I do enjoy your exploration of words Linda, and it makes me want to follow your musings on them more--to pay attention to your word playing threads.

Inside outside where are the boundaries of joy?

Lately your musings have me reading more about the history of Western philosophy and landing over and over on pages on the Catholic Encyclopedia site.

The attribution of "Take Joy!" to Fra Giovanni Giocondo isn't sure. It seems the provenance can't be reliably confirmed before the 1930's. Still, there's such wisdom in the words. Perhaps it's rather like the peace prayer--"Lord make me an instrument of your peace"--attributed to St. Francis, but written in the 1920's by an unknown author.

Fra Giovanni was instrumental in making Greek texts more available in Europe. I get so confused by what's meant by Logos in the Catholic tradition. Reason and authority have such a rocky relationship. So, it's really besides the point, but the attribution of "Take Joy" is really curious to me.

One of the books that's been on my self since I was a kid is "Word and Object" by Willard Van Orman Quine. I didn't get much from it when I first read it and over the years I've picked it up and just never seem to "get" what he's saying. I suppose there's insight there into the trickiness of an objective reference in the meaning of joy. Joy perhaps is inter-subjective so the precise location as an object is difficult if not impossible to pinpoint.

Here's a quote from Albert Schwietzer:

Sometimes our inner light goes out, but it is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.

Surely relationships are key to of experience of joy. But while there's a sense that others bring joy to us, there also is a sense in which others cannot take our joy away from us.