Mirth

Our spring issue announcement (& some important updates)

I am an exuberant collector of quotes, a quote hoarder, really, and near the tail-end of Christmas break, I came across this one by G.K. Chesterton and felt the enjoyable pain that only Truth can bring to a soul:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

How delightfully offensive this quote is (especially for me, a mom of two young children). I can just hear the mic drop from Mr. Chesterton… But what if he’s onto something?

The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil by Claude Monet, 1881

If Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard while He was on the earth, what does that say about the Lord? Jesus was a man “well acquainted with grief,” even more so than we can ever imagine, but was often found at the table eating, drinking, and enjoying the company of those He came to save.

Do you think there was laughter at that table?

Could it be possible that sin has not only blinded us to the smile of our Father, but warped our thinking enough to believe that there is no place for mirth in our life with God?

Are we humble enough to not take ourselves too seriously? Dare I say: are we willing to be God’s silly geese?

I will leave you with this quote from the best of the best, C.S. Lewis:

“Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were placed here to live. But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

— C.S. Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm

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Introducing our Spring 2025 Theme: Mirth ☺️

For our spring issue, we are looking for works that celebrate & meditate upon the youthfulness of the Ancient of Days. For this issue, we would like to pose a specific invitation for humor pieces.¹

We want to laugh, yes, LAUGH, reading some of your works. We want to feel the tension as you wrestle with the mirth of Jesus in the midst of real-world sorrow. We want to see the light of levity in the eyes of the One who stoops to wash our feet.

Submission window: February 14th - April 4th

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Important updates 📢

• We will now be accepting three poems per submission, rather than five.

• We will be publishing three issues in 2025. The publication dates will fall in April, August, and November. This schedule is more manageable for our small team, and it will give us more time to feature works from the most current issue.

• Our Craft category is open for submissions, year-round. As an example of what we are looking for, check out this Craft article by A.A. Kostas.

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With joy,

The Clayjar Team

1. A friendly reminder that we do not consider works that include profanity, dark humor, explicit content, or sexual innuendo.