In his spiritual classic “The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality,” Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., offers a poignant diagnosis for what ills so many of us: We’re depressed. Not clinically; he’s not providing a psychological evaluation. So, Fr. Rolheiser suggests we consider the opposite of what he means to best grapple with our own plight.
“The opposite of depression is delight,” he writes. “Being spontaneously surprised by the goodness and beauty of living.” Fr. Rolheiser goes on to explain what such a life might look like. Consider the ordinary moments of your own day: dropping kids off at the bus stop, filling the coffee mug for the third time, preparing a meal or sending an email. And then, consider this: “Suddenly, for no tangible reason, you fill with a sense of goodness and beauty and joy of just living … with the exclamation: ‘God, it feels great to be alive!’” (p 26)
For Fr. Rolheiser, that’s the difference between delight and depression. The holy and sacred break through the ordinary, grab us by the shoulders and insist we revel in the goodness of creation. God makes Godself known through the mundane, and we stand ready and vigilant to receive God’s Spirit.
I’ve written often in these reflections that God delights in us and that such a revelation should alter our understanding and experience of God. But let us not forget that we are made in the image and likeness of this same God; we, too, are made to delight. Delight marks our path to the good and the holy. God is in all things, and so even the ordinary details of our day glimmer with grace.
But it’s not easy. Fr. Rolheiser knows this. So do you and I! These moments of profound grace are gifts from God, consolations that occur in God’s own time. All we can do is prepare ourselves to receive them, to be on the lookout for those holy winks.
And so, the question becomes this: Do we anticipate delight? Are we on the lookout for it? Is the soil of our hearts well-tilled so as to receive the seeds of blessing?
I’ll speak for myself: The answer is often no. It’s easy to close ourselves off, to block out the world, to resist embracing the chaos all around us, knowing that buried somewhere within it all are gems of delight. “In Western culture, the joyous shouting of children often irritates us because it interferes with our depression,” Fr. Rolheiser writes. (p 27)
Ah! Isn’t that the truth? How often do we look at pure delight and respond with a self-righteous scowl?
Here’s what I suggest: The Ignatian tradition invites us to name the enemy of our human nature and those specific ways in which our full flourishing is being stifled, and then to act against it — agere contra, in Latin. Lent, which begins one week from today, is an opportune moment to identify and dispel the trappings of the evil spirit and to embrace our God of Delight.
That’s why the intrepid creatives of the Jesuit Media Lab have prepared a Lenten pilgrimage: a collection of essays accompanied by original art that will ground us in moments ordinary and mundane so as to challenge us to find the delight nestled therein. These are stories both simple and surprising that will transport you to kitchens and kayaks, libraries and estate sales, and so much more.
I invite you to sign up for our series, “In Praise Of” — and as you do, consider how you might use this Lenten journey to act against those spiritual tendencies to depression and desolation and instead delve more deeply into the heart of delight.
