To
this day I don't know if it was a typo or ignorance. The 7th grade band program
was printed that way, "Ode to Joey." I sat in my plastic chair in the
stuffy gym overcome by gales of laughter at the thought of Beethoven’s final
movement of his ninth symphony being written to Joey. Somehow, it lost its
grandeur. Ode to Harold, Ode to Alfred, Ode to Joey. No one else thought it was
funny and finally I had to stifle my laughter by biting the inside of my cheek.
(How do you keep track of the odes you have written? With an odometer. I just
made that up. Sorry, but it’s been a long day).
Wasn't there a 60's song, by Bobbie Gentry? Ode to Billie Joe? I remember it
was dark, something about throwing something off some bridge.
Well, they're both wrong, it's not about Billie Joe, it's not about Joey, it's about
joy.
Joy is what you feel when you've won. And (drum roll, please) you have won, in
Christ the redeemer. Your bad stuff got fixed! Who wouldn’t be joyful?
Joy is when the battle between my natural skepticism loses out to my trust in
God's goodness.
Joy is overlaying Jesus, the eternal sun, on the shadows
of today's dim routines.
Joy
has nothing to do with what’s going on outside of my insides. It’s a separate
deal.
Joy
is when the pain of our bodies and the cold sweats of our impending deaths are
both awash in the morning sunlight on a stone rolled away. As he rose, we too
shall rise.
What’s your
ode? To what do you want to break out in your own ninth symphony? To what do
you want to bust out some rhymes?
Try Joy.
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