The Gospel of Joy

Jim McReynolds has done it again! He has filled another book from cover to cover with sheer, unadulterated joy. This man is a marvel. He truly is. I really believe he could be confined in a straitjacket, strapped in a briar-studded, hard, and unyielding chair in some subterranean prison with an unforgiving noise level produced by constantly thudding jackhammers and screaming air-whistles, and still think about how wonderfully joyous it all is. Age has not dimmed his voice or quelled his spirit.  Now in his 80s, Jim is more devoted than ever to this ever-recurring theme in all his writings, that no matter how desperate our circumstances or how mitigated our pleasures, there is an indefinable, insuperable joy at the heart of human existence, and we are grossly remiss if we fail to note it and celebrate it with every heart’s breath we take.  I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be Laurel McReynolds and to married to this fantastically positive and celebrate eternal joy. The illustrious Norman Vincent Peale, author of the perennially best-selling The Power of Positive Thinking, was right, all those years ago, when he heard Jim preach a sermon, anointed him the Minister of Joy to the World. It took one to know one, and Peale was nothing if he was not the great drum major of joyful, creative thinking from his pulpit on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Perhaps Laurel, who has served Jim’s meals and helped to keep his house or what now proved years on end.  Perhaps one day she would favor us with a book of her own, or at least an article, in which she describes what it has been like to share a home with this irrepressible genius of the eternal joyful attitude. Laurel is a joy herself, reflecting in her personality and face the supernal glow from her love for God who gives eternal joy. - From the Foreword by John KillingerJames E. McReynolds is a preacher, teacher, author, coach, and retreat leader who shares the joy of the Lord. He is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He lives in Elmwood, Nebraska.