And because I was so Happy, I cried.

Have you ever been so happy that you cried? Laughed till the tears came flooding from your eyes?

Felt the cold hands of despair on every side, and then saw something so beautiful, filled with so much awe that you had to sit down and weep because it made you feel so happy, if only for that moment?

The world can be a very dark and lonely place, and when something comedic or blissful ensues by chance (or not) in the midst of darkness, the extreme feeling of satisfaction and comfort can overwhelm us and make us feel like we could just about explode. 

And we do! 

In tears of Joy.

Like Buechner said, joy is unexpected. It is unforeseeable, we have no idea when it will show up. But when it does, we find that it feels almost better than when it was constantly present, because for once we fully understand its value. 

 

Two quotes from the last chapter of 'Telling the Truth, The gospel as FairyTale' stuck out to me as I was reading it and I wanted to share them because I thought they were rather lovely. 

"Yet the tears that come to our eyes at the joy of the fairy tale are nevertheless essentially joyous tears because what we have caught a glimpse of, however fleeting, is Joy itself, the triumph if not of goodness, at least of hope. And I do not think it is entirely fanciful to say that it is not only in fairy tales that we have glimpsed it" pg. 83

"It is really two impossible things that happen because happiness is not only inevitable, it is also endless. Joy happens, to use Tolkien's word, and the fairy tale where it happens is not a world where everything is sweetness and light. It is not Disney Land where everything is kept spotless and all the garbage is trundled away through underground passages beneath the sunny streets. On the contrary, the world where this Joy happens is as full of darkness as our own world, and that is why when it happens it is as poignant as grief and can bring tears to our eyes. It can bring tears to our eyes because it might so easily not have happened, and because there are the wicked ones to whom it does not happen, and just because there are some to whom it does not happen, it happens in a world where those who live happily ever after must do so in a world where though happiness is both inevitable and endless, darkness persists because happiness is not universal." pg. 82