A Little Field Trip in Joyology

Welllll, a recent shopping trip turned into one of those ordinary experiences that really wasn’t ordinary at all.

Ordinary. Now that I said that…what exactly is “ordinary”?

Any way…

My daughter and I were heading toward the checkout when another woman and I realized we were both approaching lane #5 at exactly the same time. You know that little moment. Who goes first?

“You go.”

“No, you go.”

We accepted her kindness and placed our items on the conveyor belt. Smiles on our faces, neither one of us seemed particularly interested in winning the race, so we started laughing and talking while unloading our treasures.

That was pretty much the beginning of a momentary new friend.

Then we got to the cashier and, of course, started talking with her too.

Yet another momentary friend.

The cashier and I talked about little things, like how we both actually enjoy bagging our own groceries for “fun.” Then she told us about a regular customer who unloads her items in alphabetical order.

Really?!

Alphabetical order?

How interesting.

So then I started wondering how that person puts everything into her shopping buggy.

Yes, buggy.

My hubby thinks it’s weird that I call it that. What do you call it? A cart? A basket? Something else?

I’m curious.

I shared that I had been a cashier in my teens and loved it. Seems I’ve always enjoyed the people connections.

She shared that she had recently retired.

Well…sort of.

She had spent 40 years at the same job and spoke so kindly about the owners.

Forty years.

I think being able to talk that kindly about people after working with them for 40 years says a lot.

And, as happens in a “small world,” turns out my husband had worked with the same people years ago, and I remember him speaking equally as highly of them back then.

So there we were in lane #5, having a completely unplanned conversation with someone we had never met, and suddenly our worlds weren’t quite as separate as they had been five minutes earlier.

I love when that happens.

By the time we walked out, my daughter and I were talking about how much fun people truly are.

It’s fun to notice others. Their names. Funny comments. The unexpected things they tell you.

Maybe that makes me a Joyographer extraordinaire.

Extraordinaire…that’s about all the French I know.

Oh and Bonjour…

…and then the names of French pastries.

I digress.

ALOT.

A Joyographer isn’t necessarily somebody taking pictures of joy, although I personally do plenty of that. Maybe it’s simply someone, like maybe you too, who notices joy-filled experiences and tucks those little mental snapshots away.

Lane #5 comes to mind…two people saying, “You go,” a cashier telling me about a 40-year career, and finding out our lives had already crossed somewhere else without either one of us knowing it.

That sounds like Joyography to me.

Maybe Hello-ology is tucked in there too…the interesting things that happen when we actually talk to each other.

And I’m pretty sure Joynection is real.

It’s that funny little point when someone you didn’t know 30 seconds ago doesn’t really feel like a stranger anymore.

More like a five-minute friend.

This happens to me all the time.

I think I might be addicted to it, in the very most wonderful way possible.

An errand becomes a conversation. A checkout line gets joyified. Something gets a little whimsiefied simply because people are being people.

And somewhere in all of this, I started thinking about a longtime friend at church.

She often sings that old “joy, joy, joy, joy” song to me with the most delightful smile. Then come the hugs, and sometimes she holds my hand, unless her coffee already has possession of it.

She is such a sweet lady. And an amazing writer too.

So naturally, now I have the song stuck in my head.

“I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy…”

Here, you finish it.

What’s the next line?

Down in my heart.

You know the one.

Careful…it might become the soundtrack for your day.

Feeling whimsical? Listen to a kiddo version of “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy” by God’s Joy Kids on YouTube.

And because apparently being a Joyologist also requires investigating things nobody asked me to investigate, I went looking for the story behind the song.

Turns out this little tune has been traveling around for about a century.

Hymnary.org credits George William Cooke as the author and composer of “Joy in My Heart,” also known as “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy.” According to Hymnary, Cooke was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1884 and later became a Methodist minister in the United States. Hymnary also notes that the song was copyrighted in 1926 while he was living in Wilmington, Delaware.

Hymnary says Cooke was connected with a group called the Gospel Crusaders and ran the Delmarva Camp, where gospel meetings and revivals were held. He later served Methodist churches in Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

I didn’t know any of that.

To me it was simply that happy church song everybody seemed to know.

Now I know there was a George William Cooke behind it.

Even more fun, Hymnary connects the song with Scripture about joy, peace, love and faith, including Psalm 16:11, Romans 15:13, Galatians 5:22–23, Philippians 4:7 and 1 Peter 1:8.

Nearly a hundred years later, people are still singing it.

In my case, one particular friend sings it to me.

And somehow, because of a shopping trip, she and that song ended up here in my Studio Journal.

And then the song ended up on a postcard.

Which, of course, I made.

Because apparently that is also what a Joyologist/Joyographer does.

The postcard says:

I’ve got that… joy joy joy joy

You can see it here: I’ve Got That Joy Sing It Postcard

…and now it’s going in the mail to my friend with an invitation to meet me for a joyful cup of coffee.

If I were a betting gal?

I’d put my money on her singing it to me almost the moment we meet, smile to smile, at the coffee shop.

Love you, FV.