We must risk delight

On delight in an uncertain and often brutal world

Don’t miss my latest on Red Letter Christians: “What does it mean to be disembodied?”

I attended a virtual birthday party the other day and the guests were asked to each bring a poem. One has stuck with me ever since because of this line: “We must risk delight.” In an often brutal and uncertain world, daring to delight is an act of divine resistance, and we must take this risk as often as we can. 

How will you risk delight this week? 

A Brief For The Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies

are not starving someplace, they are starving

somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.

But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.

Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not

be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not

be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women

at the fountain are laughing together between

the suffering they have known and the awfulness

in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody

in the village is very sick. There is laughter

every day in t…