Joy Examination

This past summer, I have very consciously recorded in my brain's notebook a particular feeling. You know that warm, effervescent feeling that bubbles up from the deep well of all the feels? I realized this feeling was on the endangered feelings list. And you're thinking, Oh for the love, Kendra. Get over yourself and your first world non-problems.

But I needed to keep this notebook in my brain so that I could. Get over myself.

The notebook log of joyful feels:

May

- Sitting in a park in Savannah and watching my kids play independently on the playground.

July

- Backfloating in the neighborhood pool on a weekend afternoon with hubs and kiddies - Walking at the Chattanooga Market, flanked by both my kiddies

The pattern I see is that joy is 100% more likely to occur when I am with my family. I like the odds of that.

*** I got contacts this past summer. I wear them and I like them but I am still adjusting to facing the world without my double-goggled barrier. There is a lot one can hide behind the Velma-inspired specs. You can hide tired better, you can masquerade as someone who is put together. I'm afraid of how naked my face is now, how it might betray me, let others see my joyless countenance.

*** The little boy with autism who likely wandered away from his grandparents' home and drowned in Lake Erie this past weekend had lived in my hometown. I was so heavy with the sads yesterday, thinking about his family and their loss and how hard autism is and how long the summer days can be with little children and yet we wouldn't trade them for all the world. Then, this evening, I drank in all the images of my hometown, where street after street, families placed luminaries up and down the sidewalk to send a little love and light out into the darkness of pain and grief and uncertainty.

Amazing how the heaviest sadness can be followed by the most noble acts of downright goodness.

***

I realized this past summer that joy comes at a tremendous cost in this world. It is expensive, and buying it at wholesale is not an option. It requires pacing through the aisles of great injustices and terrible-awfuls where we sometimes have to linger because of congestion. Joy is the item we fight for, and we would not want to purchase it with a coupon--the cheap stuff isn't long-lasting and will just leave us wanting more. Joy can be fleeting but it has taught me more about a God who loves us and wants us to experience it in endless supply.

What the World Cup is showing me about grace

Full disclosure: I haven't watched any of the World Cup. Even more shame in my game is the fact that I am deriving this news report from Kathie Lee and Hoda's Thirsty Thursday episode, watched on the treadmill yesterday. Seriously, WHO AM I? Regardless of my newsfeed, one of the most beautiful images I have seen recently hails from the English women's soccer match against Japan. England defender Laura Bassett managed to kick a goal. Into her own goal. Causing her team to fall and hand Japan a 2-1 victory.

Bennett was described as inconsolable. She is obviously shaken to the point of incredulity in the pictures and videos I have seen. How could this have happened? I was perfectly positioned--how did the ball ricochet so strongly in the wrong direction? How was my goalie unable to defend our net?

But then her teammates emerge and tell a different story. They lay hands on her, they shield her entirely, like she is the goal they need to protect. We can imagine their words unspoken. You are our teammate. You made a mistake. Remember all those times you were amazing and strong? This was just one time. We've all been there. We are all here for you. We share in this defeat but our sadness is divided.

Friends, what if this was how we handled a failure in our communities? Instead of castigating the mistake-maker, what if we treated him who has made a public blunder less as a pariah and more as a teammate? What if we rallied around them, blanketed them in mercy, told them how this was just an accident. Reminded him of all the other times he shined, he made a difference for the better on our team?

This is grace in a womens soccer jersey. This is the Gospel running around in cleats.

A 30 second review of Inside Out

"Inside Out," Pixar's newest way to fleece parents of a buck, is brilliant and everyone should see it--even people who think a movie about emotions and core memories is a bunch of psychobabble. There you have it, the only 30 second review you will ever need for "Inside Out."

Trust. It's kind of like when you read Suess's "Oh the Places You'll Go." You thought you were wading in some unexpectedly deep waters of truth. You'll get that feeling again, times forty five.

I will add that one of my favorite parts (no spoilers) is when Bing Bong, an imaginary friend from a girlhood of yore, is riding the Train of Thought and accidentally spills chips that represent facts and opinions. In case you are a robot hard-wired to not experience the blurring of what feels like actual fact and what might be merely an opinion, this moment was a thrill. Because everyone concedes "These facts and opinions look so similar!" I felt so vindicated, having lived with a therapist for ten years. See? SEE! Sometimes they get mixed up, even for animated Pixar people feelings figures, too!

P.S. And yes I do have my next outfit picked out for the costume party.