by Fae Malania

Search Out Joy

Never mind pleasure. Search out joy. Pleasure is its shadow. But joy is real, a secret splendor running through all creation.

Like gold, it doesn't lie about the streets waiting to be picked up. It has to be dug for, with diligence and passion. It's in people, to be found through the practice of love. It's in work, in the rigorous exercise of powers of mind or body or spirit. It's a gift the created world is perpetually offering; the price of it is untiring attention to the present moment. It is to be found alwas and only in the contemplation of reality.

Hunt it down, pursue it, track it to its lair where it dwells. Not in pleasures and pastimes, disctractions, piled-up satisfactions, and busyness. It dwells in truth, and nowhere else.

That's why it matters. It will show you moment by moment where truth is for you. And when you know that, cleave to it, turn not aside, be given up to that. That, if you will, is a way of life worth living.