Have you ever had the elusive feeling C.S. Lewis writes about in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy? Read what Lewis describes and see if it resonates with you. It’s one to ponder, for rarely do we take much time to think about these moments when the veil between this world and Another is pulled back for the briefest glimpse.
As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult or find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton’s ‘enormous bliss’ of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to ‘enormous’) comes somewhere near it.
It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what?…Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse… withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased…
In a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else… The quality common to the three experiences… is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure.
Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again… I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”
Your 60-Second Question: have you ever been surprised by joy in the way Lewis describes? What did it mean to you?
Such glimpses are especially elusive in our society, which puts little value on reflection, introspection or anything not in the service of ‘getting things done.’ What might you do to become more aware or receptive when they come?
Twenty-two years ago I was in Seoul traveling with a group of Presbyterians on a quest to understand why the church had experienced such dramatic growth in Korea. I was also on a personal pilgrimage to draw closer to God in my own life.
We had stayed in Seoul for several days, and the next day we were traveling to Jesus Abbey, an Anglican retreat center in the mountains. The Abbey had been founded and was then directed by Arthur Torrey, the grandson of R.A. Torrey.
That night I couldn’t sleep, and struggled to understand just why I was in Korea. We had witnessed astounding demonstrations of prayer in the several churches we visited, and were encouraged by how God was obviously real and present to the many Korean Christians we encountered, but God did not seem very present to me personally.
So, I prayed for hours for God to draw near. When I felt no closer to Him, I tried expressing my frustration in poetry, since I knew that sometimes helped me to focus. I struggled to find the right words and scribbled “Come, Holy Spirit” shortly before finally falling asleep shortly before dawn.
The next day we arrived at the Abbey after a 3 hour train trip. A van met us at the depot and dropped us in front of a pagoda-styled wooden building. We ascended a steep flight of stairs with our luggage in hand. As I approached the entrance I saw on an elaborately-carved sign over the front door these words, in Korean and in English:
“Come, Holy Spirit!”
I can say that on that occasion I was certainly “surprised by joy.” In the few days that I spent at Jesus Abbey I experienced God’s presence in ways that forever changed my life.