“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it” (Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life). As we watched our children build bird feeders for a co-op science project, I sat talking with the other mothers, some new to homeschool, and others 10-year veterans. One rookie homeschooler asked, “Does your life seem like a treadmill… you jump on in the morning, run all day, and sink exhausted into bed at night? I’m trying to figure out what I have going on here, and what I have to look forward to.” To me, the treadmill analogy was powerful. She seemed to be asking, “Are you going anywhere, or are you caught on the treadmill of life, passing mile after meaningless mile? Is there joy in your journey?” God has filled the world with joy, and has made it our purpose. “Men are that they might have joy.” If joy is what we are all about, how can we find more of it? How can we teach our children to find it in their lives? First, we need to understand what joy is. Then once we really know what it is, we can make our lives a more consistent search for it. Finding joy in the journey starts with knowing how and where to look.
