How to Forage for Joy

“Be vewy, vewy quiet … we awe hunting mushwooms.” That’s what Elmer Fudd might have said if he’d joined our fungi-foraging expedition this last spring. Actually, we weren’t very quiet. Picture nine people tromping through the woods, searching for a delicious species called morels. (You can only forage for these in the spring, as there is a poisonous variety called the false morel which grows in the fall.)

We start up the hillside, spongy ground springing underfoot, twigs snapping, bushes brushing our jeans. There is so much texture on the forest floor it is difficult to see what is what. Broken bits of rotted logs, lichen, wildflowers, ground cover, elk droppings … where are the morel mushrooms?

I ask God for eyes to see.

A moment later I spy my first one, tucked in among wild strawberry leaves and moss. It looks like a rubber walnut sitting on its end. I slice the morsel off its stem and slip it into a plastic bag, then see more a few inches away.

In fact, I realize I have just stepped on two mushrooms and trampled them. This takes a trained eye, and I am a greenhorn. Our experienced friend Doug has already half-filled his bag with the treasures by the time I have found five.

Finding morels is a lot like finding joy.

We go tromping through life, not even knowing what we are looking for. We are unskilled and clueless in our search for what satisfies. In our blundering, rushed ways, we often miss the hidden treasures set before us and even unwittingly destroy opportunities for delight.

Joy is often camouflaged.

It blends in with a hundred other things. We need a trained eye and a measured pace to discover it.

I am learning this, so this day, I am hunting for more than mushrooms. I am looking for beauty in God’s creation, listening to the groan of larch trunks in the breeze, inhaling the damp, earthy scent of the forest, scanning the ground for lupines, alpine paintbrush, arrow-leafed balsam root.

Another day I may find joy in a good joke with a friend, a walk through the park, the perfect song on the radio. Just this morning, I found it in a sweet, juicy mouthful of ripe peach.

“Joy is always to be had,” says a worship song my son penned.

What is the latest joy treasure you slowed down enough to find?