"Lord, grant us:
In our work, satisfaction;
In our study, wisdom;
In our pleasure, gladness;
In our love, loyalty."
William Barclay's short prayer covers the entire gamut of our life: work, study, pleasure and love. The phrase "in our pleasure, gladness" brings faith into our everyday walk.
How do we define fun? After our fun, are we always glad? This is what Barclay is praying, that pleasure should culminate in gladness, not sadness. Our recreation should be re-creation. Our pleasure should bring us more energy than it consumes.
Mary Alice and I spent many enjoyable summers in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. If you have read the Mitford series, you will understand the charm of this mountain village for Jan Karon used Blowing Rock as her model for her town of Mitford. Large numbers of old people gravitate toward the area. Most of them are there simply to escape the heat and enjoy the comfort of the cool mountain air. In the evenings it was customary to gather on the town square under the gazebo and watch the traffic come to a halt at the one stop light on main street. One night while gathered on the bench with our ice cream cones we were trying to get acquainted with a group that we had never met. I asked each if he missed his work. One of them said he did "for thirty minutes." We laughed. Another said that work, to him, was a dirty word. Now, I don't mind getting older but I would hate to get old so I asked them how, without work, they kept their minds alive. I had thrown a stink bomb into the pleasant summer evening! Our pleasure should re-energize and restore us.
Not only should our pleasure re-create us, it should leave us with good memories and not guilt. Good memories are important. They are valuable and should be developed in each period of our life. But our pleasure is not a recess from our morality or responsibility. At my age I have seen many friends grow older (and many get just plain old). When I talk with younger people I remind them that the choices they make dramatically impact their future. The pleasures that create guilt, broken relationships or life style changes are pleasures paid with too dear a price. I regularly urge young men and women to take care not to make a "junkyard of their old age." Some of my friends who drink a little too much get into the position of having to apologize saying "It was my liquor." I, under my breath, say, "No, it's your stupidity." Barclay says, "in your pleasure, gladness."
Personally I feel that pleasure should always be by choice and not by social coercion. Pleasure, like work and study, are personally defined. When we fill that pleasure category with the "in thing" we are shorting ourselves of true gladness. The things which have bragging value but really are not genuinely enjoyable rob us of authentic satisfaction. Ego trips are short-lived glad trips. True gladness lasts and lasts.
