While children dance with delight, we grownups have learned to dampen our pleasures; smile, gently, instead of shout; nod our approval rather than clap for joy.
Churches, at least the ones I attend, are more apt to schedule solemn ceremonies than to encourage spontaneous celebration. Exuberance is frowned on. Delight, it seems, is somehow distasteful.
Have we forgotten how crowds once listened to Jesus “with delight” (Mark 12:37)? Do we remember that playful delight is characteristic of Divine Wisdom herself – “at play everywhere on [God’s] earth, delighting to be with the children of men” (Proverbs 8:31)?
The Psalms encourage us to “delight in the Lord” (37:4), and the very last psalm calls us to a festival of exuberant praise: “Praise him with tambourines and dancing…, with triumphant cymbals praise him” (150: 4-5).
Yet, in the eyes of many, Christianity – too often chanting its “thou shalt nots” – is the ultimate party-pooper. As one
19th-century poet put it, “Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath.”
This year, I’d like to start “doing delight.” I’m not big on New Years resolutions, but this year I pray that I may take delight in each day I am given, in each grace and blessing I receive. And with the late Irish priest and poet,
John O’Donohue, I offer each of you this blessing:
May you learn to see yourself
with the same delight,
pride, and expectation
with which God sees you in every moment.
--by Bill