December 30, 2019
“…while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy,”
These words of this traditional Christmas song were always my most favorite part of the hymn. “Joy to the World” Though I knew, as a child, that this was a song we always sang at Christmas—I didn’t always think that it seemed Christmas-y. Instead it always brings forth these images of one of my favorite things—road trips and travel.
As a kid, all of our summer vacations involved exploring the United States via car with my mom, dad, younger brother and older sister. We would all call our spot—which usually meant fighting over a window seat or fussing or who would sleep on the seat, the floor board or in the window of our old ford sedan (yes, our parents condoned sleeping on the ledge under the back window or on pillow on the very hot floor board with no seat belts). Hours upon hours of our travel would include “looking out the window at the scenery.” When we lacked for entertainment of our own making—books, car games or hand crafts—mom and dad would remind us that the world was passing by outside and we should just look out and enjoy the view. Somehow, that sufficed, we would marvel at the wheat fields, rows of corn, cows and horses and occasional deer or buffalo that our dad would excitedly point out. Sometimes we would stop at a roadside historical marker—mom would roust us, and we would all tumble out as one of us would read the marker and talk about what this spot meant to our history. My mom would always implore us to stop, look around and to just listen. I can remember her saying—can’t you just hear the joy out there? I didn’t always know what that meant—hear the joy—but she would ask us as we continued down the road, what did you hear? We would start to talk about the birds, or the wind in the trees, the running river or the sounds of animals in the field. I know now, part of what my mom was doing was entertaining three restless kids on a long trek to somewhere. Part was getting us to think and love the journey as much as the destination. What she did for me was to instill a relentless love of travel.
This summer I had the opportunity to travel to Indonesia, Kenya and Mexico. On each trip I occupied myself with the usual book, but also a television screen with endless selections, and a smart phone with email and social media access. On more than one occasion on each of these trips we were in such a remote location that our wi-fi and television access was completely zero. After my initial panic—I began to look out the window and enjoy the view. As we traveled hours by van in Kisumu, Kenya on poorly paved roads with inadequate a/c I would open the windows and listen. In Indonesia, in the last hour to Komodo Island we traveled in a small motorboat and it was too loud and too bumpy to even try to talk so I would just look at the beautiful islands and hills and listen to the pounding waves. In Mexico the tropical storms had flooded the small roads as we were driving to Cabo Pulmo. At one junction we stopped and stood and watched the flood waters pouring down the street. Another local bystander explained to me and my daughter in Spanish, “una hora mas—” (another hour), so we stood silently and watched and waited to eventually cross the road. Each time I found myself remembering the words my mom would say, “listen, can’t you just hear the joy?”
Sometimes we fail to slow down enough to enjoy the journey to stop and make room for what God has in store for us. When we are forced to put down the distractions and not find ways to pass the time quickly—we can truly hear and see and feel the sounding joy. This is even more difficult during the Christmas season when there are so many activities and diversions filling our days. I encourage you this season to find time to look around, listen and enjoy the view. You will hear the joy.
“. . .repeat, repeat the sounding joy.”
-Lori Hall, Executive Director of Missions
