The Simplest of Delights (Introduction)

The other day I was listening to an episode of a podcast called “The Awesome Project." It’s a series produced by a Canadian Positive Psychologist named Louisa Jewell which explores various topics related to human flourishing. Flourishing is what positive psychologists call it when a person is experiencing “positive mental health and overall life well-being.”[1] When we are living our best and enjoying positive well-being as a result, we are flourishing.

The whole series has been fascinating to me, but this particular episode was exploring the impact of positive emotions—things like love, gratitude, pride, or excitement—on our overall well-being. It cited studies that suggested having daily experiences of positive emotion improves our resilience, helps us recover physically from the effects of stress, and guards us against depression.

The podcast referred to the work of Barbara Frederickson, who found that “the difference between people who flourish and those who don’t, lies in their ability to generate everyday pleasant moments at a ratio of [up to] 5 positive experiences for every 1 negative emotion.” That 5:1 ratio—she called it the Frederickson’s Positivity Ratio—especially gave me pause. The brain, you might say, is like Velcro for our negative experiences and Teflon for our positive, and in order to build the resources we need to come through negative experiences with resiliency, we need intentionally to work into our routines experiences that generate these positive emotions on a consistent basis.

Psychologist Michelle McQuade uses the term “positivity hygiene” to describe all this. Just like you work regular showers and brushing your teeth into your daily schedule, because you know how important these simple acts of self-care and personal grooming are, in the same way you should work regular activities into your routine that generate positive emotional affect. These activities do not need to be intense or elaborate (this is another finding in the research). Petting the family dog could do it; listening to some favorite music could; a 15-minute walk in the woods. The key is knowing what puts you in that happy place, even if its just momentary, and becoming intentional about building those things into your day.

I’ve been mulling over these ideas for a few weeks now: the positivity ratio, and positivity hygiene, and human flourishing. It occurred to me as I listened to the podcast that I’m not really all that clear on what experiences generate positive emotion for me. At least, not in the way the podcast was talking about it, I’m not. I know in broad terms what brings me joy and what steals my joy. I have a good idea of what my idea of a “perfect day” would be. But if I were going to try to be intentional about building such moments into my day, like the way I take a shower every morning, I’m not sure what exactly I’d include on the list.

Have I been walking around, the “positive psychology” equivalent of an unwashed slob?

Like I say, it gave me pause.

It also gave me an idea for a new series here at terra incognito. Over the next few months, I’m planning to take some time to explore the simple pleasures of life, examining some of the every-day experiences, objects, encounters, or activities that serve as unrecognized sources of positive emotion for me.

This is not just for the sake of cleaning up my act, so to speak, when it comes to my personal positivity ratio (though hopefully it will help me do that). It is, more importantly, to help me remember that the Lord’s Creation is, actually, crammed full of things to take delight in, if only we took the time to savor it. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis: judging from the way he wired to be able to take such pleasure in even the simplest of things, you’d have to think the Lord was a hedonist at heart. And perhaps he is. It’s just that we’re so often like fishes, swimming in the sun-warmed water of his grace and goodness and never even realizing we’re wet.

Who knows what we might discover if we took some time to ask the Lord to help us see just exactly how wet we really are?

In Awe-Struck Wonder, a Reflection on the Day of Epiphany

I read an interesting article this morning called “The Science of Awe,” published in 2018 by the Greater Good Science Centre at UC Berkley. It surveyed some of the recent scientific literature on the human experience of “awe,” and described some of the fascinating effects such experiences can have on the human psyche. This article defined “awe” in terms of two specific characteristics: a “perceived vastness” and a “need for accommodation.” Humans experience awe, in other words, when we encounter something that we perceive to be so immense that it violates our normal understanding of the world. In order to accommodate such experiences epistemologically, we are required to “change the mental structures we use to understand the world” (p. 3). Notably, these “experiences of vastness” can be literal (like seeing the Grand Canyon), or figurative (like “being in the presence of someone with immense prestige”).

According to the research, such experiences have a measurable, positive impact on those who are “awe-struck” in this way. Experiencing awe can increase our feelings of social connectedness, expand our perception of time, improve our critical thinking, increase our positive mood, and decrease our materialistic impulses. Awe makes us kinder, humbler, and more generous. (In one study, “people who stood among awe-inspiring eucalyptus trees picked up more pens for an experimenter who had ‘accidentally’ dropped them, than did people who stared up at a not-so-awe-inspiring building” (p. 4).)

You can read the entire paper here if you want.

But here’s the fascinating thing: the research suggests that people are more likely to experience awe who are more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. Awe is also closely connected with a number of positive character traits, including creativity, gratitude, and an appreciation for beauty. One study even found that the wiser you are, the more likely you are to experience awe (wisdom being defined here as an ability to learn from mistakes and an appreciation for one’s own limitations).

I call this fascinating only because in my experience, there are some expressions of Christianity that place a high value on things that actually make “experiences of awe” less likely, things like an insistence on certainty and a discomfort with ambiguity, a fear of mistakes and a suspicion of beauty. (I’m thinking here of the conservative, neo-reformed, semi-fundamentalist expressions of a particular kind of evangelicalism I’ve seen, known, and been part of in the past.) Of course, I’ve also encountered expressions of Christianity that are comfortably at home among unresolved ambiguities, that are almost fecundly creative, that lovingly cherish beauty as a window onto the divine—all the things that seem to increase our propensity for awe.

It left me wondering: could it be that some “ways of being Christian” make us more likely to stand in awe of God than others?

It’s a question worth pondering deeply and prayerfully, given the number of distinctly Christian virtues that, according to the science, regular experiences of awe promote in the human heart: kindness, generosity, joy, humility, social connectedness, and so on. 

How many church discipleship initiatives have you seen that intentionally encouraged participants to sit long and soak deeply in some of the theological ambiguities and unresolved mysteries of the faith, or nurture their creativity in some vulnerable way, or develop a deeply-rooted Christian aesthetic? And yet it could be that one of the best ways to walk the path of discipleship well is simply by developing characteristics like these, things that predispose us towards being awe-struck by God.

It’s worth pondering any time of year, but I’m thinking about it especially today, since it’s January 6th, the Feast of Epiphany, as I write this.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Christian calendar, the Feast of Epiphany is the day we commemorate the arrival of the wisemen at the star-marked spot where the baby Jesus lay, kneeling in awe to worship the newborn Messiah. 

(The word itself comes from a Greek word that means “to reveal,” and it signals the fact that the wisemen recognized that manger-cradled baby to be the Lord’s Messiah only as a result of direct divine revelation; certainly he was not revealed in this way to Herod, nor to any of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who were “in an uproar” when the wisemen showed up on their doorstep, asking where the “King of the Jews” had been born.)

Besides referring to this sacred celebration in the Christian year, however, the word “epiphany” can refer more generally to any experience where you suddenly come to understand something in a whole new way. On a philosophical level, “epiphanies” are moments of perfect clarity, where you catch an ephemeral glimpse into the essential nature and deepest meaning of a thing that up until that point had been entirely opaque to you. Epiphanies, in this philosophical sense, are experiences of profound insight that often lead us into to “awe-struck” moments, as the immense meaning of something previously unrecognized overwhelms us.

One of my favorite examples of an epiphany in this second sense of the word is that strange scene in that even stranger movie, Joe vs. the Volcano, where Joe glimpses the moon in all its splendor while he’s stranded at sea.

Of course, these two meanings of epiphany—the "arrival of the wisemen" meaning, and the “sudden moment of clarity” meaning—are probably more closely related than we could ever know. After all, when those gift-bearing Magi encountered the little Lord Jesus like that, they were coming into contact with a divinity so immense that it would have utterly overcome them with awe, if they could have glimpsed it in all its glory. And even the tiny glimpse they did receive, for all it being veiled in infant flesh and bone, still it sank them to their knees in epiphanic wonder.

If the science of awe has anything to add to our understanding of that moment, it suggests that when they did bow down in awe-struck worship like that, they were actually opening their hearts to all the good things Lord wants for his followers: wisdom, kindness, joy, community, and clearer eyes with which to see the world. And if we would join them, not only on the day of Epiphany but throughout our life of following him, we may find the same things burgeoning in us, as we stand in awe of the divinely revealed Son of God.

The Dragon, the Maiden and the Baby Boy, a song

I saw a strange sign burning in the heavens
One winter night
O, tidings of comfort and joy
When the world was dark and the sky was awash
With pale moonlight
I saw a dragon, a maiden, and a baby boy
O, a dragon, a maiden, and a baby boy

She was clothed with the sun and the moon
And the silver starlight
In her labor pains lifted up her cry
She gave birth to a heavenly child
That cold winter night
But the dragon lay in wait for the baby boy
O the dragon lay in wait for the baby boy

    But God rest ye, all ye merry Christian friends
    Hear the heavens ringing out with joy
    The earth resounds with praise that will never end
    For the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
    O the dragon was trampled by the baby boy

The dragon lashed with his tail and his teeth
To swallow the child
A third of the stars fell from the sky
The maiden fled through the darkness of the night
Off into to the wild
And the angles came to rescue her baby boy
O the angels came to rescue her baby boy

Then I saw a war break out in the heavens
All across the night sky
The dragon come to kill and to destroy
The host of heaven came out to meet him
And they raised the battle cry
And they cast him down with the love of the baby boy
O they cast him down with the love of the baby boy

    So: God rest ye, all ye merry Christian friends
    Hear the heavens ringing out with joy
    The earth resounds with praise that will never end
    For the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
    O the dragon was trampled by the baby boy

Now have come the salvation and the power of our God
The accuser of his children is cast down
We have triumphed over him
By the truth and the blood of a lamb
So rejoice! You heavenlies rejoice!
The Messiah is that Maiden’s Baby Boy
O Messiah is that Maiden’s Baby Boy

Now the dragon still is seeking to devour the maiden
In the wilderness
But she was given eagles wings with which to fly
Cause the dragon is defeated but the battle still is raging
For hope and peace
And the love of that glorious baby Boy

    So: God rest ye, all ye merry Christian friends
    Hear the heavens ringing out with joy
    The earth resounds with praise that will never end
    For the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
    And the dragon is trampled by that baby boy
    And the dragon will be trampled by that baby boy

Little Lamb of God, a song

Whose is this little head
Sweet intruding stranger?
Whose is this little head, lying on the straw
Let me make some room for you
Here at our humble manger
You’re welcome here, you’re welcome here
O perfect lamb of God

        Did you come to save me too?
        Little Lord of all creation?
        Cause I’ve been waiting too
        For the dawn of your salvation
        With an aching in my bleating heart I worship you
        As you lie there in my place, little Lamb of God

Whose is this little king
Sleeping in our stable
Who are you, little one
Wrapped in swaddling cloth?
Let me lend some warmth to you
While you're here and I am able
Cause soon the time will come for you
To be the lamb of God

        Did you come to save me too?
        Little Lord of all creation?
        Cause I’ve been waiting too
        For the dawn of your salvation
        With an aching in my bleating heart I worship you
        As you lie there in my place, little Lamb of God

        Did you come to save me too?
        Little Lord of all creation?
        Cause I’ve been waiting too
        For the dawn of your salvation
        With an aching in my bleating heart I worship you
        As you lie there in my place, little Lamb of God

Christ Child Lullaby, a song

Little tiny newborn hands so tiny and pure
Reaching for your mother’s face clutching at her hair
One day they will clutch the cross and bear it to the hill
Reach out to embrace the nails,
Let them pierce that perfect palm
O, little tiny newborn hands born to do the Father’s will

Little perfect newborn feet so gentle and warm
Kicking on your mother’s knee, swaddled safe from harm
One day they will walk the waves and make them calm and still
And stand in that forsaken place
And let them pierce that holy heel
O little perfect newborn feet, born to do the Father’s will

      You were born to live, born to die
      Three days later you would leap on high
      O little hands of God, born to beckon me
      Rest now on your mother’s knee
      Rest now on your mother’s knee

Little wrinkled newborn brow crowned with a wisp of hair
Cradled in your mother’s arms, quiet and fair
One day you will sweat forth blood and bear a crown of thorns
Twisted out of sin and shame,
to break and mock your holy name
O little wrinkled newborn brow, born to bear our sin alone

Little crying newborn eyes, so dark and so deep
Seeking for your mother’s breast for comfort and sleep
One day they will see the grave and weep on that morn
Weep for our helpless,
Weep in your love for us
O little crying newborn eyes, born to bear our sin alone

      You were born to live, born to die
      Three days later you would leap on high
      O little hands of God, born to beckon me
      Rest now on your mother’s knee
      Rest now on your mother’s knee

The Song Became a Child, a song

The song became a child
And the child became a prince
Welcomed to the world by angels and ruffians

The prince became a pauper
And he wore a crown of straw
While his mother rocked her Maker in her arms

His daddy was a carpenter
And he taught him how to build
Apprenticing the little boy who created wood

His brothers were his followers
And sinners were his friends
The Pauper who held heaven in his hands

So lift! Lift up your hearts tonight
The ox and the lamb sing lullabies
And join, Join in the Song tonight!
While angels harmonize

The pauper ruled a kingdom
Where only love was king
And everywhere the child went the song would sing

He sang it from the manger
Till a cross became his throne
The little child who was the Maker’s song

So lift! Lift up your hearts tonight
The ox and the lamb sing lullabies
And join, Join in the Song tonight!
While angels harmonize

Jesus, name above all names
Beautiful saviour, glorious Lord!
Emmanuel, God is with us
Blessed Redeemer, Living Word

So lift! Lift up your hearts tonight
The ox and the lamb sing lullabies
And join, Join in the Song tonight!
While angels harmonize

Peace on Earth, a song

God has called a truce between Creator and Creation
God is making peace with his war weary world
So lay down your arms and lift up the celebration
And come adore the child,
Come adore the child
Come adore the child who is Christ the Lord

For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!
For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!

You don't have to be afraid or filled with trepidation
Behold I bring good news for all this hurting world
So come out of your fears and join the celebration
And come adore the child,
Come adore the child
Come adore the child who is Christ the Lord

For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!
For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!

My Heart's Magnificat, a song

The God who rescues the poor in his mercy
Became poor for us
Born to the scandal of a virgin birth
The God who fathers the fatherless
The God who lifts up the lowly
Became the lowest of all
The God who was everywhere, always there
Has become our Emmanuel

Chorus:
So this is the cry of my heart’s Magnificat
Cause who in the world could ever imagine that
That the light of the world would become blood and bone
When the Maker of All made a stable his home
As a beautiful baby the Holy Spirit begat
So be glorified, be glorified,
Be glorified in my heart’s Magnificat

Verse 2:
The God who binds up the broken hearted
Took on a heart that could bleed
Born in the body of a helpless baby
The God who meets our every need
The God who fills up the Heavens
Had nowhere to lay his head
He was made like us in every way
So that we might be made like him

Bridge:
I am the servant of the Lord,
May it be to me as you have spoken
I am the servant of the Lord,
I choose what you have already chosen
I am the servant of the Lord,
To do with me as you will
From now until you come again,
I'll be praising you still

"Cause this is the cry of my heart’s Magnificat
And who in the world could ever imagine that
That the light of the world would become blood and bone
When the Maker of all made a stable his home
As a beautiful baby the Holy Spirit begat
So be glorified, be glorified,
Be glorified in my heart’s Magnificat

He Shall Be Called, a Song

When Messiah comes, when Messiah comes
All the wolves will lie down with the lamb
Every eye shall see, every tongue shout it out
The glory of the great I AM!

And He shall be called, wonderful counselor
And King of kings he shall be called
And he will beat all our swords to ploughshares
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God

When Messiah comes, when Messiah comes
We won’t train for war ever anymore
And all the world shall see the goodness of his love
And they will walk in the light of the Lord

And He shall be called, wonderful counselor
And King of kings he shall be called
And he will beat all our swords to ploughshares
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God

For to us a child is given
O to us a Son is born
Like the dawn on the horizon
In the early hours of morn
And the people in the darkness
See his light is on the rise
With a kingdom on his shoulders
And God’s mercy in his eyes

He shall be called, wonderful counselor
And King of kings he shall be called
And he will beat all our swords to ploughshares
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God

Five Guitars, a poem

Once there were five guitars
Hanging on the wall.
Ready to pick up and play
When the Spirit came to call.
But three of them are packed up
And they're set out on the stage—
This house once had five guitars
But three have come of age
(How quickly they all grew).
This house once had five guitars
But now there's only two.