Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "To live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air's salubrity..." isn't that beautiful imagery of finding delight in living! I've been trying an experiment in hopes of expanding my capacity for DELIGHT in my soul. It's been like a treasure hunt, of gathering evidence of God's love even in the muck and mire of life. Join me in this episode to see what I discovered.

The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "To live in the sunshine, to swim in the sea,

and to drink in the wild air's salubrity."

That comes from his poem Merlin's Song.

Isn't that beautiful?

It's such beautiful imagery of finding delight in life.

The word salubrity means to deeply drink in, and absorb the refreshing,

untamed atmosphere of the outdoors.

Today, on this episode, I'm gonna share with you an experiment.

Nope, I'm not a scientist, but if you feel like you need a little bit more

of swimming in the sea and drinking in wild air, and finding delight,

then this episode is just for you

Hello, friends.

Welcome to the Creative Spiritual Journey podcast.

This is Judy, and I'm coming to you today from the banks of a little stream.

Can you hear it?

Can you feel it and sense it?

The peace, the wonder.

I have golden aspens around me, and the sun is setting, and the

gold is reflecting on the water.

I wanna share with you some thoughts of my heart.

This past few weeks, I have been making some posts on Facebook and Instagram

of an experiment I've been trying, expanding my capacity for delight.

I understand that our souls are, I wanna say, stretchable, expandable, that we

can not only expand our capacity for delight, but for all those good virtues

that we wanna take into our life.

We were created as spirit sons and daughters of the great God, the Father,

and God, the Mother, and we have within us their DNA, and within us is this capacity

and potential, to grow, learn, expand

. Albert Einstein once said, "We do not grow old.

No matter how long we live, never cease to stand like curious children before the

great mystery into which we are born."

Our lives have plans and purpose, and they are meant, even in the struggles,

to find that capacity within us to learn to be humble and to grow.

So within each one of us is this treasure hunt.

Are we born into a treasure hunt where we're seeking happiness,

we're seeking what brings us joy and what brings us delight?

Like this little stream I'm sitting by and the beautiful gold of the

autumn leaves and the sunset.

So if I was to ask you, what do you delight in?

Do you delight in God?

Do you delight in the people around you?

Do you delight in who you are and who you are becoming?

Do you delight in learning?

Do you delight in your neighbor, serving them, bringing them joy?

There's so much to this life, so much to delight in.

Some of the delights walking down a creek bed like this is

the search for wishing rocks.

Do you know what a wishing rock is?

It's a rock that has a line that goes all the way around it, and

for every line, you get a wish.

And we're searching for heart rocks or fun pieces of driftwood,

feathers, pine cones, treasures.

Ah, there's one there.

So with this experiment of expanding my capacity for delight…

I understand when you start an experiment, you have an hypothesis

of what you hope to find.

And of course, I knew if I was taking the time to find delight in

the little things, noticing, being present, that I'd find it all around

me, and I was collecting evidence.

At night, I would write my delights that I had found, my gratitudes,

And the things that surprised me in my findings were this.

There's opposition to delight.

how would we know what is delightful if we didn't know what Misery.

felt like?

So I'm grateful for this amazing plan that we get to experience both

This is what expands our capacity.

Not only experiencing the delight, But experiencing what misery felt like,

the moments of regret, the moments of I just messing up with the moments

of awe and wonder and pausing for that little wildflower or the sunset

I am far from a scientist and lack any understanding of how the physics

and elements of this life work, but my reasoning tells me that I

can expand my capacity for delight.

I can also expand my capacity for love, peace, gratitude, forgiveness, faith,

hope, charity, righteousness, empathy, learning, maybe even science and math.

This I believe, that which we learn, our relationships, our experiences with

delight, and that which we expand in this mortal journey we carry with us into

the eternities, and we actually leave behind the money and the riches and the

earthly treasures, even my wishing rocks.

Christ invites us to consider the lilies of the field, a wildflower.

In Hebrew, the word consider is to contemplate, to try to understand.

It sounds like to experience and to experiment on pausing, considering

something as small as a wildflower.

I know that Christ found delight in sparrows, and grasses of the field,

and wheat, and lambs, and I'm sure he even finds delight in heart rocks.

and God loves you.

This I know

My invitation to you is to try this experiment of expanding

your capacity for delight.

Gather evidence daily that you are loved by God.

And you can record it at night in your journal of where you found delight.

collect evidence, post it on the internet if you need to,

where you are finding delight,

okay, I realize that we can't always live by a gentle flowing stream, and some days

we may be in the thick of muck and mud.

But That becomes the point of really testing this hypothesis of

reaching down and making mud pies.

Now, that sounds delightful.

In conclusion of the experiment, I think it was very successful.

And I am going to try this experiment all the days of my life.

How about you?

Okay, I'm gonna finish up this episode.

The sun has set.

The chill has driven me towards a warm fire that Eric has built.

I don't know if you can hear it.

It's not crackling very much

Campfires bring Another delightful moment.

don't they?

Now it's time for some roasting hot dogs on a fire, maybe some s'mores,

and a nice beautiful show of the Milky Way tonight under the stars.

Yep, it's definitely gonna expand my capacity for the light

I'll see you on the trail