Delight

Sitting on a desk, in a relatively quiet corner of Changi Airport, while waiting for the plane that will take me home, I read L.M.Sacasas’s essay, “The World Is Something To Behold, Not Just Use.” He writes:

We are made to take delight, all creatures according to our kind. I believe that this delight is not only our highest purpose, a kind of play that bleeds into worship, but also an indispensable way of knowing the world.

The essay is infused with much wisdom, offering a counterpoint to the Machiavellian pragmatism that our modern world upholds, giving primacy to beauty and delight as ends in themselves because they are God’s gifts to us.

Sacasas argues—rightly so—that the world largely sees the value of things largely for their usefulness rather than the delight they can inspire in us.  

In God’s gracious economy, beauty leads the way. Before we learn to make good use of a thing, we must behold and delight in it. Perhaps it is only by first delighting in a thing that we can then discern how to put it not just to effective use but to a use that can truly be called good.