Do you ever, like me, spend time reading or scrolling totally vapid content? You know what I’m talking about: frivolous fashion blogs, teen melodramas you can read in 15 minutes, insane (but wildly entertaining) comment threads. I bet you do. And maybe, like me, you have felt occasional wisps of guilt over this choice, like maybe you're "supposed" to spend all recreative moments scaling the heights of culture. Like maybe if you're laughing at cat videos, you're doing recreation wrong.
But is this the way? Or sometimes, in pursuit of virtue and holiness, are we just tying ourselves up in hyper-spiritualized knots?
I am not suggesting that we should trade classic literature for 90-second reels, or shopping for service work, or the catechism for Cosmo. But I am suggesting that sometimes in the pursuit of holiness, we unintentionally degrade the fun of our humanity, the same humanity that God deemed “very good” and that Jesus assumed. We sometimes disdain fun as though disdaining non-serious things makes us more serious about our faith.
I genuinely believe that there is spiritual value in the ordinary tasks we perform each day. I genuinely believe that our recreation choices matter, that what fills our senses permeates deeper into our hearts.
Yet holiness is not squandered if we don’t refrain from any experience that isn’t directly spiritual. Holiness is not incompatible with fun.
The saints witness not only to virtue, but also to the fullness of personality. Heaven is not populated by a cloud of grimaces. Distortion deceives us by suggesting that the only people serious about holiness are serious people. If we are honest, how much hyper-spiritualizing every crumb of human existence is really just pride or, perhaps more deeply, fear that we must earn God's love?
St Teresa of Avila said, “Lord, save us from sour-faced saints.”
St Thomas Aquinas said, "It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.” (Does the uber-formal way he talks about “playful deeds” crack up anyone else?)
From our beloved St John Paul II: “I have a sweet tooth for song and music.”
And then there's this: a wedding that happened two thousand years ago in Cana. Of all the avenues Jesus might have publicly debuted His divinity, He chose to make wine. For a party. For people who had already drank through all the wine available. Jesus gave them wine that the eyewitnesses declared highly superior: “The headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now'" (John 2:10).
Jesus wept, but He assuredly laughed as well. To know Jesus is to know how a human person should regard all pure earthly delights for what they are: gifts from a good and perfect Father.
Defined as fiat and loving God above all, holiness is simple—but not easy. Drinking water may be a simple act, but drinking the ocean is all but impossible. Suffering is indeed redemptive and necessary in this life. Things must be enjoyed but never loved. We must never trivialize holiness.
But along the way, let's also make use of some playful deeds.
Comments