Easter Monday will be my 40th birthday. Inevitably, reaching such milestones is liable to induce a certain amount of reflection on what one has made of life so far, and what still remains to be done. I don’t think I have anything remarkable to add to such a well-worn subject. However, as I reach what is, hopefully, around about the half-time mark, there is one theme – a somewhat theological idea – whose importance I understand more and more, namely taking delight in life and in the world.
The writer Peter Hitchens once wrote a moving tribute to his late aunt’s joie de vivre, noting as evidence that well into old age she took great pleasure in sitting on the front row of the top deck of the bus. That seemed to be a wonderful small example of a person who was able to find innocent pleasure in the most simple of joys, and I have often kept it in mind when musing on the question of how to live a happy life. A related sentiment is expressed on a prayer card that my mother has kept in her kitchen for as long as I can remember. “A sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil,” which I take to be a warning against letting peevishness and grumpiness become our default as the frustrations and difficulties of life accumulate.
I have increasingly tried to cultivate both in myself and in my children an attitude of careful attention to beauty and glory in the world, even at the most unspectacular level: an early spring flower tentatively emerging, or a sparrow surveying his dominions from a twig in the garden hedge. The ability to notice and enjoy such moments can be a great resource in life.
The Bible encourages a posture of sincere and honest enjoyment of the blessings we have been given. Famously, Proverbs exhorts us to “Rejoice with the wife of thy youth”, and the psalmist instructs us to “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” In the first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul wants them to “Rejoice evermore” and “In every thing give thanks.” It seems clear that a key part of the Christian life is that we at least try to have what you might call a lightness of spirit and a recognition of the goodness that is around us – not ignoring darkness or suffering or misery, but holding on to the light wherever we can, to give us an anchor.
GK Chesterton, an apostle of jollity if ever there was one, puts it this way in his delight-filled book Orthodoxy: “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly …solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” Again, this is not an argument for superficiality or triviality, but to remember that there is very often something ludicrous as well as sinister in our sins, especially in those that stem from pride. It is also true that taking ourselves less seriously helps to develop humility, and to clear away barriers to treating others well. If we have a clear and realistic view of our own sins and follies and foibles, we can begin to understand how our behaviour might affect others.
Additionally, a stance of open and earnest enjoyment of life has value for evangelisation. There is a pervasive and damaging cynicism about the possibility of goodness and purity in modern secular life. Modern intellectual and academic fashions encourage us always to be looking to deconstruct, to debunk, to tear away the curtain and reveal What Is Really Going On. Marriage and sex are “really” about the subjection of women and the assertion of male power; Christianity is “really” about control of society; God is “really” a metaphor for us to manage our existential anxieties and our need to impose order on a chaotic universe.
CS Lewis had an unbeatable summing up of the fundamental problem with this approach: “If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”
A deliberate and consistent Christian refusal of cynicism might be a refreshing tonic for people outside the faith who are disorientated by the relentless pseudo-realism noted above (which is of course about as far from true realism as it is possible to get).
The opening lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy refer to the author as having found himself in a metaphorical dark wood, midway along the journey of his life. The wood represents confusion, doubt and worry. As I find myself at a similar stage in my own earthly pilgrimage, I do not find myself in a dark wood, but many do. Perhaps we Christians, who have been given the gift of light and grace, can help those people by insisting that beauty, truth and goodness are real qualities in the world, and that we can encounter them in our everyday lives.
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