Pleasure, Passion, Joy and Delight: Okay For Christians?

I've written and thought "around" this topic a lot.  I'm trying to get something new, or have something good to say about it anyway.

People keep telling me that they read The Shack, and that it meant a whole lot to them.  The Shack is actually a pretty shallow and crappily-written book, yet the embarrassing fact, for many of us who have read various books with far deeper and more elegantly told stories or topics, is that many of us needed The Shack, or at least benefited from it greatly. And maybe that's a bit pathetic.  That we got into such a state that we needed something that should have been so simple and widely grasped.

   The bible's full of stories of feasting and drinking and dancing.  People getting married, and spending days having sex, having kids, and hanging out and building things, and taking journeys.  Jesus' first miracle, perhaps done before his serious ministry had quite commenced, and done almost prematurely, was to use a divine miracle to ensure that guests at a wedding, who'd drank all the wine ordered for the occasion, did not have to stop drinking yet.

   Yet we have really funny attitudes to pleasure in general.  For example, I was always taught to interpret any and all references to "wine" in the bible as symbols of joy and celebration.  And yet people who drank alcohol were dubious, self-indulgent, unChristian people who didn't really listen to God.  People who might partake in a brawl at any moment, and then cheat on their wife.  With someone else's.  Maybe play cards, too.  Something that NEVER happened in Christian circles.  Because we didn't drink wine or listen to rock songs which celebrated sex. Or play cards or dance.

   A beer bottle found in the ditch in front of our place always had kind of a sinister aura to it.  It was so alien, it might as well have dropped out of the sky.  Because Christians didn't drink beer.  It wasn't of God.  (Wine either, actually.  Except at church.)  This always seemed odd on the few, warned against occasions when I thought about it, but felt entirely normal when I felt about it, because it was all I knew.  Whatever you are used to, is "normal" to you.  And nothing else is.

   We were taught that God loved us.  But our main experience of God was through dour old folks who didn't have any hobbies besides going to church and being "ever vigilant(e)" as to us, "beloved young people."  They were always warning us.  Quick with fear and caution and disapproval.  Teaching us to be full of care/anxiety about absolutely everything.  Especially anything that might bring pleasure of any kind.  And this seemed odd when I thought about it, but it felt normal when I felt about it, because it was all I knew.

   The Catholics list seven "deadly" sins.  You know?  Things one might otherwise be taking pleasure in. We had oddly divided attitudes about each of those sins, too.  And for every ten people who can name the seven deadly sins, how many people can name their counterparts, the seven virtues?  Try it.  No one knows what they are.  (answer: the seven Catholic virtues are nothing more than the capacity to simply not do the sins.  Look it up. They are not, really, going farther as to things the sins involve not going far enough.  They are not doing more stuff, better.  They are mainly just not doing the sins.)

   When I reach creative writing courses, I teach kids that with children's shows especially, to give each individual Smurf or elf or teenager or pony a personality, each gets a Deadly Sin.  Anyway, a look at the seven deadly, pleasure-giving sins:

Lust

Lust was first on the Catholic list, unsurprisingly.  And we agreed.  Lust was bad.  Really, really bad.  In fact, it was the "icky" sin, so we hated it worse than any of the rest.  And the worst thing?  It was the most understandable of the sins.  Because none of us was free from this corruption, this weakness, this horror.

  And what was lust? Sexual feelings.  Libido.  A human sex drive.  Like what I felt in high school when a girl walked by in stirrup pants or booty shorts.  Like when girl's gym classes ran jiggling, ponytail-flipping laps of the track that went by every window in the school.  It was bad.

  Unless you magically somehow got married without your courtship being motivated by or unduly characterized by those lustful feelings.  Once married, you could lust all you wanted, having signed your life away to a lust partner.  (So long as no one had to see your liking each other very much.  That was unseemly.)  There were any number of couples in my church who gave every evidence of having never touched one another for dusty decades.  Crotches thick with cobwebs, it seemed.  As befitted men and women of God.

   Because marriage was really about children (who are sent from God to guarantee further sex cannot happen), and not about pleasure or sharing or connecting.  Not about letting someone in, that far.  And even with a full complement of sex-destroying kids, sometimes church couples had "accident" kids anyway.  They'd done their three or four kids by their early thirties, and then, years later...a sudden, undignified pregnancy.  And those ever vigilant old folks tutted, in some cases.  Because this was clear, humiliating evidence of an unseemly lustfulness in what ought to be a godly marriage.  Her fault, too, still trying to be good-looking, when already forty.  Did you see that skirt she wore?  She probably exercises.

   But the bible has all sorts of pro-sex stuff.  I knew that once I'd read the bible, which I'd done before I hit my teens and the libido really took off. I read with interest the book of Proverbs, written by "the wisest man who ever lived."  It said things like 'rejoice with the wife of thy youth...let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.'  Rejoice with her in bible verses and church attendance and singing hymns?  Perhaps not.  But wasn't this lust?  If lust wasn't simply what happens healthily and naturally between men and women, then what is it, exactly?  My dad said looking at girls was lusting (Jesus said) and my mom said no, that was normal, and there was more to lust than just responding to beauty God had made.  She told me this privately.
   Maybe lust is bad because it's too watered down, too temporary, too fleeting.  Maybe there's a real deal.  Maybe the real deal is deeper, hotter, richer and thicker.  More lasting.

Gluttony

Christians had a very, very different attitude to gluttony than they had to lust.  You could still speak publicly before two thousand Christians at a weekend conference, and be the size of a couch, and be taken entirely seriously.  Church gatherings were always very much about food.  A lot of cakes and pies and desserts were unashamedly scarfed down in a way they perhaps would not be today, in our present carb-conscious, gluten-fear society, where everyone has to be photo-shoot ready at all times.  

   I knew more than one health-threateningly obese church figure who kind of self-mockingly quoted "if thou be a man of appetite, put a knife to thy throat."  But these guys never lost a pound, and their knives were always gainfully employed in slicing up the pork chops and shovelling gravy onto roast beef and potatoes.  Gluttony was kind of the "okay" sin.  No adult would EVER get lectured or punished or lose a whit of public status for being lifelong devotees of it.  Fat people were less likely to suffer from lust, right?  I mean, look at them... (note: that is a satirical "opinion."  I actually believe fat people more than capable of suffering from lust just as much as anyone.)

   But C.S. Lewis had an interesting take on gluttony.  He said that, where once people were greedy as to quantity of food, nowadays we were now sinfully engrossed in quality of food.  Devoting way too much of our heart and our day and our bank accounts to acquiring and consuming precise kinds of food.

  I don't hear much objection to that kind of thing nowadays, though perhaps our fat-shaming attitude has certainly grown until it is sanctimoniously spilling over its pew. I can assure you that going out to a random church isn't going to reduce the number of obese people you will find in the room, as compared to any other room, really.  Not even a Weightwatchers meeting. 

Greed

So long as one didn't actually steal, this sin was okay in the church circles I grew up in, as well, most often.  There was no harm in working really had at getting rich, or in acquiring all kinds of houses and properties.  There was, for young men who were devoting their entire lives to starting and building companies and amassing personal fortunes before thirty, none of the disapproving looks that folks like me got, for wanting to enjoy music, or drink a beer, or watch Star Trek.

   So long as you didn't get caught stealing or attaining or spending money in dubious ways, you'd never get a lecture or lose status for this one either.  And it wasn't greed if it was "for the church," either.  American televangelists were, to a man, glittering wealth symbols, asking for more and more money.  All for God and the church, of course.  They could build entire churches out of glass bricks, with rock concert-grade multimedia gear, in order to get on your TV and ask for money from viewers who certainly had less money than the spray-tanned men sweating and smiling and flashing their rings.

   I worried about how much pleasure the girls in tight shorts or bathing suits made me feel.  That pleasure was not okay, I felt, though my head told me it must, by definition, be normal.  God had put it there.  And I was also worried about the simple pleasures in movies and dancing and music.  No matter what my head said, my heart was sure that God "wasn't too pleased" with my pleasure in that stuff.

   If a man was really gifted at writing songs that reached out and told you that you weren't alone and that many others had been here before, living through similar stuff, and that it was probably going to be okay, well I just knew that God hadn't given him that talent, nor would God be able to see any worth in his amazing songs or how comforting and wonderful they were to me.  (When I was younger, I "just knew" all kinds of things.)

  But I never worried about spending or even earning too much money.  I felt stressed over my credit debt, but not really terribly guilty. I didn't think God was scowling over it.  After all, if He had a problem with it, it was His fault for not answering my prayers and giving me a better job, right?

  But when I bought The Joshua Tree album, I just knew that God had a problem with that.  Not with the expense.  With the pleasure I was going to get from the music.  I just knew He'd feel threatened by it.  After all, I didn't like God's own albums as much. And if you had albums in your car, anyone walking by and looking into your car windows in the church parking lot would know what you loved.

Sloth

I have always slept a lot.  And not enough.  Depending on the day.  I have worked on four hours of sleep far too many times.  And lain around, reading and watching stuff on various screens between taking various naps on my days off.  And although my head has always said this isn't very good, my heart has always told me it was normal.  My church was full of people who barely left the house, mixed in with the people who loved expensive recreational activities, and those who were killing themselves amassing money.

   If there is anything I needed in my teens and early twenties, in my family and in my church, besides friends, it was to be alone.  (I badly needed both and yet seldom could have either.)  And if I stayed up or worked at night, I got to be alone, and then if I slept during the daytime, I could sleep all I wanted or as little as I liked, and no one even knew when I was sleeping and when I wasn't.  It helped get me alone time, certainly.

   I always thought, when lazing around and napping, that maybe it would be better, in some purely theoretical way of course, if I was for some reason running, or carrying heavy things or whatever, outside somewhere, instead.  But I have never really felt like it was a problem.  Especially if I thoroughly abused my brain by sleep deprivation half of the time.  Then indulging in oversleeping afterward seemed sensible.  And when I have felt depressed, I have always been the kind of depressee who tries to escape it all by remaining asleep for as long as possible.

Wrath

Wrath was bad.  The bible said so.  But in my heart, wrath seemed utterly normal to me, growing up. It was all around me. My Dad did nothing much but rant and rage and shout all the time.  (He's much more amiable nowadays.  It was a control thing, as it generally is.  And when we're old and retired and our kids are adults, there's little left that we can control, and for some this can be extremely liberating.  To not be responsible anymore.  To play with little kids you aren't accountable for the moral development of.  Church folk don't normally blame the indulgences of teenagers on their grandparents. Maybe they should?)

   At church, there were always people of all ages raging against each other. Always.  Especially old people with perpetually pissy faces. Everpouts. Always upset over something.  New stuff they hadn't expected and weren't used to.  Old stuff that wasn't getting as much notice as they just knew it deserved. Worst of all: young people being young and having fun.  

   There was always drama.  People squabbling over who got to sweep the church basement. Ladies furious over what lust-instilling outfit some girl had supposedly been reported to wear at some distant event.  A million tiny slights on people's reputation for unswerving religious piety, their laudable lifelong devotion to forswearing all pleasure.

  And our group was always having church splits/divisions.  And divisions are about nothing much besides wrath, packaged up in prim, pointy, bible snippet-decorated letters our groups flung in people's faces like monkeys franticly tossing monkeydung at everyone at the zoo.

   I grew up seeing our Christian community as a warzone.  Gossipbombs were always falling.  No one was safe.  One's reputation was always under threat.  One moment everyone was friends.  Then Boom!  Headshot.  This feeling was deeply entrenched in all of us.  Church wasn't a safe place, by any stretch.  Not psychologically.  Not socially.  And people were always getting angry and not admitting it.  Because losing control over one's feelings is wrong.  So long as you get angry and lash out, without apparently losing control, it's okay.  Did God ever lose His Temper?  Of course not. To do so would certainly be sin.

   And people pretty much never, ever swore or even used any kind of vehement language at all.  So the wrath was always called "concern" or "conscience" or something like that.  No one said "Mrs. Pettigrew is extremely pissed off because you brought a bright yellow New International Version of the bible to church."   

   Especially not when Mrs. Pettigrew was indeed extremely pissed off because you'd brought a bright yellow New International Version of the bible to church.

   Christians were quietly angry, inwardly seething people.  In my head and my heart, I knew and felt that this wasn't very nice or fun, but I'd been taught that it was normal and in fact, needful.  Or, that the wrath that was flying, wasn't wrath at all, really.  It was just Christians being good Christians. Protecting God and His people. By tearing the place up and character assassinating people.  By making teenagers feel like shit.  For having said "shit" one time.  For any number of kinds of taboo superstitions you could warp the spirit of the bible in order to indulge yourself in attacking.  

   You take away lust and invariably, stealth-wrathful gossiping people endlessly stuffing pie into their faces seem to result. Not every time, everywhere, with everyone.  But have a room full of Christians, and let them try to get along for ten years, and I believe this is what you will see springing up, in time.  I think if you wait long enough, you'll see it.  Because people are people.  And people are messed up in predictable ways.  I think the bible says that somewhere.

Envy

Envy was bad.  We knew that.  Unless it was envy over church status, or people with  more devout-seeming kids.  Or if someone was very sexually attractive.  Then envy was okay.  But really, if you had looks, money and good relationships, this was because God loved you, right?  Perhaps it was Him blessing you because you'd forsworn worldly pleasures to a sufficient degree. Forsworn attendance at more entertaining churches, live sporting events, theatre, concerts, dances and movies.  Perhaps God delighted in giving people money, if He knew right well they'd not spend it on CDs and videogames and tickets?  And of course you should be allowed to run everything.

Pride

Pride was really bad.  We knew this.  That's why we were so careful to avoid pride.  And we were actually pretty awesome about not being proud.  That's just the kind of Christians we were.  We were hardcore.  I mean, we attended the only correct church in the world, and unlike anyone else, our group had 100% correct theology weighing down our bookshelves, making all post-nineteenth century works utterly unnecessary, and people in our group were living more the way God wanted human beings to live than any other group of Christian on the planet, and yet... we were so humble! 
   Especially our leaders, both living and dead (in some cases, it became quite hard to tell which).  We never ceased bragging about those guys.  We often praised ourselves about how nobody else had people who could do showoff humble moves like our players.  Our guys could win a humbleoff.  Every. Single.  Time.  We had people who routinely filled more than a third of every conversation with self-deprecation.  Without fail.  So awesome.

   We never said "Living like those other Christians isn't good enough for people like us."  We just said "Oh, don't be led astray into giving up the blessed position into which you were born, to wander off into the world, squandering it all, and suffering the shipwreck of your life, until you are not a bit better than Bob who owns the sports store, or Dr. Steve, or Jan who owns the law office.  They go to churches that are no doubt more...entertaining than being Correctly Gathered To The Lord's Name could ever be, but ultimately, would you want to make that sacrifice?  To fall from this position of grace and be a normal church Christian? Just to have a full, enriching, effective life?"

   We didn't say "The books from our Bibles, Trinkets and Paraphernalia clearinghouse are better than any others in the world." We just asked people why they were reading Other Books, and curled our lips slightly, expressed "concerns" at the teaching that might well be in them, and where reading them might lead an unwary soul (possibly, astray into merely average Christianity!).  Why not be safe and stick to our books?  They were 100%, every one.

   We were careful.  We knew that if we prefaced our "concerns" with statements like "I know I'm no one to talk. I'm the worst person in the world.  If I let my iron willpower slip for one moment, I would instantly sin in ways so staggeringly, mind-numbingly interesting, innovatively creative and wholly unprecedented, that you'd not be able to catch your breath for a year" then it was okay to condescend as much as we liked, from that point in the conversation on.

   We took huge amounts of pleasure in our correctly humble way of gathering, and our clothes, habits and administration.  And when two guys decided that we should all shun some guy for questioning their infallibility, and anyone who felt that shunning him was over the top?  We humbly demanded that everyone in the known world (anyone worth mentioning) humbly submit to our assembly decision, humbly forced through by those two humble guys, who had, of course, no titles or credentials or any vain, prideful thing of that sort.  And, by and large, pretty much every other humbly affiliated group on Planet Earth humbly bowed to this humble request. And humbly shunned that guy and anyone who had anything to do with his inferior views and church activity, in his new, inferior church.

   We weren't even a church, we claimed.  We were The Church.  We had The Lord's Table In Our Midst.  No one got to it, either, without getting through our humble authority figures, there being none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby you might worship correctly, besides our name, The First and Only Nameless Church of Correct Correctness. 

Pleasure

In old movies, soldiers or colonials would stare into the dark, toward certain danger, and say "It's quiet... too quiet."  As for me, I was raised to say "That felt good...too good" or "That would be fun...too fun."  "I really like that... I like it too much."

   And we were warned against "idols."  All of us.  Especially teenagers.  And what were idols?  Certainly not systems of belief or human-created, superstitious religions which made a random assortment of pleasureable things taboo, in a vain effort to sway the outcome of one's week in a more favourable direction.  No, idols were, we were taught, the pleasure-giving things themselves.  Anything you got "too much" pleasure out of.  Pleasure itself could be an idol, all by itself.  And it robbed Jesus of our affection.  So, in Canada, we tended to make idols of hockey and beer and television.  (Maybe even maple syrup or Tim Horton's coffee.)

   That was what an idol was.  Never church stuff.  Nothing superstitious or religious.  Other stuff.  Never our gossiping about girls or guys who'd clearly been slipping as to their sacrifices to the Pleasure-hating god. Never the feeling of satisfaction we felt when we did the Protestant equivalent of giving up something we really loved for Lent.  Like, chocolate, coffee, refined sugar, gluten, fast food or television.  Stuff that supposedly started, as Jake pictures, God chomping on his cigar, sitting there at His Big Desk, pounding His Fist and snarling in outrage about those kids going and actually seeing Guardians of the Galaxy. On church night, too.

   Dylan Moran swearingly says that we need a healthy relationship with pleasure.  (Amusingly and vulgarly arguing that people across the world hate the French because of their unthinkingly accepting approach to pleasure.  Starting with chocolate bread in the morning, and spiralling downhill throughout the day from there.)

   We've made our own religion.  And it worships a god that, rather than having invented chocolate, sunsets and the clitoris (all of which really have only a single purpose: pleasure) allows us to pay for its approval and support by suffering the abstinence of whatever the things are, that only we know would bring us pleasure, on its behalf.  Now that's an idol.

    And some people need to read The Shack, that "Nancy Drew fan fiction written on molly" that basically has one, extremely already-fully-conveyed-in-scripture-but-somehow-missed-by-apparently-everybody point: 

God likes you.  Period.  He wants you to be happy.  Stick with Him and He will give you the desires of your heart.  (not just His heart. Yours. Really.)  He's not out to get you.  He's not vigilant to catch you enjoying too much pleasure.  It's going to be a ride.  Strap in.  There will be scary bits. But it's going to be amazing. He calls it "Life."  Love will be piped into the cabin throughout the journey, and laughter will be served.  Apparently there are really no substitutes for all of that.  Nothing's as good.  Not even abstinences and feeling more righteous than the person sitting next to you.  And none of it will need to be paid for in the dubious coin of self or church-inflicted Shame.