The Dissent of Delight
My wife and I recently listened to a podcast about delight. There was a charming story about a man who carefully carried a tomato with him through an airport. Also, the coolest description of a zookeeper who has the full-time job of putting animals to bed at night. The whole episode made us smile.
One case the podcast made was that delight is something that is shared. I’d say it’s evangelistic. There’s something about experiencing delight that makes us want to say, “Hey, you have to come see what I’m seeing!” It’s the sharing of good news.
The other day I was driving to a house in the countryside to meet some other pastors for breakfast. The evening before, the temperature had dropped quite low and it seemed that every twig on every tree, every tall blade of grass in the fields was covered in glistening ice. At one point, as I was driving past an open field, I could see what looked like millions of ice crystals blowing off the winter landscape into the wind. The air looked like a brilliant galaxy of starlight in the sun.
And immediately, I wished someone was with me to see it too.
This is delight. It isn’t just the joy of experiencing something beautiful, new, or unusual. It’s the sharing of that joy with another.
Delight is why I want to watch the same movie over and over again, but this time with someone else I care about. It’s why I’ve taken so many people to my favorite taco stand. It’s why I like using my museum membership to bring friends along who can marvel with me at the architecture of the building (much less what’s inside of it). It’s why I like to drive people down to my favorite park along the river and why I want to turn on Lupe Fiasco’s 2011 album every time I take a road trip with someone. It’s why I just sent pictures of my wife and kids to a friend.
My man Tyrik sent me a link to a song he discovered tonight. It was really good. He liked it when he was by himself, but sharing it with me was delight. Delight is my two year old daughter dragging me to the window, oblivious to my morning coffee sloshing out of the cup in my hand, so we can watch the woodpecker at the bird feeder together.
Delight was in the voice of a woman from Samaria after she had a conversation with a man named Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29). Delight is the “come and see.”
This week, I’ve been thinking about how delight insists on noticing and sharing even in hard times. More than usual, I’ve been sharing songs this week with friends, sharing this blog with all of you, and taking too many pictures of the plants in our sunroom. I’ve restrained myself from posting them. Overkill.
Many people are going through hard times this week, but there’s still delight in the noticing and sharing. In recent months, I’ve pulled way back from social media, but this week I’ve been grateful for the ways people have expressed delight on Facebook and Instagram - posting pictures of spring flowers, corny jokes, and people choosing to selflessly love each other. Thanks for sharing your delight.
But more than persistent, delight is also dissident. This is especially true when we delight in things that people don’t notice because injustice dims their view. Over the years, I’ve wanted to introduce people to friends in hurting neighborhoods and stigmatized communities. Not to spectate. If that’s what you want to do, I won’t take you. But if you want to delight with me - to notice the value in someone or someplace - listen to her, honor him, see it’s inherent value - yes, let’s delight together.
One time I was in a garbage dump where people lived. The dump and what it tried to communicate about people’s worth was, well, a total dump. Anger is an appropriate response when people are forced to live in a place so beneath their inherent worth. But even there, people wanted to share with me their stories - including the good things. Delight didn’t make the dump disappear, but it did shout against the dehumanization of that place.
It occurs to me that protesting what’s wrong in the world - whether it’s the pain in our own lives or the oppression of empire - does not only include saying, “That’s wrong.” It also means saying, “That’s wonderful.” When we delight in things others despise, we dissent.
We dissent when we delight in an across-the-street conversation with a neighbor during a quarantine. In our sickness or unemployment or loneliness, we dissent when we refuse to let these things define us by noticing everyday beauty in everyday moments and finding a way to share them. When we delight in marginalized people and places, we dissent by creating space for stories that might not otherwise be heard.
As it turns out, protesting doesn’t just look like lament (although I can’t overstate the importance of unhurried sorrow). It also looks like delighting in truly beautiful things in tragically unnoticeable places.
So what’s wrong in your world this week? When you delight, you’re dissenting from pain. I don’t mean the pain isn’t still there, just that you’re serving it notice. There’s still something good here, pain. So there. So good, it’s worth sharing.
What’s wrong in the world this week? Delight says, “Come and see.” Even on this planet, there’s good things. And every invitation we make to those around us to see what we’ve noticed is an invitation toward the Source of all delight.
Delight’s dissent means me, you, all of us - we aren’t defined by this pain or victimization. We’re defined by Love - a love that has literally littered our world with delightable things.
