Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Tag: Joy

  • Meditations on forgiveness and reconciliation

    All week I’ll be sharing favorite posts about forgiveness.

  • How to build lasting happiness

    The signs I helped have posted along the Michigan Road Historic Byway reminded me, while I was feeling very blue, that I had good reasons to be happy instead.

  • Seven things I want my sons to know about making their way

    Advice I gave my sons about making their way in the world.

  • Re-integrating joy

    My story of finding joy, which involved getting in touch with my inner 3-year-old.

  • My bride

    It was a great day, the day of our wedding! And a great evening and entire next day alone together. There’s much more to say, but I’m writing this late Sunday night and am exhausted from the big weekend. So let this photo I took of us Downtown on Saturday evening suffice for now.

  • Is being mindful of the present moment overrated?

    As I drove to work the other day, I dreamed of my future. I should have been paying closer attention to the road. When I got to work I realized I couldn’t remember anything about the drive. Oops! I have always been a guy who ruminates about the past and frets over the future. It sometimes takes over…

  • You probably wouldn’t do the things you say you’d do if only you had more time

    The tiger lilies and the phlox in my front garden always bloom last. Their annual emergence is my sure sign summer is here. The days on either side of solstice are my favorite time of year. The days last so long, with 15 hours of glorious daylight. It’s usually temperate in Indiana, with highs in the 70s…

  • The Christmas bellwether

    This is the third in a short series of stories from 10 years ago. A sad story for Christmas Eve, but with a hopeful ending. Just one more story to go after this, next week. It seemed like a good idea at the time, having Christmas as a family. It was our last. I couldn’t see,…

  • Things I wish Christians would stop saying: “Joy means putting Jesus first, others second, and yourself last”

    I first heard this phrase when I first taught Sunday school at a particular church. A plaque on the door read “J.O.Y. Classroom.” I had to ask what J.O.Y. stood for. Outspoken Shirley, unofficial class spokesperson, shook her head at me as if I had been living under a rock since my baptism. “How have…

  • Re-integrating joy

    My dad once told me that I was the most joyful little boy he had ever known. During my first few years, he said, I seemed to constantly have a big beaming smile on my face, and everything seemed to make me happy. The few memories I have of my first three years seem to…

  • Three good things

    Continuing a theme of thanksgiving, here’s a post I wrote in 2008. A couple years ago a friend sent me a link to an article (which I can’t find now) about the virtues of thinking each day of three good things that had happened. She and I decided to try it together, e-mailing each other our list of…

  • Schools driven by standardized tests take all joy out of learning

    I was in the third grade when Indiana’s standardized math and reading test, the ISTEP, was introduced in public schools. I remember parents expressing fears that these tests would be used to drive what was taught and to rate teachers and schools. I remember school officials swearing up one side and down the other that…