Celebration
Part of learning to celebrate includes learning how to splurge and not be so tightly utilitarian. Our culture is so wicked in its neglect of savings and its slavery to plastic credit that we, with some right, run the other direction. but if your house is in order, it’s time to learn how to splurge at times. Beauty isn’t cheap, and neither are artistic meals and good wines. It may not be every week, but we need to learn to splurge with a pure conscience before God….
Feasting and lovemaking are only two examples of celebration; others abound, but these two are central. It is our besetting sin to forget God’s work for us. How often do we see miserable Christians wasting their half-lives in bitterness, their heads buried firmly in melancholic marriages or soulless busyness, almost enjoying their narrow nitpicking, molding insignificant faults into eternal weapons.
“Stand up. Grow up,” you want to say. “Life is too short!” and “You have forgotten all the important things in life.” Celebration, like good stories, puts things back in perspective. It reminds us of the important things.
So what is it to lead a whole life? How can younger persons live now so that they can look back when they are seventy or eighty and say in all maturity, whether rich or poor, “I have lived well.” Most of us, I’m afraid, will look back with decades of regrets, decades of waste, splintered lives. At that age we may finally “have time” to think about the good life, but it will be far too late.
The wisest man in the world taught us that “there is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God” (Eccl. 2:24). Nothing better. Nothing better. Eat, drink, and enjoy the fruit of your labor. “Make your soul enjoy” celebration — feasting on food and love.
But doesn’t this neglect purist doctrine, social injustice, and more time at the office? Yes, it certainly does. — Douglas Jones, “Worshiping with Body,” Angels in the Architecture: A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth, pp. 83-84, 86-87.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:16 am
What a beautiful meditation !
January 14th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
This comment hits the nail right on the head, and really gives us something to think about on twon points-
1. We need to rejoice and have fun IN GOD way more than most of us do!
2. We need to keep our fun IN GOD- having fun for the sake of having fun is not right if we are doing things that we would hate to have to answer for if God asked us about that specific bit of fun.
So the question is; other than enjoying the message and the singing in church, how do we infuse our lives with glad gratitude so that all who see us would wish to have what we have?
Duane
February 4th, 2007 at 6:28 am
a very insightful reflection and a helpful springboard as our community considered this oft-overlooked practice of faith. thanks for taking the time…