Yahoo!

by Dan Bouchelle

I was nearly knocked over recently by the force of a word. It was the word “Yahoo!” and it was spoken with sincerity. I have occasionally heard people say, “Oh, yahoo!” in an eyes-rolled sarcastic manner. I have heard actors yell, “Yahoo!” in bad western movies. But a few weeks ago, after Anna, my little girl, was given permission to play on the playground of a park we were visiting, she let out a heartfelt, from-the-bottom-of-her-toes “Yahoo!” all the way to the monkey-bars.

As I thought about her unbridled joy in such a small matter, I wondered, When did I last feel like hollering, “Yahoo!”? When was the last time I felt such joy at being alive? When was the last time the simple joys and beauties of the world around me provoked a gut-busting “Yahoo!”?

What does my daughter know that I don’t? To her, fifteen minutes on the playground are worth a “Yahoo!” I didn’t holler “Yahoo!” when we bought a minivan a few weeks ago. I didn’t scream “Yahoo!” once at Disneyland last summer. Why don’t expressions of joy leap effortlessly from my mouth?

I think I may know why. Anna doesn’t worry much. Occasionally, she gets troubled about going to see Dr. Barney. She sometimes lets an ugly word spoken at Mothers’ Day Out bother her for a little while. But Anna’s worries are few. Her world is secure because she expects that the bigger people called Mama and Daddy are taking care of her, and she is free to experience each moment with all the potential joy, beauty, and mystery it may bring.

Why don’t we live that way? Is our Father in heaven not doing the same for us? Must we really carry the full weight of the world upon our shoulders? Must we live as if we were abandoned children? Or can we indeed live as if we have a loving Father in heaven who knows what we need before we ask and won’t give us a stone if we ask for bread? Maybe if we can learn to let God be the loving Father he wants to be for us, we can truly “rejoice in all things,” as Paul said. Maybe if we trust God to be our loving Abba (Daddy) as Jesus taught us, we can discover a delirious liberty in being his children. Maybe we can experience his delightful world with such an expectancy of good things and appreciation for each moment’s potential joys that we will unconsciously find ourselves letting a “Yahoo!” slip through. It could happen.