Not Rationing Joy And Delight

One way to think about Lent

The other week at Mass, the priest gave a nice sermon on the point of Lent. He talked about sin—lust, envy, greed—but not just in its severe, obvious cases. Social media, for example can be a kind of lust, envy, and greed. Consumerism is. Self-absorption is. Lent isn’t so much about “mortification of the flesh,” at least not for its own sake—as if suffering were good—but about stripping down our accreted, inertial habits.

This rings very true to me, and I find it very useful. Of course, Lent is mostly known for giving things up, often some insignificant but difficult thing like chocolate, coffee, or alcohol¹. Perhaps those minor self-denials have some purpose, but you might say—though I’m not sure the priest would put it this way—that for Lent, you shouldn’t so much give up things that bring you joy, as much as give up things that don’t bring you joy. Those things you do compulsively or resentfully, without feeling or purpose, by habit rather than by intention. Those things that are easy and unsatisfying.

For example, it brings me joy to play with my cats, but it’s easier to shoo them away and stare at my phone. It brings me joy to try a new restaurant, but it’s easier to do the whole everything costs too much anyway, there’s a restaurant tax on top of the inflated bill and inflated tip, the food probably sucks too, they can keep it routine. It brings me joy to wake up early and make a little fancy coffee drink and get in some intense concentration on my work, but it’s easier to stay in bed as late as possible and then be a little behind all day. It brings me joy to go down to my basement “retro room” and put on a record or play a retro game, but it’s easier to scroll the “Save the CRTs” Facebook group and get angry at the guy who threw away a nice TV or the guy who has a nicer one than mine, and almost forget I have my own. It brings me joy to spend a little money on a nice snack and have a little something along with a small glass of a nice liqueur while I make dinner. But it’s easier to run out the clock doing nothing and then rush. Etc., etc.

In other words, it would be much less useful to ask “What do I like? I’d better give one of those things up” than to ask, “What do I really like that I ignore because pointless nonsense consumes my attention by default?” I find that thoughtful, intentional indulgence is a far greater way to cultivate contentment and gratitude than self-denial is.

Maybe I’m just trying to make this penitential season easier on myself—I don’t want to give up my little treats or comforts—but I’ve always thought the giving-something-up observance was sort of the Sunday-school “level” of Lent, and that the more mature, complex observance would be a kind of self-interrogating self-awareness and self-improvement.

And I know there are some Catholics out there who probably think this all sounds too New-Agey or too soft. Sackcloth and ashes! Sleeping on bare concrete! Eating moldy potatoes! If it was good enough for the Curé of Ars, it’s good enough for you!² Needless to say, that’s not my thing, but—another phrase I suppose they wouldn’t like—you do you.

I’ve seen folks make the distinction between joy and fun, and maybe that’s what I’m getting at here.