Reflection
Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so
I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my
commandments, you will remain in my love, just as
I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
-John 15: 9-11
and your joy might be complete.”
The year was 1996. I had just returned to my teaching profession after having been away from the classroom for sixteen years. Now, instead of teaching high school English, I had the technology lab assignment. After a couple of weeks, a friend called and said he just got a great deal on tickets to London and wanted to know if I wanted to join him. I murmured, that I had just returned to the classroom and didn’t think I could ask for the time off. My friend encouraged me to ask my principal anyway and see what she would say. I did ask, and my principal encouraged me to take the trip and assured me that the school could survive without me for that week. All this goes to say in London, after visiting all the art museums (my friend’s avocation was as an artist—he was a commodity trader by day) we visited the British Museum. After seeing several not too exciting exhibits, I found myself viewing a handwritten copy of the bible penned by a monk in a scriptorium at a time when that was the means of sharing and telling the stories of our lives together. I was mesmerized. I don’t know how long I stood there and just marveled, but long enough for my friend to come by and bring me back to the present with a “what are you looking at” or something like that. I woke up and we moved on.
I had heard the story of the Internet by that time with its promise to democratize information. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but got some inkling when I heard that the availability of information or data doubled from the invention of the wheel somewhere around 3500 BCE to the time of the invention of the printing press, 1500 CE. From the invention of the printing press to the invention of the transistor in 1957 the available information doubled again. There I was, looking at the truly beginnings of information which had been stored in monastery libraries and depended upon the work of those individual monks who had devoted their entire lives to preserving this information and stories for you and me and future generations. I was filled with joy.
So, I’m not sure that is the joy John attributes to Jesus’ promise in our scriptural selection today, but it truly was and continues to be for me every time I slow down and think about it. OMG! God, thank you for the joys in our lives and for life itself.
Thank you Daniel from another Daniel for a sharing that is so personal and yet moves out to excite all who read it. It describes well a moment of joy that was so profound that it moves one years later