Desire, meet pleasure

human, all too human

Today I am going to an ordination service in a cathedral - one of my partner’s sons is going to be ordained Deacon in the Anglican Church of Australia. It’s been a while since I attended a service in a church - and even longer since I myself was ordained Deacon, not in St Andrews Cathedral but next door in the Sydney Town Hall.

That was almost 20 years ago. I have moved on since then - not only to a secular life but also to a different set of philosophical and theological commitments. Going along today has given me the opportunity to reflect on the kind of Christian spirituality that I once both enjoyed and also suffered from, and also where I am going with my philosophical and spiritual explorations.’

That was then

Allow me to quote from Saint Paul, in his letter to the Galatian Church (in modern day Turkey), presumably written in the first century BCE:

“Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want.”

Galatians 5:16-17

Here you see something typical of many religious and spiritual movements: the opposition of spirit and flesh. Saint Paul writes here about the Holy Spirit and its fundamental antagonism towards, and opposition to, the ‘flesh’ (by which he means the human spirit in its base state - fallen, sinful and in need of redemption).

This is a form of spirituality where the pursuit of a meaningful, connected, and fulfilling life means denying the natural state of a human being and many of its desires - certainly the “fleshly” ones - and focusing on a specific lifestyle determined by God himself. To be like God, set apart, sacred, ‘holy’, means to turn towards S/spirit and away from flesh.

Many Christians, thankfully, don’t take this kind of thing to its extreme. I was not one of these moderate, even-tempered types. My journey into and out of Christianity involved a severe austerity in which desire - ordinary human desire, for food, for rest, for comfort, for enjoyment - was a problem.

This is now

I don’t think I misread Saint Paul - I think I just took him too seriously.