Delight

Dear Friends,

 This week I listened to an episode of one of my favorite radio shows, "This American Life." They always choose a theme, and then tell a few stories around that theme. This week's theme was "Delight." One of the hosts spoke with the poet Ross Gay, who argues that to ignore delight when we're confronted with it is an act of moral negligence. 

 He's not the first person to make such a claim.

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 In fact, our scriptures, while using other words and different metaphors, seem to shout out at us from every corner to cultivate delight. "Taste and see that the Lord is good," the Psalmist demands in Psalm 38. In fact, it's hard to go more than a few psalms before you find another passage about the sorts of things in which we are commanded, not suggested, to delight. Isaiah develops the image of life with God as an unending feast full of delicious food and rich wine to be enjoyed. God delights in the creation of all things after he finishes his work. And after the resurrection, the disciples who walk with Jesus on the road to Emmaus declare that their hearts burn within them, no doubt with great delight, while they walk the road with him.

Over and over in scripture we are shown how to cultivate delight, and it is commanded that we do so. 

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But I suspect few of us immediately associate delight with our spiritual life in the way that we do certain other virtues. We know we're supposed to be humble, patient, and courageous, for instance; we know that those qualities are part of the spiritual life. But I don't know if "delighted" is one of the first words we'd associate with our life with God. Why is that? Why does delight so often seem like something that isn't important to—or is even something counter to—our spiritual lives?

For one thing, I think that far too often we associate delight with the forces of consumerism. We assume that the things we take delight in must be things we buy. The act of purchasing gives us that small hit of dopamine, the drug our brain associates with pleasure, and so we think of delight as deeply connected with that act of acquiring new stuff. 

There is a whole branch of American Christianity that would agree with that. Joel Osteen and other peddlers of the "Prosperity Gospel" want you to believe that God's chief goal for you is your health and wealth. This runs completely against the witness of scripture and the experience of the saints through the ages. God does not desire your wealth above all things. But God does desire your delight, and these are totally unconnected. Delight does not require material goods and riches. 

Delight simply requires the ability to notice God's presence in all things, to give thanks where you find it, and to share it with others. 

The other barrier we experience to delight is the thought that it requires some sort of perfection in life for it to be real. If we are to take delight, it can't occur in the same time of life when we're overwhelmed by busyness, neck-deep in grief or illness, or anxious about the future. 

But delight doesn't require some false existence where nothing is wrong or threatening or bad. There is no such place. The place we meet delight—the only place available to us at this point—is this very real world with its very real tragedies. And its very real joys. 

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If I were to be honest with you, I'd have to confess that I can be a bit of a grump. Ask Rachelle Parman; she can confirm. Despite all that I believe about Jesus, resurrection, hope, and all that good stuff (and I do believe it), my first impulse is often to be a bit pessimistic, a bit anxious, a bit stressed out. Delight is something I have to work at, hard. Fortunately, it's not always on me.

I met with delight last weekend. Maybe you did too. As a native Floridian, I'm not sure snow will ever stop making me feel like I'm 8 years old again.

It didn't start out that way, though. The day began with some mixture of sadness and anger because, while my kids played in the snow, I was to be at a business meeting early and another church demand later in the day. The injustice of it all! I stewed for a while, thankful I didn't have any presentations to make, as my attitude might not have won me any awards for public speaking.

Somehow, things got done early. There was a break in the day, just long enough to get home, bundle up, and play. So right in the middle of the normal demands of life, I found delight in something I couldn't buy. I found it in friends gathered in my living room when I got home, drinking coffee, telling stories, and listening to awful music. I found it in my daughter's toothless grin. I found it in my son's glee as he sped down the hill on a sled. I found it as I watched my wife—who lives life with a holy delight I can only hope for one day—take joy in the magic around us. 

I found it as neighborhood kids chased me around, shouting "Fr. Quinn! Fr. Quinn!" and launching another snowball my way. 

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Of course, it shouldn't take a snow day. But sometimes it does. Sometimes it takes an interruption in the way things are to make us realize that delight is always on offer. There isn't snow as I write this today. There's rain. Lots of it. But this weekend reminded me of the importance of delight. So I'll delight in the quiet of my office right now, two candles dancing as they flicker across the room. I'll delight as the branches on the tree outside my window dance on this grey, windy day. I'll delight in the sound of rain. 

And I'll work at this delight, because all of it is ultimately delight in the One who is the giver of all good things—church meetings, rain, snowballs, and candlelight—the One who is the source of all delight. 

God bless,

Fr. Quinn+