Lenten Journey: Emotional Exploration – Joy

I’m probably not going to reference the Emotional Wheel or psychology texts or philosophy texts or anything like that in this post. I’m simply going to reflect on Joy.

Today is my son’s 13^th birthday. My daughter just turned 11 last month, our March 17^th leprechaun baby.

I have a notoriously bad memory but I can tell you many details about the day they were born or in Tyler’s case, days.

Tyler started to be born on the 14^th. He was already about two week past his expected birthdate. I had a bag packed for going to the birthing center for both me and Christine, bought some food for both of us depending on the length of the labor and delivery, and made some raw chocolate chip cookie dough for Christine that was in the freezer since she wasn’t allowed to have raw cookie dough until the baby was born.

Since the baby still didn’t seem to be in any big hurry, we had been going on walks in our neighborhood and the local park. On this day, we decided to go to the Museum of Nature and Science. I don’t know if we were intentionally tempting fate but I’m pretty sure I was aware that the museum was about as far from the birthing center as any place in the metro area can be. I’d been keeping a towel in my car for weeks.

We got to the museum and decided to go the IMAX movie that was playing there. It was a film narrated by Robert Redford about the Colorado River. We were a few minutes into Redford’s opening narration with beautiful scenes of flowing water when Christine nudged me. “I think my water just broke.”

She wasn’t wrong. I quietly helped her stand up, informed the nice woman attending the theater that the river in the movie wasn’t the only river flowing through this theater, and let her know we were off to deliver this baby.

I called the doula on the way to the car and she let us know that they would meet us at the house with a warm bath for Christine to sit in for a while. Meanwhile, I contemplated the drive across most of metro Denver at the early onset of rush hour. For anyone who knows Denver, you’ll know that, no matter what route we took, we would eventually end up on the 6^th Avenue freeway. But in 2009, the freeway had a different configuration from the downtown entrance on the freeway to Sheridan Boulevard. Instead of that odd middle of the freeway exit to Federal that separated the oncoming 6^th Avenue traffic from the merging I-25 traffic, the 6^th Avenue freeway had a series of merging exits and entrances that ran parallel to the rest of the freeway for at least the Federal Boulevard exit but I think there was a similar merge lane for Lowell and maybe even Perry. Whatever the case, I made good use of those parallel lanes to bypass all of the regular flow of traffic that was moving far too slow for my comfort as the contractions seemed pretty close together for the distance we still had to cover. I weaved right as if I was going to exit on Federal and then weaved left as if I was coming onto the freeway from Federal and did that again at Lowell until we were in the clear leaving all that downtown traffic behind us.

We got home and relaxed while Christine’s contractions continued but were not so close together as I had thought when we were 12 miles away. After a while, we went with our two doulas to the birthing center at Lutheran Hospital.

Twenty-eight hours later… I don’t know how to describe those hours. There was a lot of walking, some frustration but through it all, Christine was amazing. Tyler was born. I watched him crown. I saw him when he was delivered. I cut the umbilical cord. And I sang to him, Beautiful Boy by John Lennon.

The next morning, it was snowing and I drove us home from the hospital as wary of other drivers as I have ever been in my life. We slept in our own bed with our new baby beside us, forever changed.

How do I respond to joy? I sing, I dance, I laugh, I smile, I write, I cry.

The response depends on the moment. I love to joke with my children. I love to make Christine laugh. I enjoy moving, sometimes gracefully, sometimes erratically but always confidently with the joy that is being released. Sometimes, the joy is overwhelming. What’s the line from Steel Magnolias? “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” Sometimes that laughter starts as deep grief as it did in that movie. But sometimes those tears start off as overwhelming happiness that my body just can’t contain all at once.

I love to write and I love the feeling of movement in writing. I find joy in that movement.

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs."

- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

My love for my children merges into the One Great Love that fills the universe. That love runs through my life and fills my heart with joy. The days my children were exclamation points on that Joy. And while there have been lots of emotions running the full spectrum for all 4,748 days since, there are so many times when I look at each of them and the joy is overwhelming.  

-------------------------

You are welcome to take this journey in solitude in your own personal journal or share your reflections. If anything that you do makes you think you might want to continue a journey using Spiritual Direction, now or in the future, you can make an appointment with me through my website: 

www.RedRocksSDC.com