
Driving by wooded areas brings a different sort of joy to
me. Since my childhood in northeast Ohio, I’ve loved seeing the woods in
winter, so even small patches of woods seen from the road evoke a special
feeling of joy and gratitude for the earth’s gifts.
A key to experiencing joy is openness to finding joy both in
beloved familiar places and in places that seem very different or even strange.
Straight rows of corn stubble and the tangled thickets in the woods are very
different, but there’s joy to be seen and experienced in both. Learning to let
go of something old in order to find joy in something new is essential to our
spiritual growth, and may well be a piece of our spiritual preparation for the
challenges we face now and in the future as our biosphere changes in
significant ways.
Joy to the world! The
Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills,
and plains, repeat the sounding joy.
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