06 October 2010

Overflowing Joy.

"...The second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin; through it only, though I loved all the Beatrix Potter books. But the rest of them were merely entertaining; it administered the shock, it was a trouble. It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and, as before, the experience was one of intense desire. And one went back to the book, not to gratify the desire (that was impossible - how can one possess Autumn?) but to reawake it.
And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, "in another dimension."

...I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from 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."

- C.S. Lewis "Surprised by Joy"

{image found here}

04 October 2010

Fall, Finally.

Weekend Lesson: Camping is the best way to meet new friends.

Why not take your friendship to the next level (after "Hi, my name is...") over hiking, campfires, s'mores, and wandering in the dark...?!

{Lindsay and I at our campsite.}
The truly magical part about this weekend was not just camp life. Instead, it's the realization that only a few miles outside of Chicago exists beautiful stretches of pure land (read: overgrown cornfields). But beautiful all the same.

I forget sometimes.
{Welcome, fall.}
{Some play in leaves. Others choose cornfields.}
{Marco. Polo.}

Love to Laugh.

"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." - W. H. Auden

Lately.