Three experiences with desire- Heidi Naylor

In the beginning of Surprised By Joy, Lewis spoke of three experiences he had where he felt unsatisfied desire. He believed this desire he sought to be Joy, and furthered this description by stating that if this type of Joy was experienced, it will be wanted again. According to Lewis, it is the type of Joy in which a man would trade all the pleasures of the world for.

(1) As he stood next to a flowering currant bush one summer day, he recalled a memory of a morning at his Old House when his brother brought out a toy garden into the nursery (his brother made a tin garden with moss, twigs, and flowers; Lewis saw the beauty he failed to see in a real garden in that tin garden). At that moment, alongside the bush, an enormous bliss overcame him and he felt a sensation: an extreme desire. But, before he could figure out what the desire was, it was gone.

(2) His second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin (a Beatrix Potter book). Lewis was troubled with the Idea of Autumn; he was enamored with the season. With this Idea of Autumn came another experience of intense desire: a reawakening of the desire. He described it as something different from ordinary life or pleasure; it was something “in another dimension” (17).

(3) Lewis’ third glimpse came through poetry. He had liked poetry for its story and vigorous rhythms, but one day he idly turned the page and read: “I heard a voice that cried, Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead-“ (17). He did not know anything about Balder, but remembers instantly being uplifted into huge regions of northern sky; “I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold spacious, severe, pale and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it” (17).

Lewis could not particularly remember whether these experiences occurred before or after his mother’s death, but he certainly remembered them with vividness at moments where he caught a glimpse of joy; moments that stirred a desire for joy within him.