November 30, 2016

Joying

Filed under: MiscellAnnia — Ann @ 9:50 am

rejoice

Yesterday after a massage, I thanked my bodyworker and she murmured, “So you can rejoice again.” My mind lingered on that word….”rejoice”…and has been lingering on it ever since. We don’t use it so much in daily conversation or even in formal writing – I think because it’s considered a religious word. (Multiple sources say it appears 192 times in the King James Bible.) It means, “to feel or show great joy or delight.” To feel it, yes, but emphasis on the showing. Ask someone to demonstrate rejoicing with their body and they just might throw their arms wide open, smile broadly, and tilt their chins to the sky. Or they might dance. Or do a cartwheel. It can be conceptualized, then, as the verb form of “joy.” Rejoicing is joy in action. It’s one thing to feel joy, but to act out joy takes joy to another level. “She was joying all over the place.” Being joyful can be silent and imperceptible; rejoicing is large and energetic and seen. Rejoicing is joy made visible. Let’s do more of that.

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