When I first encountered C.S. Lewis’ book Surprised by Joy I assumed, quite incorrectly, that it told of how he first encountered his wife Joy Davidman. (This tells you how silly of a person I can be.) In point of fact, however, it is the story of Lewis’ search for joy, true joy, of which Joy, his wife, was a mere shadow (even though she is never mentioned). Surprised by Joy tells of how Lewis came to his belief in Jesus Christ as King and the Son of God.
In his youth, Lewis first encountered what he later came to know as joy when his brother brought to him, while on his sick-bed, a small toy garden plot constructed in a tin container. But Lewis said it wasn’t the tin itself that was anything special, it was how it elicited in Lewis a sense of something wholly other, something perfectly beautiful. Later, Lewis would find similar pointers to joy in the Beatrix Potter books and Longfellow’s Saga of King Olaf as he read,
I heard a voice that cried,
Balder the beautiful
Is dead, is dead —
He claims he knew nothing of Balder, but that brief poem lifted his imagination — and soul — to such heights as he had never experienced, and when he came back to himself, he found a longing growing within himself to return to that ecstatic moment.
Surprised by Joy follows Lewis’ life as he continues the pursuit of returning to that moment — returning to the joy he briefly experienced as a youth. As we might surmise, his chasing that original joy, or “thrill” as Lewis calls it, increasingly came up empty. What he began to recognize was that the “thrill,” when pursued for its own sake, is rarely if ever caught, but when “your whole attention and desire are fixed on something else…does the “thrill” arrive.” Lewis writes that he eventually lost interest in the pursuit of joy, for joy, in and of itself, was unimportant. He found joy to be more like a sign-post, leading him to a destination. Joy then became incredibly important because it encouraged him to continue along the path which eventually led to Christ.
Some would recommend this book as a way for the reader to know more about Lewis and his journey to Christ, and that is a good thing. But I recommend it because Lewis’ search is everyman’s search, though not everyman seeks joy in literature and toy tin gardens. We are sensual beings who are often — perhaps always — seeking the next thrilling experience. For some, it may be high-adventure such as world travels, parachuting, or down-hill skiing. Others find their joy through a more base sensuality in sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Some find joy in being left alone, walking in the woods, or binging on Netflix. Still others look in sports, fantasy leagues, or darts at the local pub. The point is that in one way or the other each of us seeks for joy, but what we often fail to realize — what Lewis discovered — is that each of the small glimpses of joy are not ends in and of themselves, they are not something to be pursued but they are pointers leading us to true joy and the true source of joy, the creator and redeemer of this universe.
