Listen to episode 317 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Springs of Joy | Art, Artists & Poetry. Edited and adapted from The Springs of Joy by Robert F. Horton.
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Today’s reading was edited and adapted from The Springs of Joy by Robert F. Horton, published in 1915.
There is a higher truth. There is a realm of reality which is lifted above the things perceived by our senses and the experiences of human life. There is a joy and light and music in the waters, which do not rise within the city but come from the eternal hills beyond. It is that kind of everlasting joy which I would like to talk about today.
It must be evident to everyone that we can only maintain joyfulness by living above the actual facts and events of human life. If we are immersed in them (completely immersed), there cannot be perpetual joy. There may be an occasional touch of pleasure. There may even sometimes be rich, transient delights. But human life is so constructed of cares and sufferings and sorrows that (if we are to live completely immersed within it) perpetual joy is impossible.
Very few days can pass for any of us without cares and anxieties, even about the mere way in which we are to live. Complications of business; distractions; intrusions; the worries of the household; a thousand things come pressing in upon us every day and disturb our peace. The apprehension of the future, the anxiety for those we love, things which are perfectly natural and inevitable, will keep care always seated behind us. Therefore, it is evident that joy cannot be perpetual unless it is drawn from a source that is above care.
Now, I hear someone saying, “How is it possible to rejoice if death comes, and those whom we love are taken from us? What possibility is there of joy? Joy cannot be lasting when disease and death are always within reach.” Well, with that being true, it must be perfectly evident that if joy is to be perpetual it must be derived from a source that is also entirely above both death and disease.
But now I hear someone saying that there are also sorrows — sorrows often much keener than cares or physical pains or even bereavements. Sorrows enter into most human lives — hopeless, irreparable sorrows. We miss all we desired; we are disappointed in every plan and scheme; we feel the burden of all this unintelligible world; we listen to the low, sad music of humanity until it seems to move the soul to perpetual tears....