I am in the midst of a book called “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I probably shouldn’t recommend it but I do. It’s a despairing woman’s travelogue of a journey through Italy for pleasure (eat), India for spiritual transformation through yoga (pray) and Indonesia for love. I am only halfway through India with Liz, as she calls herself, and am not only getting an education about the practice of yoga but also noticing that my travel bug has gorged itself to mythic proportions as it rides on my back. It’s a beautiful, self-deprecating and wise book. I picked it up at the request of a friend, Abbie, and to understand yoga a bit more as it is the spiritual practice of choice for many of my colleages/friends here.
The yoga portion has certainly been interesting. I practiced a bit of yoga while I was pregnant and quite enjoyed it purely from a stretching standpoint. I even engaged the spiritual aspect using the time of meditation or silence to calm my heart and pray, recite Scripture, connect with the wee baby etc. I also appreciate the austerity of the practice as that appeals to me. I don’t really want a religion or a spiritual practice that requires no change on my part. For too long, we, as Christians, in order to make ourselves more palatable, have watered down the truth of our message and the hope we have of transformation. Truthfully, a lot of the practices that yoga uses, Christian tradition has used for centuries. Meditation, prayer, solitude, silence, the spiritual retreat, the pilgrimage – these were all part of a more religious life if one looks just a bit deeper into our faith. And in our age of Wal-mart-parking lot and Starbucks-ambiance churches, it’s easy to feel sometimes like Christianity is just another cultural touchstone, another portion of our consumer-driven life. So for those that pursue other religions than Christianity for the sense of purity and austerity, the sense of connection to the divine through spiritual practices, I can completely understand that. I crave that as well. But I would say that we can – and should – pursue that through our faith as opposed to mixing up with other religions. The truth, I believe, is here. And if the method rubs one the wrong way, it doesn’t remove the truth or the hope or the transformation. One book I’d recommend for those that are interested more in this is The Sacred Way by Tony Jones.
Anyway, the section in Italy was really what resonated more with me. It was about pleasure and slowing down and time. It made sense to me in my prairie work-ethic self that simply doesn’t feel my worth unless I am producing 24 hours a day. I am, to be frank, occasionally exhausted. Whether it is my full-time work, my two side jobs as a freelancer, my work on my book, my parenthood, my wifehood, my friend/daughter/sister-hood or our volunteer work at our church, I often feel tired and run ragged. I have been struggling with simplifying. What can go? What needs to stay? I feel like I’m already operating at the very least I can do yet it still feels busy. I don’t feel as valuable when I’m not as busy. The winner is the one who is the busiest right? The most spiritual is the one that does the most? So this idea of pleasure and time and slowness is really appealing to me.
“Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from p*rn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today. But as Luca pointed out, we seem to like it. Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes. Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure). Americans don’t really know how to do nothing. This is the cause of the great American stereotype – the overstressed executive who goes on vacation but cannot relax.
I once asked Luca if Italians on vacation had the same problem. He laughed so hard he almost drove his motorbike into a fountain.
“Oh, no!” he said. “We are master of il bel far niente.”
This is a sweet expression. Il bel far niente means “the beauty of doing nothing”. Now listen – Italians have traditionally been hard workers, especially those long suffering laborers. But even against that backdrop of hard work, il bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for whic you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There’s another wonderful Italian expression: l’arte d’arrangiarsi – the art of making something out of nothing. The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich. ” (pages 61-62)
This really resonated with me because I struggle with the idea of doing nothing. Just enjoying a moment. And while I was sitting in bed, reading that passage above to Brian, I heard the voice of God in my heart of hearts – “I am that I am”. For Christians, this is how God identified himself in the book of Exodus to Moses when he asked the voice in the burning bush who sent him to Israel. God replied “I AM that I AM”. There is a lot of theological weightiness to that statement which is far above my paygrade but I also know that it also means a present presence. God is here. Now. In this moment. And God is in the pleasure as much as he is in the pain. Pleasure, I’ve always viewed as a gift from God. I can see now that God is not just giving us pleasure as he is pleasure. These moments of pleasurable nothing-ness, of making something out of nothing, is part of the life we have in God. God is right now. Yahweh is wrapped up in this very present moment, not sitting in church waiting to be worshipped on Sunday morning or standing over us with a big stick saying “Get more done! Be productive! Do great things for me!”
I have learned over the past couple of years in particular that God is not so much concerned with the “where” or “what” of our lives as the “how“. I grew weary in youth camps of hearing people tell kids “prophetically” that they were going to “win thousands to Christ” and that their life “would be huge’ and they’d “preach to thousands”. I think that maybe some of it was legit, but most of the time they were saying what they’d always said and what they were supposed to say. Our lives are supposed to that modern epitome of always striving, going to the next greatest thing and accomplishing, accomplishing, accomplishing. But when that’s all you’ve heard about serving God (well, that and “true love waits”), then it’s hard to see God in the daily-ness of life. Small beautiful lives laid out before God are lovely perfume. Whether one is meeting with the Secretary General or being kind to the school secretary, God is present. One is not more valuable than the other.
It’s hard to seek pleasure in doing what looks to the word like “nothing” (i.e. raising your kids, going to work) but doing it well. It’s hard to seek God when no one is watching. Because we don’t associate God with pleasure, we see it as another thing to “do”.
“Did you do your devotions? Did you pray? How is your walk with God? (And we measure it by the prior two questions rather than the true test – how well are you loving God and loving people?)”
This goes back to my earlier words about prayer and the more austere spiritual and sacred practices. We don’t pursue that aspect of our faith because it’s one more thing to “do” instead of the means of connection to God. I don’t see the pleasure aspect of life as separate from the pray or spiritual aspect.
I guess that’s why I can hear God speak so clearly to me through this decidely non-orthodox book about yoga-esque spirituality. I think that every book, if your motivation is to know God, will open up even the smallest window for the Spirit.
(By the way, I’m struggling with the word God these days. I’m wanting to use the phrases “Papa” and “Sarrayu” after reading “The Shack“. The intimacy and warm images those words bring up…)
As an aside to the pleasure bit, we went out for supper last night. Our first big fancy date since Anne was born, really. We went to a couple of things before but really aren’t good about the dating thing. I know that’s terrible but oh, well. We just take her with us everywhere and prefer our evenings at home. So we had this gift certificate to The Hart House from a former colleague (it was a gift two months before Anne was born if that’s any indication…). Anyway, talk about eat and pleasure! As Brian said this morning, that meal was worth a blog in itself. We spent more money than anyone should on a meal but thanks to the gift certificate didn’t have to feel guilty one bit. And it was not just great food but just nice to have two hours over a fabulous bottle of wine to talk and plan and laugh together.
