Contentment

...is a nice cup of tea, a good book, family around, and the smell of homemade cinnamon raisin bread baking in the oven.

Actually, the first is contentment, the first two happiness, the first three joy, and the last alone is ecstacy. Having a father who's an amateur baker is a definite plus. I'm never moving.

When I'm depressed, I find myself worrying that depression is simply my natural state of being. My writing usually reinforces this impression; I'm at my most articulate when describing the soul-baring anguish of despair. It's easy to come away convinced that happiness isn't meant for me, that such snatches of freedom and joy are only brief highlights. It reminds me of one of the most poignant passages in the book Return of the King. Sam and Frodo are in Mordor, driven to despair and ready to give up. Sam remarks that if he were in front of Galadriel again, he wouldn't ask for anything fancy - just water and sunlight, two things sorely lacking in the hobbits' journey. Suddenly, the clouds part, and a sunbeam illuminates a stream the hobbits had missed. That's how my happiness seems, sometimes - a rare moment of brilliance in the midst of despair, just enough to continue the arduous journey of life.

But this is worth chronicling. Firelight and tea, cinnamon bread, family, laughter. A week in which I got two afternoons off. A good book just completed. For the better part of this week, I've been enjoying a peace and happiness at least as strong and inexplicable as any depression I've experienced. God provides moments of extravagant grace here, and if that's all I need to reach Mount Doom and gain passage into the West, that's what I'll take.