I know bread gets a bad rep as a bad carb, or at the very least something high in carbohydrates and not apparently much else depending on the diet guru pontificating on its ill-effects. And white bread has become a symbol of ‘non-culture’ and blandness. But really, does anything compare to the smell of baking bread? There is a warmth coming from the aroma that seems more than just physical – a reminder of home (even if your family never baked bread) and comfort and acceptance. Why isn’t there a candle that replicates that?

What a variety there is of bread – white, wheat, pumpernickel, banana bread, challah – I could go on. There are yeast breads that take hours (or longer if it’s something like sourdough) to mix and knead and rise. There are quick breads you can just mix and bake. Simple and elaborate breads, sweet and savory. Bread can satisfy at a basic level.

I wonder sometimes about how bread originally came to be. To us it seems simple – take flour and mix with water and leavening agents and other possibilities, and bake. But really – what about grain made someone first think, hey, I’ll bet if I pick this and grind it up into a fine powder, I can mix it with stuff and cook it for food? How did that idea come about? I mean, meat you can imagine coming from watching other animals eat other animals, and picking fruits or vegetables and eating them seems natural, but how did the first baker get the idea to grind and mix and cook? So even though it’s simple, bread still carries a sense of wonder.

There is so much possibility in this word and I know I won’t even come close to covering it all. I remember when I was working in an amusement park in college and watching a lot of people when I realized that there are very few people who really are ugly. Maybe not everyone is Hollywood glamorous, but each person contains such unique qualities that each one has some form of beauty. I just wish we could really see people for who they are rather than checking out our ‘competition’ (whatever we might be competing for).

It amazes me that there is so much beauty in the world. There’s the natural world, of course. What can really compete with God’s artistry in sunsets? Every time I see one I’m amazed at how different they can be, and so full of color! And nothing can compare with watching the stars in the night sky from a place in the country where there’s no competition from city lights. They really do look like stars strewn over a velvet cushion. I could go on – there are flowers of so many colors, trees, animals – so much beauty.

And there is much beauty created by people also. From realistic to abstract paintings, there have been some amazing depictions on canvas. Sculptures also can move me, even sometimes the ones I don’t really get. And music – I especially enjoy it when the instrumental music speaks without words (although songs with lyrics have beauty also). What can I say – in so many media people have produced so much beauty – through words and visual and aural arts. We are so blessed to have so much.

Sometimes, you just need a break. Just like there is physical candy when we crave something sweet and insubstantial, at times there is a need for something fluffy for the mind. Something like mental_floss (love that magazine) or a potboiler novel or dumb television show. A little something that can occupy (in the boradest sense) your mind without actually requiring any energy. Mental entertainment.

Like food candy, too much is probably not a good thing. But also like food candy, a little bit now and then is sometimes just what hits the spot.

When I was around 13/14, we moved to a suburb of Pittsburgh called Wilkinsburg. It was the second move in less than 3 years and I wasn’t adapting well. I was painfully shy (really) and had horrible self-esteem. But, I did have my very own room. It was on the top floor of the house and had yellow-striped wallpaper on the walls and wallpaper with yellow roses (and/or other flowers) on the slanting ceiling. The window created a kind of alcove, and was a perfect fit for one end of my twin bed.

One of the things I really enjoyed while sitting in my little alcove or even lazing in bed before getting up was listening to the birds sing outside. What beautiful music. I don’t think I ever saw the birds (maybe I didn’t look that hard those days), but I always heard them. It made me think about the wonders of creation. Birds are such delicate, elegant creatures. (I’ll admit that the predatory birds don’t tend to appear delicate, but they still have a marvelous grace about them. I don’t think there were a lot of them in my urban suburb.) It’s amazing that songs of such variety could come out of beaks (I mean, really, does anyone think that designing a musical instrument from scratch would result in a beak?). In college a course on perception made me marvel even more over the fact that not only were the birds designed to sing but my ears were designed to hear music – not all animals are so lucky!

For some reason that I can’t quite explain, hearing the birds sing seemed to be one of the ways God would be telling me He loved me. What a blessing – such a blessing that even now when I see and hear birds I am just in awe and thankful.

I love books – they can take you places you couldn’t otherwise go. Some show you what it was like to live during the renaissance, some show you what it might be like to live in present-day Russia and many other places. Some help you imagine what it might be like to be in space or be a water-breathing life-form or something even more fantastical. Many provide information and history about the real world, and many provide a gateway into the realm of the imagination.

Imagination and books go hand in hand and something that can’t completely be replicated by movies. Imagination is not limited by special effects technology or budgets, and it’s not limited by what someone else has pictured. If I want to imagine a character one way, it’s more difficult after seeing a movie image that is different.

Empathy can also come from reading. To see the words that express the feelings experienced by others in situations both similar and vastly different from mine can open ways of understanding other people. Life is so full of so much, and books are small but potent vessels to contain fragments of it.

It seems funny to include this in my alphabet of joy, since it’s one of the things almost no one seems to appreciate at the right time. When we’re young we want to be older and when we’re older we want to be young again. It doesn’t help that when we are children we are constantly told we’re not old enough to see or do something and when we are grown up we are surrounded by the complications of life and wish to return to the age where we could please people simply by sleeping and eating (you know, babies).

Age is such a plastic concept though – I have known people that were young at heart until they died in their nineties. I’ve known others that give the impression that they have been old since the day they were born. But I think that even saying that we sometimes are letting the concepts of young and old weigh too heavily on our minds. All too often we are told to act our age when we are having fun. This can be said at almost any age, but it isn’t always used to apply to immaturity as much as to lightheartedness. I think it’s time to reclaim levity and humor for all ages.

With that in mind, I’ve decided for my upcoming birthday that I’m not going to count it in years anymore. I’m going back to months, because it sounds more fun. It also requires people to do math, which either means they won’t realize how old I am or they’ll get some mental exercise. In a short time, I will reach the ripe old age of 600 months.

One of my favorite fast food places is Chick-Fil-A – I really enjoy the sandwich and the waffle fries. (On a complete side note, I was dismayed when visiting the Dwarf House restaurant in Atlanta, the origin of Chick-Fil-A, upon finding it doesn’t have waffle fries.) The very first time I saw the restaurant was in a mall in Philadelphia when I was in college. My first thought was, what kind of name is that for a restaurant? I wondered because I was pronouncing it chick-fill-uh, and that just didn’t seem appealing at all. After some time, it hit me – OH – it’s chick-fill-ay as in filleted or boneless chicken.

That kind of moment when something clicks into place is a wonderful feeling, an aha or oh, I get it now moment. These moments can reflect trivial discoveries or even reflect moments of, well, stupidity. They can also reflect profound thoughts, breakthroughs on spiritual or philosophical matters. I’d include an example of a more significant aha moment for me, but I couldn’t remember one.

It can take mere seconds for the pieces to click into place or years for it to all mesh together, but when it does, what a nice moment. It’s even nicer when the pieces stay clicked together – I must admit an unfortunately large share of mine where the puzzle pieces fall apart and I lose the aha again.

 

I think this word is victim of the cheapening of our superlatives. Good things are now great, which means great things have to be terrific and terrific things have to be wonderful. I’m simplifying, of course, as there isn’t such an exact progression. But sometimes when we say something is awesome I wonder if we really mean that the event or object has really inspired wonder and/or veneration in us, or we just mean that it was really neat. On the other hand, language was built to change, it seems, and maybe having awesome things or people in our lives does not necessarily relate to the amount of awe we can feel.

But I imagine what it would be like for a flea to be in a large cathedral, looking up at the wonderful stain glass and such. I think that if we were to be in God’s holy presence there would be a comparable experience – because we are so tiny in comparison to infinity. And yet God deigns to take notice of us and love us. It’s also like imagining that Earth in comparison to the universe is kind of like a pea in a football stadium, only more so. To think of such things just inspires me to remember that there are wonders in this world.

These thoughts are not to make us feel insignificant, but to stand in awed silence at the incredible world around us.

I’ve often thought that if I were the creator of this world, we’d all be stick figures. I’m not sure what that would do to the diet industry, but it just struck me that I could not have come up with all the amazing variety that we have in this world – and that’s just people! When I look more broadly at the animal kingdom, I’m amazed at the variety. There’s microscopic organisms and there are huge elephants and whales. There are animals that fly and swim and sing and laugh and all kinds of things. I can’t imagine that I would have come up with all this from nothing, and God did! Even if He used evolutionary processes for some of it, He still started from scratch. Although I have to wonder how the platypus came about.

The wonder and variety of the animal kingdom isn’t the only aspect that gives me joy – there is the presence of animals in my life and the lives of my friends. Probably some would consider this anthropomorphizing our companions, but it is better to be around them than not around them (excluding the hungry carnivores, that is).

I was going to add that it’s nice to have someone to talk to that never talks back, but I’ve noticed that my dog and cat have their ways. They may not be as vocal as children, but there are times when I’d swear they are telling me they won’t do what I ask or that what I just said (or did) was just about the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard (or seen). Still, as icky as some people think it is, there’s nothing like being kissed by a dog. And nothing teaches you contentment like a cat.

I was originally planning something else to start my alphabet of joy, but this word works for me today. I intended to start today with a trip to the gym for a workout on a machine and maybe a run around the track. Instead after caring for the pets I fell back asleep – I thought it was going to become a quick nap but two hours later . . . . Anyway, I still could have gone to the gym, but I decided instead to do a Kathy Smith DVD for 30+ minutes.

This made me realize that adaptability – the capacity to change with/adapt to our circumstances is a good thing. We don’t have to be all or nothing committed to something and in despair if that doesn’t work out. We can roll with the punches, we can adjust to changes in circumstances, we can specialize in areas we didn’t realize we needed to before the need arose. 

Okay, my adaptability to my own laziness isn’t the pinnacle of adaptability, but it’s still a good thing. Rather than moping about undone plans, I made new ones that had the same overall effect. This is a tiny mirror of the adaptability we see all around us – the adjustment of animals to the varying environments on this earth, the modification of human activity for the various surroundings encountered. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to adapt.