I think it is safe to say that I have always been troubled to understand the role of "earthly" activity in the Christian life. In my early years, the tension was between playing games with my brother (the earthly activity) and praying or sharing my faith with others (the "spiritual" activity). Now it is between seeking after spiritual discipline, pursuing pure prayer, practicing quiet contemplation of God, or giving alms to the needy and watching movies, writing poetry, listening to music and riding my motorcycle. Some of the spiritual growth achieved at the Torrey Honors Institute has helped me come to more fully understand the sense in which God's redemption, beauty, goodness and truth can be present in these "merely human" activities... but at the end of the day there is still a difficult tension there.
Perhaps I have been reading too much Philokalia, but I am truly confused as to the worth of human amusements and earthly pleasures. Certainly there is nothing inherently sinful about enjoying a scoop of ice-cream or a well-composed song... but what about this "race" and "fight" terminology that keeps creeping into Paul's epistles. There is a strong sense in the teachings of Christ (and the early monastics who sought to take His words quite literally) that all earthly pursuits are vain and dangerous - at best a waste of time and at worst the tyrannical workings of the devil that seek to mire you down and bring you into bondage. There is a clear danger in any "merely human" enjoyment of becoming a slave to that enjoyment... of letting it rule you and being content to serve it with your body while confessing Christ with your lips. So how do we, as Christians, avoid this danger if we are to continue living in the world? How do we keep ourselves from confessing Christ in word but seeking earthly pleasure and entertainment in our thoughts and actions. How do we kill the selfish monster inside of us? Do we swear off of music, backyard discussions, potato chips and football games, devoting ourselves instead to continual prayer and acts of love?
What spawns these worries, of course, is the fact that we actually want these things. On any given Sunday there comes a time when I have had enough of praying and focusing my mind on God and I want to go play some catch. My heart becomes weary of giving its attention to God and others and begins to think of itself and its own desires. Stated this way, such pursuits seem rather unacceptable! Our faith is one of self-sacrifice after the example of Christ, and one wonders if a heart that wants comfortable, lowly pleasures will really fit in very well with the saints and martyrs that sit in adoration around the throne of God in heaven!
Is God ok with my love of lower things? Am I free to feel comfortable before God as I muse my time away exploring poetic metaphor and literary theme? Some Christian authors have valiantly posited that human beings are made to enjoy the little world that God has made for them, and that our natural activity (though tainted by the fall) is to purely enjoy the things on earth, giving glory and praise to God always for their creation. The monastics, on the other hand, would say that the fall destroyed all hope of earthly happiness, and that we cannot properly enjoy anything on earth without letting our hearts turn from God to our passions.
At the core of this issue is the concept of a pure soul. Whether a pure soul desires to contemplate God only, or to encounter God in a meaningful way through the daily activities of "merely human" life, it is necessary that it first learn to abandon its hope of self-satisfaction. What the rigor of the monastics and the ardor of the Evangelicals both put forth as the greatest enemy to the human soul is the kind of self-love that leads a person to feel comfortable and content as their own god. If I must endure a little fasting and a little less dragon ball z to see this end realized in my life by the power of Christ's sanctification, then so be it...
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