Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy!

At last night's GS meeting, the girls all at different times got very excited thinking next week we were going caroling door to door.  It is actually the week after but it made me realize that they are really looking forward to that activity.  As the leader I am always trying to come up with activities they will like and it is hard not to get sucked into the bigger is better mode.  The caroling thing I threw into our Holiday meeting because the girls in this troop are all hams and I thought it might be a good way honestly to have them use some of their never ending supply of energy.  I did not realize how excited this would make them.  I think it is because it is one of the core old joys.

I have realized that as modern and connected as we are to our computers and phones and the virtual world, there are certain intrinsic joys that were here at the start and will be here 500 years from now when technology has leaped in directions even Ray Bradbury could not anticipate.  Singing and sharing that joy with other people I think has been around forever.  Even the word carol means dance or song of praise and joy.  Apparently people use to carol year round in celebration of each season and this has gone on for 1000's of years.  I figured someone thought it up in the Victorian age, apparently that was just when it was given manners.  We certainly would not be popular with my neighbors if we showed up half naked dancing around a torch with earthly drums doing an ancient style interpretive dance to The Little Drummer Boy.

Still, these core old joys survive, even watered down to appeal to modern day humanity.  The stories that were once told around a fire now jump at us through the big screen, often right next to or over the fireplace.   Man's best friend is still here, even if he smells better and has a nicer bed then most of our great great grandparents slept on.  In the summertime the smell of someone cooking on the grill will get my saliva glands going even if I just stuffed myself with at one of the 42 restaurants on the other side of 75.  There is something about food cooked on a grill that screams to my inner barbarian.  It really is hard to beat gnawing on a good rib.  Facebook brings images of new babies and I look at my computer and feel that core joy for every one.  I read all the new Moms experiencing that first child love and wonder and I know my Mom felt it.  My Grandmother felt it.  My Great Grandmother felt it.  They could not share it with as many people as we do now, but that feeling has always been there.

Life changes.  We get more information and distractions but when I think of all the things that really seem to bring happiness and joy, they haven't really changed. Fa la la la la, la la la la!!!!!