“Mom, you’ll never guess what I found!”
Each Saturday morning, I take one of my twins to help me with the weekly grocery shopping. Our newest routine is to split up when we get to the store. The twin goes to the produce aisle and gathers the items on the list we wrote together while I walk the rest of the store gathering other miscellaneous things. Each week, in addition to the items on his list, the twin shopping with me can pick out one new, weird fruit to try.
When I finished my walk around the store this particular Saturday morning, Milo greeted me with such excitement I wondered if he had discovered gold! “What new, weird fruit did you find this time?” I asked him.
He held up a small watermelon encased in a mesh bag. At first, I was puzzled. Watermelon was neither new nor weird. “Mom, I know what you are thinking, but it is tricky! It looks normal on the outside, but inside it’s yellow!” As he explained it to me, his whole body was pulsing with such excitement he was practically dancing in the produce aisle. “It’s a yellow watermelon!” he exclaimed with a giggle. His joy was so captivating that I couldn’t help but smile too.
His excitement continued the whole way home as he made elaborate plans for how he would surprise his twin brother with this new discovery. “First, I’ll just show him the watermelon, and I’m sure he’ll respond, ‘That’s it?’ Then, after pausing dramatically, I’ll whisper into his ear the big surprise that it is yellow!”
It amazes me that, even at almost 12 years old, this boy still can get excited over something so remarkably simple. A new snack in the snack drawer, a new sprout on his okra plant, or a new discovery in the produce aisle can exhilarate him. He has always been, for me, a prime example of not just finding the Divine in everything but sharing the joy of that discovery with all around.
I am not sure where my son gets this propensity for expressing pure, unabashed joy. I am often so focused on tasks that I miss seeing the presence of God right in front of me. When I do notice, I am more reserved in my expressing and sharing of that joy. Maybe I think that others might find me silly. Maybe I think that I am too old to let myself dance with joy in the middle of the produce aisle. Still, a part of me longs to let go of my reservations and let the presence of God captivate and exhilarate me. I wonder what it would look like to experience, as Julian of Norwich wrote in her Revelations of Divine Love, “the fullness of joy,” because I took time “to behold God in all” around me.
Now I am taking my son’s joy over a yellow watermelon as an invitation for reflection. I invite you to ask yourself the same questions I am asking:
- How can I more intentionally look for God in the simple?
- Am I willing to let the joy of these discoveries flow freely through me?
- Am I open to sharing the joy of these discoveries with others?
Image by Helena Jacoba under CC BY 2.0.
