What is it like for you to savor? I\u2019m not just talking about delicious food, but any profound experience of beauty or goodness or truth. When I look into myself and others, I find that it\u2019s surprisingly hard to stay in the present moment and savor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can consume and devour, insatiably wanting more, ruining ourselves or others in our gluttony or greed or lust. When we do so, there might be a flitting moment of pleasure, but no joy. More often, we do not allow ourselves even to be in the present moment. Rather, we numb ourselves and live a disembodied existence \u2013 buried in work, binging on pleasures, or staring at a screen. We find it easier to be passive spectators than actively engaged children of God. After all, we have no skin in the game when we watch the news, distract ourselves with sports, play video games, or scroll through social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, God is always seeking to allure us and amaze us\nwith experiences of truth and goodness and beauty. What is it like to slow down\nand take in the honor and delight of these moments? Not to take a picture and\npost it on social media \u2013 but just to savor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I struggle to savor, even though I recognize that God has gifted me with a heart that intensely delights in truth and goodness and beauty. I perceive his handiwork in places that others often don\u2019t. Yet it\u2019s a gift that I resist. I\u2019m starting to understand why: I\u2019m afraid to suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I discover a surprising new truth, I feel an intense arousal\nand delight, followed by even more longing. It\u2019s as though I am four years old\nagain. I have such an eagerness to discover the truth and surrender myself to\nit. If I allow myself to stay in the experience, I\u2019ll desire to keep learning\nmore. I\u2019ll ask \u201cwhy?\u201d a thousand different ways. I will eventually reach\nmoments of disappointment or sadness. I may feel alone or rejected in a mocking\nworld that doesn\u2019t allow time or space for such questioning. For sure, I\u2019ll\ndiscover the limits of human knowledge. No matter how much I learn, there will\nalways be more that I don\u2019t know. Savoring means tolerating both the intense\njoy of learning and the ache of not-yet knowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I stumble on human goodness, I easily cry. It can be an inspiring scene in a movie or a book. It can be a heroic moment in the everyday life of a person that I\u2019ve known for years. Suddenly I catch of glimpse of God\u2019s goodness blazing brightly, and the tears flow. I feel intense joy and gratitude. I feel regret for not having noticed and delighted in this goodness before. I feel that painful ache \u2013 an ache for this person\u2019s goodness to be celebrated, an ache for more goodness in myself and others. In the depths of my heart, I long to give myself freely and wholeheartedly in sacrifice. Yet so many other parts of me are terrified of feeling vulnerable and unprotected. I resist a tenderhearted trust in God for fear of what might happen. I readily relate to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in the first half of the story, but not yet in the second. I can be with him lying prostrate on the earth, begging the Father to let the cup pass. I desire also to be like Jesus standing with strength and willingly giving himself over to Judas and the mob. But I resist the vulnerability involved, and often find myself like the turtle yanking his head back into the shell \u2013 even when the shell is starting to rot on the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see beauty every day, when I take the time to notice it.\nToo often I feel an urge to rush past it, telling myself that I don\u2019t have time\nto savor it today. When I do pause to take it in, there is so much praise and\ndelight in my soul \u2013 and again that longing, that ache, that sense of the\neternal Beauty that cannot be contained in this passing world. My intuition\nknows that this moment of beauty is only a glimpse, and that it is going to\nfade. There is such a mixture of sweetness and sadness there. It feels easier just\nto avoid the ache by avoiding the intensity of the beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, even though God created my heart for truth and goodness\nand beauty, I sometimes resist those experiences. I consume and devour, rather\nthan slow down and savor. I rush on to the next thing, rather than pause and\ndelight. I gravitate towards \u201crest\u201d that is actually disengagement and numbing\nout \u2013 disconnecting from my five senses and my body rather than being more\nintensely present in the moment. It takes emotional and spiritual effort to\nrest in an embodied way, even when I have the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I experienced this resistance the other day in the face of a spectacular winter sunset. It was a Sunday evening after a very full week of work, including several overwhelming moments of frustration, powerlessness, anger, anxiety, fear, and shame. I just wanted to \u201cchill\u201d or \u201cveg out,\u201d as we often say. I turned to look around just as I was about to enter my house, and saw the entire western horizon painted with a dozen contrasting shades, all reflecting upon the ice and snow. And I just wanted to go inside and veg out. I fought an intense spiritual battle just to stand there for fifteen minutes. I kept feeling an urge to exit the scene, to pull out my phone, or to go in the house and move on to the next thing. But a wiser and deeper voice within me told me to stay and to savor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wept at the stunning beauty. I wept over the resistance within\nmy heart. I felt shame and frustration. My heavenly Father doesn\u2019t mind my sins\nand struggles, but sometimes I cannot stand them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We resist savoring because we don\u2019t want to suffer; we don\u2019t\nwant to die; and we most definitely do not want to wait in hope \u2013 all the while\nfeeling the painful longing of the \u201cnot yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Isn\u2019t it interesting that we sabotage our deepest longings? Part of us would rather be disembodied and joyless than fully alive with our five senses in the present moment. It is often the artist, the poet, the prophet, or the saint who calls us to our senses. I think of the intense delight and praise of Francis of Assisi as he savored God\u2019s creation \u2013 all the while suffering in his longing to rebuild Christ\u2019s Church. I think of the words of the poet T.S. Eliot in the early 20th<\/sup> Century: \u201cHuman kind cannot bear very much reality.\u201d We prefer to be \u201cdistracted from distraction by distraction.\u201d Rather than desire and dream and risk, we will settle for \u201cliving and partly living<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n God has created us for so much more, and he sent his own Son\nto awaken these desires in our heart. The child Jesus will awaken these\nlongings that his Father has placed in our heart. It\u2019s a dangerous undertaking\nthat will lead both him and us through suffering and death \u2013 and to eternal\nlife. Will we follow?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is it like for you to savor? I\u2019m not just talking about delicious food, but any profound experience of beauty or goodness or truth. When I look into myself and others, I find that it\u2019s surprisingly hard to stay in the present moment and savor. We can consume and devour, insatiably wanting more, ruining … <\/p>\n